President Mohammadu Buhari was a Military Head of State and maximum ruler of Nigeria for two years. Nikolai Bukharin was initially the General Secretary of the Comintern and later Head of the favoured right wing of the Communist Party of the then Soviet Union for two years. In both capacities, both gentlemen were at the height of their power. But this is only the beginning of what seems to be a compelling parallel between the two apart from the share similarity in their names.
Both personalities could be argued to be ideologues of sorts. While Bukharin personified the institution of the Pravda propaganda, providing theoretical centrality to the goofs of the lords of the Politburo, Buhari has been seen, rightly or wrongly, as the personification of a new-Nigeria order. While Bukharin was an unrepentant Marxist ideologue of uncommon discipline who applied pragmatic socialist models to extant situations, Buhari is seen as an unrepentant, principled disciplinarian who can apply pragmatic solutions toward the institution of a new order.
That is not all. Bukharin was credited with the drafting of most of the revolutionary decrees of the Moscow Soviet with stern measures as their teeth. And these decrees were in turn the main fabric of the iron-fist jurisprudence of the Soviet Union. Buhari is best known for his stern decrees as military Head of State which were given muscle by the now rejuvenating mission of “war against indiscipline”; particularly the “war-against-corruption” variant of it.
Perhaps most parallel in the political habits of both leaders and seems a paradox was/is in their romance with strange bed fellows. Bukharin began as an idealist Marxist-Trotskyist, who believed fervently in the possibility of communism only as a global simultaneity. At that time he went along only with the intellectuals among the ranks of the communist vanguard. As a consequence, he was then at variance with Lenin who, though an intellectual, advocated communism in one country and was mostly supported by half-baked ideologues chief of which was Josef Stalin.
In 1921; three years before the death of Lenin, Bukharin had made a total turn around. He now rejected the doctrine of communism international (Comintern) and embraced Leninist-Stalinist doctrine of communism in one country. Besides he also vehemently propagated it with the same fervor associated only with Bukharin in all the Soviet Union. He even became the taunted leader of the right wing where the brute Stalin had held sway with a fist, strong as iron. He was even referred to as “the golden boy of the revolution” by no less a person than Lenin himself. Bukharin thus now had new friends; strange bed fellows. This new “status” of Bukharin over Stalin (a prominent new friend) was, as it would turn out, his first major error. Stalin was later to wonder, in deathly proportions, how Bukharin dared to overtake him in influence.
As a military Head of State Buhari, by some unspoken bargain occasioned by the exigencies of military culture, had his associates mostly drawn from like minds he knew. He had zero tolerance for latitude; the culture of rent seeking generally and the habit of it among his lieutenants. As such it could be argued that the Buhari that was Nigerian Head of State would only be in the same political party with some particular individuals or groups of individuals, and would certainly not be with others of particular kind.
While President Buhari cannot be said to have made a u-turn in his uncommon anti corruption conviction, the realities of civil politics have put the gentleman in a situation where he may have to lie with strange bed-fellows. And it is quite arguable whether the seeming delays his administration is having in making vital decisions / appointments are unconnected with the fact that he has to try to reconcile interests that run on parallel lines.
Further in the Soviet Union even in the early days of the revolution, certain high ranking elements in the Politburo had begun to favour Bukharin over Lenin. Bukharin’s chance came when Lenin, against “the voice of reason” signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which ended Russia’s involvement in the First World War. The hard liners urged Bukharin to arrest Lenin. This was in March, 1918; a few months into the Revolution. Bukharin failed to take the chance that could have brought him to power as the Soviet Leader and most certainly could have prevented his eventual fall.
On the side of Buhari as military Head of State, some reports had it way back in the eighties that the General was advised to get rid of certain elements in the then military high command; an advice he did not take. If those reports were anything to go by, perhaps if he took the advice, he could have stayed in power longer than he did. And perhaps the country would have returned to democracy much earlier than it eventually did.
Finally according to some accounts it was Nikolai Bukharin who nicknamed Josef Stalin “the evil genius of the Russian Revolution”. The evil genius was later in 1938 to orchestrate the theatrical trial that convicted Bukharin of treason and had him executed. Interestingly Mohammadu Buhari was toppled as Head of State by a man nicknamed “the evil genius”! Indeed as the saying goes, there may be something in a name. Perhaps President Buhari needs to look beyond the similarity in his name with Bukharin and go deeper to learn from the latter’s mistakes in history.
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