Buhari Goes to School…

No matter how fractured a people are as they head to the polls, after the elections, democracy expects that they will pull back and reconcile themselves to their common history, heritage and home. If the election is a free and fair one, that process is easy. If it is not, that process of reconciliation becomes difficult. In some cases, it could threaten the same democracy it intended to enthrone.

Democracy, if you strip it of all encumbrances, is a funny proposition. It says that the process of structuring a society requires that those who seek to lead must first get the consent of the people. It is the consent of the people that bestows legitimacy upon a leader.
Unfortunately, the people in any society are not homogenous. To get their consent, those interested in leading must appeal to the people’s intellect, emotions and, in some cases, their pockets. It entails dividing them and meeting them “at their points of needs.” That’s where democracy becomes anything but science. It is at that juncture that democracy often trips.
The very process of the people expressing who should have their mandate often requires that they cast votes. That rather simple exercise becomes complicated in light of the pressure exerted on the process by the desires of those aspiring to lead.

An informed citizenry is needed for democracy to overcome the tendency of the practitioners to rig it in their favor. But hardly do we have a majority of the citizenry of any democracy that could be described as informed. Faced with a daily bombardment of twisted information and propaganda masquerading as prophesies, the citizenry is left holding the short end of the stick.
Despite these imperfections, in societies where democracies have established a way to retire a government that has failed to satisfy the needs of the majority, democracy has managed to thrive. In society where that process has been handicapped, chaos has enveloped the political process increasing the premium at the peripheries of the society.
Any other day, in sheer struggle to survive, most people forget who they are in relation to others who share a space, a country with them. But when politics comes, they remember. On remembering, they hustle in search of their destiny within the space. They translate and interpret the messages of those aspiring to lead within the context of their worldview. Often the passion is so high that in a dry landscape, the risk of igniting fire is elevated.
Looking at democracy in the theoretical sense, that should not be the case. But in the practical sense, such a descent is easy and often irreversible. In every speech a politician makes, especially those aimed at distinguishing one politician from the other, he or she draws lines and circles. By the time the campaigning is done, the people are fractured.
No matter how fractured a people are as they head to the polls, after the elections, democracy expects that they will pull back and reconcile themselves to their common history, heritage and home. If the election is a free and fair one, that process is easy. If it is not, that process of reconciliation becomes difficult. In some cases, it could threaten the same democracy it intended to enthrone.
Looking at the peculiar case of Nigeria’s presidential election 2015, this election is Jonathan’s to lose. No sitting Nigerian president has lost a reelection bid. One lost a 3rd term bid, but not a re-election. That possibility is staring Jonathan in the face. And he is not taking it sitting down. He’s doing everything to make sure it would not happen. The people around him are not leaving any stone unturned.
Why this is an unchartered territory for Nigeria is that since independence one party has ruled Nigeria under different disguises. So, what is at stake is a lot higher. The president, any president, would have preferred not to run for re-election if that would guarantee that his party would retain the presidency rather than hand the presidency over to an opposition party. The fear of an opposition party coming in to ransack the shrines of a party that has been in power for so long is a mortal one.
That is why the tension across the Nigerian political scene is crushing. It is easy for a president and his government to go home if they are handing over to one of their own. Handing over to another government, especially one that will potentially be headed by Muhammadu Buhari is a different ball game.
Unknown to casual observers, in the last six months, Buhari has been getting educated. He has been enrolled in school. The practice of democracy educates the governors and the governed alike. The intricate process of forging an opposition party that is capable of threatening the projected 60-year uninterrupted rule of PDP is a lesson like no other. The opposition party had no option but to dilute its progressive purity with questionable characters all in an effort to forge a critical mass needed to upend the embedded ruling party.
Since winning the nomination of his party, Buhari has been compelled by the demands of democracy to transform himself, his views and his outlook. Democracy has a way of showing you the people in all their majesty. A leader who intends to get their votes is often required to step down from his high horse and come to the people’s level and learn.
The Buhari that is running for president today is a far cry from the Buhari that governed Nigeria for 18 months in the 80s. Democracy has schooled him. And it has schooled us, too. In a free and fair election, whether Jonathan wins or Buhari wins, depends on how much lessons of democracy the candidates absorbed, and we, the students, embraced.
The one lesson that is already delivered, though underreported, is that while we were sleeping, the expectations of Nigerians increased astronomically. This is due to the greater connectivity of the world. Nigerians easily assess how governments of other countries handle the affairs of their states and they do comparative analysis in real time.
Happening in the last four years, President Jonathan has been at the receiving end of the wrath of the youths who sense inadequacies on his part. The vitriol thrown at him is not just because many hated him. Instead, it is because many have the opportunity to let out their vitriol through social media that is readily available. If former President Olusegun Obasanjo in his days in office had the social media that Jonathan currently has, Obasanjo would have been roasted beyond recognition.
The person to really feel sorry for is the man or woman who will govern that country of 100 million restless youths in the next four years.

