Buhari’s rule comes at the expense of Nigeria

As we reported last week, in 2014, a group of power brokers, including former Never Buharis, joined together to form the All Progressives Congress, or APC, and railroaded Gen

As we reported last week, in 2014, a group of power brokers, including former Never Buharis, joined together to form the All Progressives Congress, or APC, and railroaded Gen. Muhammadu Buhari into the president. Western powers, particularly the United States of America under President Barack Obama and the United Kingdom under Prime Minister David Cameron, each played their own dubious roles in foisting on Nigeria what has turned out to be an affliction of a presidency, the country’s worst ruler in its 61-year history. By the time it leaves power in the next 16 months, it will have retained the title of worst, most incompetent, most insular, most provincial, most divided, most insensitive, most nepotistic, most intolerant, and most casual dictatorship in Nigerian history. Alternatively, whenever you want.

Many Nigerians, if not the majority, are hoping for a collective and loud sigh of relief. Waiting to exhale, to be sure. And I’ll say it again: NEVER AGAIN. The fear is that I cannot guarantee that another Buhari would not come to power in Nigeria, since democracy has a way of bringing out the worst in us. The deeper tragedy is that Buhari’s presidency was doomed from the start. His failure as President was right in front of his eyes. How? We’ll clarify afterwards.

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Following the military’s overthrow of President Shehu Shagari’s democratic administration in December 1983, Major-General Buhari rose to become the Head of State after serving as a military governor of the defunct North-Eastern State and then as Petroleum Resources Minister under the cloud of an allegedly missing N2.8 billion. He was overthrown in a palace coup in 1985. The only significant thing Buhari did in the 32 years between his stint as a usurper head of state and his election to the presidency in 2015 was to lead a group of his kinsmen Fulani irredentists in a march on the late Lam Adesina, then governor of Oyo State, in October 2000, to protest the alleged killing of herdsmen in Oke Ogun area of the governor’s domain and to warn of dire consequences. When confronted with irrefutable evidence that the Bororo strand of the Fulani were the aggressors and killers of the indigenes, he stormed off in a passion. You may add to Buhari’s resume his appointment as chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund by Gen. Sani Abacha, who previously held the record for being the most wicked and deadly ruler in history (PTF). Buhari was scheduled to be the chairman of the board of directors. He was able to avoid becoming.

Alhaji Salihijo Mohammed Ahmad, the managing director of Afri-Project Consortium, who were supposed to be advisors to the PTF, was the man who wielded authority in Buhari’s PTF. Ahmad is said to have died of a heart attack about the time when President Olusegun Obasanjo initiated an investigation into the fund in July 1999. Obasanjo had just been in office for two months. Some cruel people said Ahmad had actually committed suicide. It didn’t really matter in any case. The man died unexpectedly. PTF was established as an intervention agency in the aftermath of the Abacha regime’s elimination of the so-called petroleum subsidy. Unresolved is the sudden death of the managing director of Buhari’s PTF’s primary or sole consultants. And with that, the investigation into the disbanded PTF came to a conclusion. But it doesn’t matter. Nigerians’ interests were put aside for the sake of esprit de corps. Obasanjo served in the Nigerian Army as a General. Buhari served in the Nigerian Army as a General. The remainder of the country may perish. Buhari had cultivated a reputation as a spotless individual over the years, but his name has become entangled in controversies such as the N2.8 billion in alleged missing oil money, which was a holdover from an earlier dispensation in the petroleum ministry, and the 53 suitcases of the Emir of Gwandu in the midst of Buhari’s change of the colour of Nigerian currency. The Emir’s son served as Buhari’s ADC.

However, the judgement is yet out on the PTF’s actions and performance since Buhari took office. It didn’t appear to be a positive situation at the time. And things aren’t looking good right now. If the Buhari PTF spent N100 on interventions across the country, N80 was spent in the north, N10 in the south west, N5 in the south-south, and N5 in the south east. Is it difficult to connect what transpired in the PTF to the current regime’s officially announced state policy of 97% vs 5%? This approach, which Buhari emphasised early in his presidency in the United States, has guided his distribution of state resources and nominations to key positions. The South East and South-South, who refused to vote for Buhari in the 2015 and 2019 elections, as well as in previous elections in 2003, 2007, and 2011, have had to deal with Buhari’s vengeance. We’re dealing with a vindictiveness vs. vindication situation.

People in the South East and South-South, as well as other Nigerians, who saw right through Buhari and refused to vote for him in every election cycle, have a right to claim vindication in the face of his terrible presidency. It makes no difference if the vindication comes at a high cost. For example, a standard gauge rail line that should span states in the South East and South-South to lubricate their economy would instead go to Buhari’s cousins in Maradi, Niger Republic’s desert. You are free to embarrass me by telling me that the man in charge of rail infrastructure development is named Rotimi Amaechi. He has an authentic Igbo surname from the South East and is a true South-South indigene. In truth, he was the governor of Rivers State, a state that might legitimately claim to be the region’s capital. If my memory serves me well, his other names are Rotimi (Yoruba of the South West) and Chibuike (South East), both of which are located in Nigeria’s south.

‘We chose Buhari because we no longer wanted President Goodluck Jonathan.’

We chose Buhari because Jonathan allegedly broke a verbal agreement not to run for president after serving out the rest of Yar’Adua’s first term. ‘ We elected Buhari because the North insisted it was their turn to be president after Yar’Adua’s brief reign. Buhari was marketed to us as a reformed or born-again democrat, and we elected him. We chose Buhari because he was recommended as a trustworthy leader. And ‘we’ chose Buhari because he was thought to possess the secret to solving Nigeria’s plethora of problems.

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If you spoke out against Buhari’s imminent presidency and the dangers that come with it in 2014, you risked being mobbed and killed. If you dared to doubt Buhari’s suitability, capacity, and competency for the position, you lost family, friends, and coworkers. It was such a large gathering that some Nigerians said they would be satisfied if Buhari presented a bill from the National Electric Power Authority instead of his West African School Certificate. Hatred caused us to lose our minds. The search for a messiah that didn’t exist overwhelmed us. We didn’t want to ask questions that were self-evident. And…and…and…

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