Why Then Did Buhari Weep?

 By Ifeanyi Maduako

Unlike women, it’s natural that men rarely weep or shed tears. Whatever makes a man weep must have overwhelmed him emotionally in such a manner that he cannot hold back tears. Therefore, when a man weeps in public, it’s possible that he may have wept several times over in his closet. Whatever makes a general to weep on camera before the whole world must be on something that touches on his nerves beyond emotional control.

*Buhari 

Against the foregoing background, when the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), wept before the cameras sometime in 2012 after losing the 2011 presidential election which was his third attempt at the presidential seat, the world was taken aback seeing a retired general shedding tears publicly ostensibly over the state of the nation.

Some Nigerians, including this writer, thought Buhari wept having ruminated over his antecedents, especially the military coup of December 31, 1983, which truncated the Second Republic’s democratic rule.  Some of us thought that Buhari wept because he realised that he could never be rewarded with election as a civilian president, having participated in truncating the same civilian rule in Nigeria.

Ordinarily, no country rewards a coup plotter with election as a civilian president, especially if the coup truncated a civilian dispensation. In Africa, a coup plotter could become a civilian president if it toppled another military regime, but not when it toppled a civilian rule. You do not approbate and reprobate at the same time by demanding to be elected in a form of government you hated and truncated.

However, Buhari’s supporters came to his defence by alleging that he wept because of the parlous state of affairs in the country. Before he succeeded in 2015, he had made three failed attempts to become the president. The very day that Buhari was declared the winner of the presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission in 2015 was a very mournful day for most Nigerians, primarily due to the fact that a man who truncated democracy ought not to have been rewarded with the major crown of democracy.

Some of us didn’t vote for the president not because we hate him; we simply did not believe and still do not believe that he was the best for Nigeria. A country with thousands of professors and millions of degree holders of various levels shouldn’t have entrusted its affairs in the hands of such a man, thereby making a mockery of our so-called higher educational attainment.

The holy books of all faiths say nothing happens without the knowledge of God. Therefore, God allowed Buhari to become Nigeria’s president in 2015 by using then President Goodluck Jonathan to make it possible. Perhaps, if another person, apart from Jonathan, was the president at the time, millions of lives could have been lost in a monumental crisis that could have ensued. It took a man of peace like Jonathan to have made that possible.  Some of these other Nigerian past leaders wouldn’t have done that. And that’s why most of us believe and still maintain that Jonathan deserves a Nobel Peace Prize Award.

Having grudgingly accepted our fate with Buhari as our president, we thought that he would turn the country around for the better as severally purported by his followers and supporters. Buhari would have become the best president in the history of the country if he was able to change the fortunes of Nigeria in these past eight years. Sincerely speaking, is there any sector of the Nigerian economy that has improved for the better since 2015?

Buhari promised to tackle the three-pronged issues of the economy, security, and corruption. Is the Nigerian economy better or worse than it was in 2015? Is there any single commodity that has experienced an improved quality, quantity and reduction in price since 2015? A bag of rice was less than N10,000 in 2015; today it’s hovering above N50,000. All staple food items that sustain the poor have skyrocketed in prices beyond the reach of the masses. He promised to make $1 equivalent to N1 but what’s the ugly story today?

In 2015 when a litre of petrol was N87 he promised to make it N40 a litre. Today it’s sold for N500 in the black market. What about kerosene that was N95 a litre in 2015 but today N900? What about diesel, cooking gas, etc? Insecurity is worse today than it was in 2015.

The issue of corruption is where Buhari has failed virtually all Nigerians. As a military head of state, he jailed suspected corrupt politicians for a long sentence of 50 years and above. Some of them got over 100 years of jail term and even life imprisonment. What do we have today? No notable politician has been commensurately jailed for corruption since Buhari assumed office as president. Even those who were given reasonably longer jail terms after a lengthy and rigorous trial by the courts of the land have been set free by Buhari through the doctrine of the presidential pardon. Corruption is worse today than it was during the late General Sani Abacha regime.

The presidency would always beat its chest about the so-called Second Niger Bridge as if that’s the topmost priority of the people of the South-East region. The security of life and property is the major responsibility of the government because only the living can make use of the Second Niger Bridge. The dredging of the River Niger would have served a better economic purpose for the South-East region. If the River Niger was dredged, Lagos Apapa Wharf would have been decongested because some ships from overseas would be coming straight to Onitsha and the economy of Anambra State and the South-East would have experienced a boom.

Can Buhari sincerely say that he has improved the fortunes of Nigeria? Can he say that the country as of today is what he envisaged while contesting the presidency? What actually made him weep profusely? Did he weep because he wanted to satisfy his ambition to be an elected president just for its sake or he wanted to turn the fortunes of Nigeria around just like Lee Kuan Yew who turned the fortunes of Singapore?

*Maduako writes from Owerri, Imo State