sahara reporters.

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Sandhurst's sheikhs: Why do so many Gulf royals receive military training in the UK? A parade outside the building at Sandhurst Continue reading the main story In today's Magazine The death list that names 5,000 victims Is this woman an apostate? Voices from a WW1 prison camp The Swiss selfie scandal Generations of foreign royals - particularly from the Middle East - have learned to be military leaders at the UK's Sandhurst officer training academy. But is that still a good idea, asks Matthew Teller. Since 1812, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, on the Surrey/Berkshire border, has been where the British Army trains its officers. It has a gruelling 44-week course testing the physical and intellectual skills of officer cadets and imbuing them with the values of the British Army. Alongside would-be British officers, Sandhurst has a tradition of drawing cadets from overseas. Many of the elite families of the Middle East have sent their sons and daughters. Perhaps the most notable was King Hussein of Jordan. Continue reading the main story Find out more Matthew Teller presents Sandhurst and the Sheikhs, a Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4, on Wednesday 27 August 2014 at 11:00 BST It will be available on iPlayer shortly after broadcast Four reigning Arab monarchs are graduates of Sandhurst and its affiliated colleges - King Abdullah of Jordan, King Hamad of Bahrain, Sheikh Tamim, Emir of Qatar, and Sultan Qaboos of Oman. Past monarchs include Sheikh Saad, Emir of Kuwait, and Sheikh Hamad, Emir of Qatar. Sandhurst's links have continued from the time when Britain was the major colonial power in the Gulf. "One thing the British were excellent at was consolidating their rule through spectacle," says Habiba Hamid, former foreign policy strategist to the rulers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. "Pomp, ceremony, displays of military might, shock and awe - they all originate from the British military relationship." Sheikh Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, King Abdullah, Sultan Qaboos Sandhurst alumni: King Hamad of Bahrain, King Abdullah of Jordan and Sultan Qaboos of Oman It's a place where future leaders get to know each other, says Michael Stephens, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, Qatar. And Sandhurst gives the UK influence in the Gulf. "The [UK] gets the kind of attention from Gulf policy elites that countries of our size, like France and others, don't get. It gives us the ability to punch above our weight. "You have people who've spent time in Britain, they have… connections to their mates, their teachers. Familiarity in politics is very beneficial in the Gulf context." "For British people who are drifting around the world, as I did as a soldier," says Brigadier Peter Sincock, former defence attache to Saudi Arabia, "you find people who were at Sandhurst and you have an immediate rapport. I think that's very helpful, for example, in the field of military sales." The Emir of Dubai Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum with his son after his Passing Out Parade at Sandhurst in 2006 Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Emir of Dubai, with his son in uniform at Sandhurst in 2006 Her Majesty The Queen's Representative His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, The Emir of Qatar inspects soldiers during the 144th Sovereign's Parade held at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on April 8, 2004 in Camberley, England. Some 470 Officer cadets took part of which 219 were commissioned into the British Army Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar until 2013, inspects soldiers at Sandhurst in 2004 Emotion doesn't always deliver. In 2013, despite the personal intervention of David Cameron, the UAE decided against buying the UK's Typhoon fighter jets. But elsewhere fellow feeling is paying dividends. "The Gulf monarchies have become important sources of capital," says Jane Kinninmont, deputy head of the Middle East/North Africa programme at the foreign affairs think tank Chatham House. "So you see the tallest building in London being financed by the Qataris, you see UK infrastructure and oilfield development being financed by the UAE. There's a desire - it can even seem like a desperation - to keep them onside for trade reasons." British policy in the Gulf is primarily "mercantile", says Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, of the Baker Institute in Houston, Texas. Concerns over human rights and reform are secondary. The Shard at dusk The Shard was funded by Qatari investors In 2012 Sandhurst accepted a £15m donation from the UAE for a new accommodation block, named the Zayed Building after that country's founding ruler. 