Buhari: Can we speak evil of the living legend?

By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

MUHAMMADU Buhari, former President of Nigeria, has no spartan expectations when he is praised. Forget his dithers. Buhari glows in the glories of the gamut of his failures. He still only cares for himself.
When he turned up for the public presentation of Walking with Buhari, Femi Adesina’s reflections on being his Special Adviser, Media and Publicity, Buhari was stiff, smug, distant, and bore the same askance that saw Nigeria dither for eight years under him.
“Without documentation, revisionism wins. Human beings often have short memories, and unless events are recorded in cold print, some people would come and attempt to either distort or even obliterate recent history,” Buhari said in praise of his achievements which another five-volume publication also recorded.
The rule used to be not to speak evil of the dead. For Buhari, every rule is broken, standards dumped, history distorted to make something of him. Buhari’s failures are never stated. Is it plausible that Buhari is unaware that his failures strip words of meaning? How does one assess a President whose favourite response to critical national issues was, “I am not aware”? At least he is aware of history, that is a good start, though belated.
Pa Edwin Clark, Convener of Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, reacting to the Buhari books was nearer the mark about non-existent Buhari amplitudes. “To most of us as Nigerians, Muhammadu Buhari failed abysmally as President. His administration was full of insecurity, economic collapse, injustice, religious bigotry and lack of direction. The eight years of his administration plunged Nigeria and Nigerians, five decades backwards. Even his successor, the current President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, noted as much in his speech at the time of the occasion where Buhari was eulogising himself,” Pa Clark’s statement read.
Adeshina said his book was meant to correct wrong narratives about Buhari. He is right. Wrong or right could be directed by our biases.
How many millions of jobs did Buhari create in eight years? Where are the economic plans to sustain annual yearly growth of 10 percent?
The unending shame about our torpid accommodation of listless leadership is that a Buhari can make a public appearance to discuss history and his entitlement to be vindicated for his dedication to momentary wakefulness and sloppy speeches that confirm unimagined concerns over Buhari.

• Buhari: Can we speak evil of the living legend?, Businessday, 21 January 2024

IN 2018 when 74 Benue people were killed in Guma, and other parts of Benue, the President’s reaction was, “I appeal to Governor Ortom to restrain his people. I ask you in the name of God to accommodate your country men. You can also be assured that I am just as worried, and concerned with the situation,” the President said.
One would think that the Fulani herdsmen were the victims.
The killings continued, in April, eliciting this standard, trite retort to new killings, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those murdered. The entire nation stands united in the fight against the forces of terror and evil. I urge aggrieved parties to embrace efforts to end this extreme violence”.
-Buhari counts lives indifferently, Benue is only a sample, Businessday, 23 April 2023

SOMETHING outstanding about President Muhammadu Buhari is his consistency. Nobody can fault it.
He has a knack for making choices that stun his fellow Nigerians. The more objectionable his decisions, the better Buhari thinks that they fit Nigerians.
Does anything we say affect him? Are we sure he listens to us or anyone? His frequent absences at critical moments of our national lives have become legendary.
Those who ask the President to address Nigerians have forgotten that every Buhari broadcast leaves the country more forlorn.
“I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody,” Buhari told us during his inauguration on 29 May 2015. He was upfront with his determination to act differently, whatever that meant.
Buhari’s key appointments are skewed, especially as they affect the security agencies. The appointments shock believers in the Federal Character Commission, a creation of the Constitution, which they constantly ignore. The explanation is that the appointments were about professionalism, not politics.
When Lt-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, Chief of Army Staff died in a plane last week, many thought Buhari had the chance to prove critics of his appointments wrong. He dashed their wishes again.
Chief of Army Staff – In praise of PMB’s consistency, Businessday, 29 May 2021

NIGERIA is an embarrassment to those who hold the country dearly. Mistakes have been made. The worst of the mistakes was thinking – even for a fleeting moment – that Buhari was the solution to whatever disagreement there was among power mongers in 2015. He was not. He has consistently proven he is not about to be.

Choices Buhari has made since 2015 hammer at his determination to create the divisiveness Obasanjo complains about.

• Why Obasanjo’s Failed Third Term Haunts Him, Hurts Failing Nigeria, Businessday, 15 September 2020

THE matter of the day was the padding of the 2023 budget, the last budget of the administration since 2015. It was no longer discussed in hushed tunes. Three Ministers – Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development, Defence, and Health – had publicly accused the Minister of Finance Mrs. Zainab Ahmed of inflating their budgets. Can anywhere be more public than the National Assembly where the allegations were made?

• Like Buhari, Tinubu starts strong with budget padding, Businessday, 17 March 2024

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari must be the happiest man on earth with the news that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu had been re-arrested almost four years after he fled Nigeria. Those who executed this perfect operation deserve applause for re-affirming that Nigeria has the capacities to deal with her security issues.
In addition to the 11 charges against him, Minister of Information Alhaji Lai recited some alleged behaviours of Kanu as if they were offences in Nigeria.
He was living “a five-star life across several countries. He was travelling on chartered private jets, living in luxury apartments and turning out in designing clothes and shoes.
“Of course, as we all saw, he was wearing an attire made by Fendi, a luxury Italian fashion brand, when he was arrested,’’ Mohammed said, sounding triumphant at the biggest achievement of Buhari’s administration in six years.
If his security operatives can cross seas and valleys to get Kanu, wherever he was arrested, there is no reason for them not acting similarly in arresting insecurity in Nigeria.
While Kanu is under-going trial Sheikh Mohammed Gumi is long overdue to be appointed National Security Adviser (North). He knows the bandits, kidnappers, terrorists. He speaks for them. He negotiates for them.
Gumi has repeatedly stated that without governments meeting the bandits’ gaseous terms there will be no peace. The indecision on Gumi has firmed as decision.
-Kanu: Buhari’s most notable achievement in six years, Businessday, 3 July 2021

Finally…
I said everything I wanted to say about Buhari while he was alive. Nobody can accuse me of speaking ill of the dead, unless Buhari was not alive when he made the various decisions that threw Nigeria into a spin from which a recovery will be long.
Suddenly, a new Buhari is being invented for us – the man of integrity, incorruptible, a nationalist, a patriot – by those who aim at inheriting his supporters pegged at 12m voters.
For my other positions on Buhari, please Google Buhari/Ikeddy ISIGUZO.
May the Almighty rest Buhari.

ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues