PHARAOH Akhenaten (also spelled Akhenaton) of the 18th Dynasty in the new kingdom lived and ruled ancient Egypt from around 1353 B.C. to around 1336 B.C. Other historical scripts also refer to him as Amenhotep IV or Amenophis by the Greeks. He it was who ascended the throne of his fathers with a messianic posturing, thinking that only him loved Egypt and had the capacity to transform Egypt. The man came as a “revolutionary reformer”. Akhenaten, within a few years of his reign, had changed and completely eroded every form of progress in politics, religion, arts, architecture and economics made before him in the name of “change”. He changed their gods, changed the entire nomenclature for the royal households, and moved the capital city to a new site where he erected numerous temples for his new cult where his nepotistic complex made him create a new class of priests from his nuclear family which was unknown to the ancient Egyptians. This made the royal family more venerated, magnified and exalted.
As part of the reforms, he even married his mother and cooled off nerves with his daughters, what a reformer! Akhenaten did all this hoping that history would hold him in high esteem but history is nobody’s errand girl. Alas, it became the leprous age of Egyptian civilisation which they tried as best as possible to erase. He was the alien Pharaoh whose legacies ought to be erased from the records and should not be associated with in whatever form. He assumed the throne with “me or nobody can do it complex”, the only perfect one and know-it-all man. He was so obsessedin himself, and indulged himself to the extent that he became a cult on his own. Exactly the preoccupation of Buhari’s inner thoughts and mind, the reason he ran a marathon presidential race and even shed Crocodile tears on national TV just to hoodwink the gullible including yours sincerely who fell flat for the ploy. Buhari is the complete replica and incarnate of Akhenaten, the deluded Pharaoh who imagined he was all Egypt needed at the time, whose thoughts and his worldview reflected the aspirations and wishes of the Egyptian people and anything else was tantamount to treason. Accordingly, what he decided with his family was the counsel needed to run a whole country, perhaps an empire nation for that matter. Does this not strike any cord with the Buhari leadership/rule style?
Looking at most of the traits of leadership associated with Akhenaten, one can clearly draw parallels with Buhari’sleadership DNA. Name them: nepotism, personality cult, contempt and abhorrence for the people,corruption, and religious bigotry, arrogance, Mr Know-it-all, just name them. Muhammadu’s avarice for power, the appetite for fame and vanity, his penchant for cronyism and grandstanding is unparalleled, and it was in Akhenaton that this was found. The most nauseating part of all these narratives is that the man cried on a National TV to become president! Buhari prior to his eight years was so myopic that he possibly imagined that he was the only patriotic Nigerian alive with the magic wand to bring the desired change to Nigeria and Nigerians. What a delusion! How Nigeria got to this level of retrogression to the point of electing such a man in Buhari’s mould as her leader is unimaginable and unexplainable.
As I wrote before, Buhari could at best be described as a prehistoric demagogue. Ideologically, he is bankrupt. Some view him to be a socialist, but socialists don’t pick their teeth! In fact, his carriage and policies do not suggest he is one. His upbringing and nurturing also seems to make him not to be given to diversity, inclusiveness, modernity and progress. Again, he is all too-knowing, presumptuous and vague which makes him a despot by default. President Buhari is not only an obstinate man; he is ignorantly arrogant which he often misconstrues for discipline and integrity. His messianic posturing and his anticipated or purported magic wand ability now remain eternally demystified. Only Akhenaten had this kind of record. First it is important to ask; how has the man’s second coming better the course of Nigeria and Nigerians? In what way has the presidency of Buhari improved the acceptability of the green passport Nigerians carry? where is Nigeria on the Corruption index scale today and even compared to the pre 2015 years.
How is the Naira faring today compared to other foreign currencies? Akhenaten was so obsessed with his place in history that he upended the political, cultural, religious and artistic gains made by his people before his enthronement as a Pharaoh, exactly the same way Muhammadu behaved in the last eight years, with the mind-set that all the presidents before him were corrupt and had nothing to offer.How has his eight years improved our economic well-being, secured the lives of Nigerians, reduced corruption, promote social cohesion, reduced illiteracy and emigration of Nigerians? So when Akhenaten joined his ancestors, one could imagine the reaction of the Egyptian people! It was another Independence Day, thus jubilation rent the air. The people rejoiced and celebrated his death, which was strange to the Egyptians who respected and venerated their kings in transition.
Indeed they had been liberated from the shackles of a despot and renegade by the benevolence of nature. Could this be the reason some had wished and even prayed for Buhari to go the way of his father’s when he became sick sometimes during his first tenure? So at the expiration of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, the ancient Egyptians tried all they could, to completely wipe out the legacies he was deluded in building. They went after it and demolished and dismantled his edifice of political infatuation and incest, edifice of religious bigotry, penthouse of corruption and all the web of nepotism he tried to weave into an art were completely ripped apart. It was a concerted effort to delete his identity from the annals of their history,so much so that Egyptologists are battling to identify his place in history with some referring to him as the erased Pharaoh.
Exactly the way Mr. Buhari’s legacies and records should be dealt with. All the changes or legacies he has deluded himself in entrenching are not worth associating Nigeria with. Buhari’s monuments of poverty, squalor, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, nepotism, mediocrity, stasis, vanity and insecurity ought to be given a leprous treatment and demolished with alacrity.As yours sincerely writes, one is stuck in Hitler’s land unable to book a flight back to Nigeria because he does not have Euros and the airlines are not willing to receive Naira simply because Muhammadustopped international transactions using MasterCard in the name of fighting corruption, as if everybody in Nigeria is corrupt “except him and his family”.
In few days’ time Nigerians should erupt in stupendous and frenzied jubilation and ululation to show the man that we thank heavens that he is gone, and gone for good. He should never have been here in the first place. Go after his so called legacies and pull them down, like it was done to Akhenaten! The way all accident leaders of history should be treated. I may sound stupid, but all those roads, bridges and structures he claimed to have built should be demolished and re-planned and reconstructed. A careful observation will show that those structures were not meant for national progress but just to glorify and popularise himself. If possible three days’ of National holiday should be declared so that people could sit in their closet and meditate on what transpired in their lives for the past eight years and take stock to re-strategise. Those who can afford it should cook and share with neighbours the way it is normally done during different religious festivities in the country. This is to signify the liberation from the grasp of a wicked and heartless king! Using this opportunity to say never again should such political fraud befall the land of my mothers. Never Again!
- Ade writes in from the Monrepos Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, Neuwied, Germany.
