Adieu Mohammadu Buhari. We owe your family our condolences as our former president, and as a mortal man whose death is beyond human control. But I am not a disciple of “Don’t speak ill of the dead.” When we enculturate ‘speaking ill’ of the dead, the living would mend their ways so that their deeds would be like a sweet smelling savour in the memory of people at their demise. But I really think it’s unfair to speak ill of the dead, in the manner of bad-mouthing the dead or speaking about things they didn’t do on earth. For Buhari, we will speak truth to his misdeeds. Or will anyone eulogise a rapist, just because he died of gun wounds, after raping your daughter?
I will avoid the temptation of writing the encyclopedia of those misdeeds, for they are legion; but just to summarise that Mohammadu Buhari epitomised bigotry, ineptitude, incompetence, an unabashed bovinophile (for humanising cows) and corruption. In kind consideration of his presumed frugal life, he might not have been as kleptomaniac as his forebears in government, but history would remember him for superintending over the biggest cesspool of corruption where fraud thrived under his nose at home and abroad, at NNPC, Ministry of Finance, the CBN (and the mindless printing of naira to support a fiscal Ways and Means profligacy), the Military and so on.
Nigerians should ask how a clannish warlord affected their life. The terrible exchange rate and the fly-away inflation today, with the concomitant deaths due to hunger and inaccessibility to medicare and welfare, are a direct consequence of the Buhari maladministration. Unfortunately, Nigerians have short memory, pander to political rhetoric and religious sentiments and class docility; and so would defer to the Stockholm syndrome whereby hostages venerate their captors.
Advertisement
To order your copy, send a WhatsApp message to +1 317 665 2180
Buhari promoted human cleansing as a pathway to cattle breeding; and supervised the conversion of diverse farmlands to gracing grounds. How can we forget? That his tacit support for murderous Fulani herdsmen had depopulated the homelands of several farmers and law-abiding citizens?
At best, Buhari was a provincial leader, loyal only to his kith and kin, to the extent that he was disloyal to the man who, through financial war-chest and political acumen, picked him from the ground onto the throne; preferring to throw his weight behind his fellow Hausa-Fulani, the then Senate President, as successor.
I knew Buhari but Nigerians were too blinfolded to understand his persona. So I didn’t vote for him, and I was justified when the veil was removed from the face of the tribe that whitewashed him onto reckoning, including several media colleagues. This was a man who left office as military head of state in the analogue giddy age of the mid-80s, never went to school or training or international conferences like a General Gowon or Olusegun Obasanjo would do. Never attended the meetings of former heads of state (to have updates of state affairs), never wrote letters (Oh Obasanjo!) or offered perspectives on the nation-state or attended events on finding solutions to the nation’s problems. Never knew about international dynamics and global diplomacy for decades. Save for his appointment by his fellow Northern General dictator Sani Abacha as Chairman of a drain-pipe Petroleum Trust Fund, since 1985 up until his drafting into the presidential campaigns in 2003, Buhari had been ensconced in his constituency, the Cow Colony. How did you want such a personality to run a 200 million people economy at the turn of the digital century?
Ever seen the picture of a Buhari with toothpick in mouth, slouched on a sofa while the nation hemorrhaged? That was the personality who frittered away our resources for eight inglorious years. Almost half of that era was spent on medical voyage paid for by tax payers, despite humongous budget for Aso Clinic and other government health facilities.
Now the post-mortem: Despite that he was the reason for Nigerians’ woes today, the hungry and the disadvantaged tax payers are still picking his unnecessary bills. If he had developed the health sector, he wouldn’t have run to the UK when his health deteriorated. And with the infectious malaise characterising the Nigerian leadership, a Federal Government team comprising the Vice President Kashim Shettima, the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila; Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum; the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar; and the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Ibrahim Hassan Hadejia, was dispatched to London to go and bring Buhari’s body.
Could it be that the trip would protect the dead from terrorists or from mutilation or from decomposing or from what? Why not wait for the body at the Nigerian airport, and soak all your agbada with your crocodile tears? The hundreds of thousands of dollars (or pounds) spent on this frivolous trip would build moderate health centres in several communities. And to cap it all, you are declaring an inconsequential public holiday in a depressed economy where majority of Nigerians, including small business owners, depend on daily handouts.
It was disingenuous for Abdulasalam Abubakar, a member of the ruinous military cabal, and former Head of State to go to town with an infantile comment that he was in the same hospital with Buhari in London. If they had fixed Nigeria’s health sector, would they be running abroad to treat all manner of ailments with payments from the federal purse? As former leaders, Nigerians still pay for their wellbeing! For every of such jamboree, a hole is punched on the public purse, and our health or educational facilities suffer some form of deprivation.
President Mohammadu Buhari, you have done your bit and left the stage. We pray that Allah grant you peace in Aljannah. We will always remember you; we and the cows.
