President Buhari's Imo trousers [Pulse Editor's Opinion]

President Muhammadu Buhari broke the internet last Thursday, September 9, 2021, in a manner even he could not have envisaged.

What should have been a conversation on the president's visit to a state where he had been declared persona non grata by the secessionist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), instead became a referendum on the president's tailor and his sartorial choices.

"The DSS(Department of State Security) should arrest the tailor who made the president's trousers," more than a dozen Twitter users cooed on a platform the president has since banned in Nigeria, with accompanying memes and emojis.

"What da heck are these trousers? What in God's name is the president wearing?" another Instagram commenter bellowed, as a hundred likes quickly followed.

And not for the first time, the social media crowd had a good time having a laugh at the president's expense.

President Buhari visits Imo on Thursday, Sept 9, 2021 President Buhari visits Imo on Thursday, Sept 9, 2021 Pulse Nigeria

The president was in Imo State at the behest of State Governor Hope Uzodinma, first to commission projects and then as a sign of defiance to IPOB (which he outlawed in 2017) and to other separatists, who have unleashed a reign of terror in much of the south-south and southeast geopolitical regions since the turn of the year.

Buhari's visit to Imo also stands out for the political statement it evinced or portrayed. Nigeria is probably more divided today than it has ever been since the civil war--and all on Buhari's watch.

And it was good, political optics that a president who has often been painted as anti-Igbo; and who only visits the southeast/south-south zones during electioneering campaigns, could brave the odds to touch down in a southeastern state where he is sore despised by the majority.

There was also hullaballoo on social media about one of the projects the president commissioned: Some folks railed and cussed about a drainage/erosion control channel commissioned by the president and whether he should have stooped so low to commission such a project or whether that kind of project was worth his time. We'd leave that for another day.

Today is all about the president's trousers. This writer is no expert on matters of style or fashion (look away now Temi Iwalaiye) nor does he intend to issue a fatwa on the president's tailor like the Twitter mob has done.

But you've got to admit that your neighborhood tailor or 'Obioma' would have done a better job with the president's outfit on the day an entire nation was watching.

Or maybe--just maybe--when you are on the wrong side of 70, matters of style and fashion are no longer your cup of tea. In which case, the Zeitgeist can wail all they want.