Pulse Opinion: Buhari’s joke on the IGP's weight loss was insensitive, dry and tasteless

When President Muhammadu Buhari touched down on Nigerian soil on May 5, 2019 after a 10-day vacation in London, he had a joke on his mind. One he couldn't wait to share.

Except that the joke was so dry, insensitive, tasteless and bitter, we collectively winced, grimaced and yawned as we watched.

“Are we likely to see a different approach, especially in kidnapping, which is a big issue now Sir?”, the journalist asked President Buhari on the airport runway as the cameras rolled.

Buhari’s response was: “No, I have just seen the IG (Inspector General of Police). He (Abubakar Adamu) is losing weight. So I think he is working very hard”. 

To put this joke in some perspective, Buhari had just arrived Nigeria barely hours after the district head of his traditional village had been kidnapped, just days after bandits stormed a girls school in Zamfara and abducted workers and on the heels of a series of kidnappings, killings and clashes from Kaduna to Borno.

The nation was essentially boiling when the nation’s Commander-in-Chief returned home. The nation is still boiling.

Here was a moment for Buhari to show he was still in charge, to look tough if only for the cameras, to read the riot act to the kidnappers and killers who keep making life a living hell for Nigerians. Here was an impromptu opportunity to deliver a strong message to the rascals killing his country men for fun.

Commanders-in-Chief don’t make dry jokes when their nations are at war, unless of course they are named Buhari. 

Buhari once asked the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom: “How are you and your cattle rearers?” at the height of the farmers-herders clashes in the north central state. It was a crude joke from the president at the time as well. A hollow, callow joke you shouldn’t tell to a governor whose people were being murdered like flies by marauding herdsmen. 

To equate losing weight to hard work in the face of a security challenge that threatens to wipe whole communities off the map, depicts just how well Buhari treats the security briefings he receives from his service chiefs—assuming he receives any at all.

The Nigerian president is always hailed by his aides as a man with a fine sense of humour, as a man who sends a room full of cabinet members rolling with laughter. A pity that not one of these aides has advised the president on the timing of the jokes he shares. A real pity.