By Olayinka Oyegbile
When the news of the death of Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s immediate past president broke, the first thing that came to my mind were the immortal words of the poet John Donne, who wrote years ago that: "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”
The death of anyone affects people in different ways. People cannot feel the same emotion no matter how alike they look. That is the reason why the death of a parent always affects siblings in different ways and manners. The same with the death of Buhari. We cannot all feel it the same way. His family, close friends, associates, good-weather friends, et al, would all feel his death in different ways from the common folks. It is as Leo Tolstoy put it in one of his books Anna Karenina. He wrote: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
The death of Buhari brought to my sharp memory his first broadcast to the nation after the dawn coup of December 31, 1983. In that broadcast he had said, “Nigeria belongs to all of us and we have to salvage it together.” Those words struck a chord in me; a patriotic one for that matter. I had gained an admission to an American University then and was looking for money to pay the first semester fee and buy a flight ticket before going to the embassy to apply for a student visa. The American visa had then not become like a camel passing through the eye of the needle that it is today.
Also, an American certificate was then looked down upon by most Nigerians. If you didn’t go to Britain or a few other European countries, you are looked down upon as a never-do-well. So, when Buhari and his successful coup makers came and they launched a media blitz of patriotic songs with the “Andrew Checking Out” stuff, I was stung and felt it was no longer necessary to travel abroad and earn a certificate. “We must salvage Nigeria together,” I joined the chorus.
In 1985, when Gen Ibrahim Babangida and his cohorts shifted Buhari out in what has been widely described as a “palace coup”, I was not too sure where I should stand. Yes, the Buhari/Idiagbon government had become draconian and harsh but the country was moving forward. The tiff with the British government had excited some of us and we felt proud to be Nigerians. Well, to cut a long story short Buhari became a yesterday man and Babangida spent years hoodwinking Nigerians on the transition to democracy programme.
In the meantime, after his ouster, he withdrew into his shells in Kaduna; he became a complete recluse. He later regained himself and wore the toga of an ethnic chauvinist and religious bigot. Remember his encounter with the late Lam Adesina the former governor of Oyo State over the killing of Oyo citizens by invading Fulani cattle herders?
The return of party politics made him to regain his voice and he contested to become president three times and in that famous quip “O lule” (apologies to President Bola Tinubu).
In the run-up to the 2015 elections, Tinubu at the head of a coalition of other parties galvanized what became like a popular movement and revolt against the dominance of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) rule of the country for 16 years. Bi ere bi ere a new party emerged and Buhari who had hitherto given up his lifelong dream to become president was brought out of retirement to contest again.
Pronto! Buhari who had hitherto been branded as a bigot, ethnic chauvinist and all that was branded as a “democratic convert.” He became a darling of the Southwest with its powerful media power. He was born again. A few from the Southeast maintained their distance from him even up till today. Unfortunately, I was one of those who were hoodwinked. Today we know better.
The rest as they say, belongs to history. In 2015, Buhari was packaged as the Messiah. He came to the Presidency sick and feeble. Miraculously he survived and bounced back in good health. But by 2023 when he was leaving, he left the country sicker than he met it.
He was always travelling abroad in search of a cure for an undisclosed ailment. As of 2016/17, majority of his backers and sponsors have woken up to the reality that Buhari had no ability or competence to deliver. However, they backed him to the hilt for their own selfish end. That is a story for another day.
Of course, on Sunday, July 13, 2025, he died in a London hospital and that says a lot about his contribution to Nigeria’s health system.
Back to Donne again, he wrote, "for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." Buhari’s bell has tolled, who is next? No one can say. Nigerians believe it is bad to kick the dead and say anything bad about them.
My view of Buhari is that of a man who raised many people’s hopes and dashed it in a very cruel manner, perhaps not out of his own making but because he had been promoted in the popular mind beyond his capacity and competence.
I conclude this piece with Shakespeare's words in the play Julius Caesar, he wrote, "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."
As Yoruba would say, Buhari
nu, Olohun nu…Hmm.
*Dr. Oyegbile is a journalist, writer and
media scholar.
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