You Can Go Now Mr President!

*Buhari

By Dele Sobowale

“I am eager to go. I can tell you, it has been tough. I am grateful to God that people appreciate the personal sacrifices we have been making. I wish the person after me the very best” – President Buhari, Monday, July 11, 2022.

If that was a joke, Buhari, Public Servant Number 1, should know that, we are not amused. On the contrary, most Nigerians, his employers, take the entire statement as an insult from a servant who served so badly, those of us who, at first, believed in him, will spend the rest of our lives regretting we ever committed such a colossal blunder.

Despite knowing him to be a northern Fulani Muslim and sympathizer of Islamic fundamentalists, I worked tirelessly for his election in 2011 and 2015. To be quite honest, I was persuaded that the man had changed by the late Prince Tony Momoh – who was the Chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, which Buhari led to defeat in 2011. I repeatedly asked Momoh if he was certain about Buhari; and received an affirmative response.

I doubt if Momoh would give the same answer today as Fulani herdsmen have made life hell-on-earth for people in Auchi – while Buhari did nothing.

There are one thousand and one reasons why most Nigerians would be happy to see the back of a servant who, after serving so badly, states falsely “that people appreciate the personal sacrifices we have been making.” That statement is symptomatic of someone who has lost a grip on reality. What were the personal sacrifices made for which we should be grateful?

Travelling In Private Jets

“It is easy to be generous, when there is nothing to give” – Dr Johnson, 1709-1784.

It is also immensely easy to be frugal when you have no access to public funds. Buhari is a classical example of somebody who preached against prodigality outside office and who fully embraced it when he reached Aso Rock. Before he became President, the man could not afford a private jet. So he railed against all his predecessors – Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan – who maintained a fleet of presidential aircraft. Many of us voted for him because we thought he would get rid of the ‘Presidential Airline’. He didn’t.

So, what sacrifice was made by flying around in our planes and allowing his family to do the same. This is hypocrisy.

Furthermore, when he departs from office, will he be able to afford a private jet? Where, for Allah’s sake is the sacrifice?

Medical Tourism

“Hypocrisy is saying one thing and doing something else.”

Again, out of office, it was never reported that Buhari went abroad for medical treatment. In fact, he carpeted former Presidents who did; while leaving the Nigerian health sector in shambles. He even promised in 2014-15 to create world class hospitals in all the zones of Nigeria. Who needs to be reminded that “our servant” has availed himself of the best medical services in London since 2016 – each time travelling on Presidential Airline?

Where is the sacrifice made; and on whose behalf?

Education

“[Buhari] says his female children can only get married after first degree” –Vanguard, July 14, 2022.

That is very noble of him. But, his charity, characteristically, has stopped at home. What fellow Nigerians observe is total selfishness. Again, before becoming President, he blasted leaders who sent their off-springs abroad while allowing Nigeria’s education to decline.

He could not then afford to send his children abroad. From 2015, he had sent all his kids abroad while presiding over the longest strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). It was during his tenure that the number of out-of-school children reached 13 million. Those poor girls will never have a chance to obtain a first degree like his daughters. So, on whose behalf is he making sacrifices?

There is no need to list seriatim all the false and selfish sacrifices Buhari has been making. Most honest Nigerians know them already. But, there were other sacrifices Buhari’s government was making; and which Nigerians strongly believe will end when he goes – the sooner, the better. Today, in fact.

Sacrifices Of Blood Obviously

“Sacrifice is only possible when you discard thoughts of self – when you think only of others…” – Kim Woo Chong, Manager, Daewoo of South Korea, 1994.

Even those not deeply religious know that there are two types of sacrifices – good and evil.

The first is made to the Almighty God or Allah for the benefit of mankind. The second, more pervasive under Buhari in Nigeria today, are blood sacrifices – made to the Devil. Never in the history of Nigeria have such sacrifices of blood been offered so relentlessly as the years 2015 till now. Let me summarize them again for our readers.

Herdsmen Menace

Until Buhari became President, one child raising the alarm that herdsmen and their cattle had entered a farm was sufficient for the invaders to turn tail and flee. Today, all the farmers in a village cannot drive out four heavily armed herdsmen.

Buhari was their umbrella group’s Life Patron before he became President. He remains their defender. They acquired immunity shortly after he arrived at Aso Rock. Their first major rehearsal was the sack of Agatu in Benue State in May 2016.

The murderous herdsmen left a river of blood as the sacrifice to the Devil for their newly acquired immunity.

Buhari made no move to get the culprits apprehended. Instead, he blamed the victims for not embracing strangers. It was a lie from the hottest pit of hell.

I was in Agatu shortly after the genocide. Some survivors, who went into hiding, saw some of their former Fulani neighbours leading the attack.

Elsewhere in the civilized world, a President would visit the scene of carnage; offer words of comfort and relief materials. Buhari did none of this. The blood sacrifice in Agatu had been completed; and it would signal to the herdsmen that they could go out and wet the land with human blood. They have done just that. Between May 2016, at Agatu, and today, July 2022, herdsmen have sacrificed nothing less than 10,000 fellow Nigerians – with impunity under Buhari.

Bandits and Kidnappers

“They have sown the wind; they will reap the whirlwind”.

Buhari and herdsmen umbrella group, as well as their camp followers, including Vice President Osinbajo, Audu Ogbeh, Femi Adesina and Christians who condoned the massacre at Agatu, were short-sighted. It never occurred to them that the immunity granted to herdsmen at Agatu would be abused nationwide by the merciless and murderous herders.

They also lacked the foresight to know that other hoodlums would crawl under the canopy of herdsmen immunity; that the herdsmen will expand their franchise to kidnapping and armed robbery all over Nigeria; that the herders themselves would become targets of armed bandits; that all Nigerians will, in time, become unsafe anywhere and that a presidential convoy would be attacked in Buhari’s own state. Simple-minded people, placed in leadership of complex societies, leave disasters as their legacies. Yet, he was warned.

FROM BEGGING TO BANDITRY: THE REVOLT OF THE ALMAJIRIS was published on this page in April 2019 – before Buhari started his second disastrous term. Here was the prophecy made then:

“No revolution is the fault of the people but the fault of the government” – Johann Goethe, 1749-1832, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ.

A revolution is underway in the northern states of Nigeria. The downtrodden constituting 99.9 per cent of the population, hitherto docile beggars, saying rankaindede to the privileged 0.1 per cent are sick and tired of begging. They are now demanding for their own share of ‘the national cake’ to be delivered to them – at gun or cutlass points. Nigeria will never be the same again. The North is now gradually sliding into the dictatorship of the beggars or almajiris.”

Since then millions of Nigerians have been forced to sacrifice almost everything – money, homes, businesses, farms, wives, husbands, children, fathers, mothers, farms and their lives – to the hoodlums who were nurtured in the North by the leaders of the North. As usual, Buhari, unable to distinguish between the significant from the trivial, allowed ethnicity and religion to overcome even the poor judgment he possesses. Because the first group was Fulani, he took no measures to check the threat before it got out of control. Now we are all living in the hell that was created through terrible sacrifices of people and property.

It is because Buhari exhibits a lot of indifference to the boundary between fact and fantasy that he has convinced himself that he was making the sacrifice instead of sacrificing us; sacrificing our rights to free movement in our country; peace of mind, legitimate pursuit of our daily bread, material and spiritual growth and happiness. Millions of well-meaning Nigerians should join me in asking Buhari to perform the only patriotic duty left for him. “Go now!”

*Sobowale is a commentator on public issues