Buhari With Idiagbon

By Farouk Martins Aresa

President Buhari’s one-year anniversary has been anything but glorious. It has been pitiful compared to his last time around. It is a different era, yet Buhari has done what most Northern rulers do best. When he loaded his personal staff with Northerners, some of us defended him based on the fact that he was overthrown in a palace coup. He has gone further by reserving most of the strategic positions for Northerners as if Southerners and Federal character do not exist.

*Buhari 

Late Idiagbon might have taken more heat than he deserved during the first coming of Buhari as military dictator. They ruled by fiat, regardless of what others thought. Idiagbon and the Supreme Military Council then had more input in order to gratify Buhari’s power base. Eventually, they confirmed his fears and overthrew him and Idiagbon. In this case, we realize that Osinbajo is in a civilian democracy. A Vice-President is used as the President deems fit.

Idiagbon was in a way more powerful than Osibanjo as the military dispensation gave them the clout to carry out War Against Indiscipline (WAI). Most of the people that voted for Buhari this time around wanted some grip on the national purse that was looted beyond reason with so much impunity. This gave Buhari an edge over the former President Jonathan. As far as those that voted for him are concerned, he has somehow lived up to it but below expectation.

Some of us would want him to go further. While we do realize constrains of democracy, the rule of law and due process, there are ways of confronting a killer disease if the life of the country is at stake. The same way western countries confront terrorism before it devours their cultural or normal way of life. They created task forces, detentions and outside jurisdictions.

Buhari could have gone as far as Obasanjo did with the atmosphere of accountability and the fear of consequences for the type of impunity we saw in the last Administration of President Jonathan. Ribadu was forceful, visible and acted as a deterrent for corruption under Obasanjo. He even claimed he used OBJ to investigate his friends and challenged anyone to point to any head of state that gave an investigating officer so much leverage and power.

Buhari’s Administration is a mixed bag. We are disappointment that he found ways to install his Northern agenda, which was expected but unable to find ways to fight corruption vigorously. He should have gone further and investigated some of those in his party. It is actually difficult to differentiate between PDP and APC crooks since each has many crossed-overs. If he had fought corruption harder, some of us may forgive his Northern dominated government like others.

Since he has not performed as well as expected, he exposed the penchant of Northerners to dominate every government they form without regards to fairness, decency and Federal character as stipulated in the constitution so that every part of the Country feels represented. Unless Buhari steps up his fight against corruption, including those in his party like OBJ did and find ways to include Southerners fairly in his government, he is heading for another failure.

People confuse a buoyant economy driven by value and productivity with paper profit driven by corruption. These problems are further compounded because statistics can be used to justify sleaze in an Administration that was bound for a fall sooner than later. As value added markets can be justified so can fake economists prop up sleaze. Take foreign investment portfolios that scout developing countries looking for where to make quick paper profit in stock markets.

They blame this Administration for not making enough foreign allocations available to them so that the country could default and pack up quicker if it could not meet its essential obligations.

Buhari did not ruin the economy he inherited ruins. Censure Buhari for another important blind spot where he seems helpless in is inability to secure peace and harmony within his reach. The marauding Fulani herdsmen going on a killing spree across the country must be brought to a stop. No country can allow others within the same country to go into private property with the excuse that it is nobody’s but God’s land. This is what they will never tolerate in their own land.

Unfortunately, Buhari seems helpless and speechless with the feeble excuse that they are foreigners invading his country because of ECOWAS agreement. Even when we know these same Fulani herdsmen are checked, controlled and deterred in other countries around Nigeria. If we cannot control herdsmen within our borders, there is no way we can control those coming in. If Nigeria is the only place such impunity exist, invitations are out for others to come in.

However, we know the atrocities of these herdsmen in our own countries for almost a century and the only reason it goes on is because they have backers and sponsors in high places among politicians and Armed Forces. It got to a stage in Plateau, junior military officers chose and pick whom to obey. Indeed, the owners of the cows are the rich calling for Southern or government subsidized ranches to avoid responsibility: burden at home, be educated or provided with jobs.

Disgruntled Nigerians that voted for Jonathan in the last election but lost have not relented. They have continued to hinder and obstruct every move Buhari makes. Every government must expect critics and some bitter disillusions because of their loss. It becomes cynicism when they have nothing to offer but the same former Administration that brought the country to its knees and stole all the funds needed to clean up polluted environment and help those in dire needs.

Every solution they give is to plunge the country into darkness to that it can disintegrate faster. They know full well they have nothing better to offer. These are the type of cynics that drive those who voted for Buhari and still criticize him constructively, to defend him. We know they are not serious because all they want is to see the ruins of the same country they derive their rights and sustenance from. Every place on earth is sick of their cries and cannot survive within.

It is unbelievable that some constituted “aggrieved” organizations are ready to blow up the country unless Buhari stop probing them for corruption and sleaze in the last Administration. Here we are saying Buhari has not done enough on corruption, some people want amnesty for corruption. If they were not serious, we would take it as a joke.