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"The king has always felt that Sandhurst was a great place," says Sincock, chairman of the Bahrain Society, which promotes friendship between the UK and Bahrain. "Something like 20 of his immediate family have been there as cadets. He didn't really understand why there was such an outcry." David Cameron and King Hamad David Cameron meeting King Hamad in 2012... A protester is held back by police ... while protesters nearby opposed the Bahrain ruler's human rights record Crispin Black, a Sandhurst graduate and former instructor, says the academy should not have taken the money. "Everywhere you look there's a memorial to something, a building or a plaque that serves as a touchstone that takes you right to the heart of British military history. Calling this hall 'King Hamad Hall' ain't gonna do that." Sandhurst gave a written response to the criticism. "All donations to Sandhurst are in compliance with the UK's domestic and international legal obligations and our values as a nation. Over the years donations like this have saved the UK taxpayer a considerable amount of money." But what happens when Sandhurst's friends become enemies? In 2001, then-prime minister Tony Blair visited Damascus, marking a warming of relations between the UK and Syria. Shortly after, in 2003, Sandhurst was training officers from the Syrian armed forces. Now, of course, Syria is an international pariah. Journalist Michael Cockerell has written about Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi's time at the Army School of Education in Beaconsfield in 1966: "Three years [later], Gaddafi followed a tradition of foreign officers trained by the British Army. He made use of his newfound knowledge to seize political power in his own country." Ahmed Ali Sandhurst-trained Ahmed Ali was a key player in the Egyptian military's removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi That tradition persists. In the 1990s Egyptian colonel Ahmed Ali attended Sandhurst. In 2013 he was one of the key figures in the Egyptian military's removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, now rewarded by a post in President Sisi's inner circle of advisers. In the late 1990s there were moves by the British government under Tony Blair to end Sandhurst's training of overseas cadets. Major-General Arthur Denaro, Middle East adviser to the defence secretary and commandant at Sandhurst in the late 1990s, describes the idea as part of the "ethical foreign policy" advocated by the late Robin Cook, then-foreign secretary. Tony Blair and Robin Cook Tony Blair and Robin Cook at one point planned to end Sandhurst's training of overseas cadets The funeral of King Hussein in 1999 appears to have scuppered the plan. "Coming to that funeral were the heads of state of almost every country in the world - and our prime minister was there, Tony Blair," says Major-General Denaro. "He happened to see me talking to heads of state - the Sultan of Brunei, the Sultan of Oman, the Bahrainis, the Saudis - and he said 'How do you know all these guys?' The answer was because they went to Sandhurst." Today, Sandhurst has reportedly trained more officer cadets from the UAE than from any other country bar the UK. The May 2014 intake included 72 overseas cadets, around 40% of whom were from the Middle East. "In the future," says Maryam al-Khawaja, acting president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, "people will look back at how much Britain messed up in the [Middle East] because they wanted to sell more Typhoon jets to Bahrain, rather than stand behind the values of human rights and democracy." "It's one thing saying we're inculcating benign values, but that's not happening," says Habiba Hamid. Sandhurst is "a relic of the colonial past. They're not [teaching] the civic values we ought to find in democratically elected leaders." line Who else went to Sandhurst? Princes William and Harry, Winston Churchill, Ian Fleming, Katie Hopkins, Antony Beevor, James Blunt, Josh Lewsey, Devon Harris (From left to right) Princes William and Harry Sir Winston Churchill Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond (but did not complete training) Katie Hopkins, reality TV star Antony Beevor, historian James Blunt, singer-songwriter Josh Lewsey, World Cup-winning England rugby player Devon Harris, member of Jamaica's first bobsleigh team line Sandhurst says that "building international relations through military exchanges and education is a key pillar of the UK's international engagement strategy". Sandhurst may be marvellous for the UK, a country where the army is subservient to government, but it is also delivering militarily-trained officers to Middle Eastern monarchies where, often, armies seem to exist to defend not the nation but the ruling family.

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