Buhari’s Death And The Political Economy Of Memory

 By John Onyeukwu

With President Muhammadu Buhari’s death, Nigeria entered a familiar season of national confusion, not about the event, but about how to feel about it. Some Nigerians invoked religion: “Only God can judge.” Others cited culture: “Don’t speak ill of the dead.” Yet a third group, often younger and historically alert, asked: “Why should death erase the need for truth?” 

*Buhari 

This division is not just emotional; it is structural. It is a mirror of the political economy of memory, how societies remember, what they choose to forget, and who controls the narrative. In the days following Buhari’s death, one thing became painfully clear: we are a country uncomfortable with honest remembrance. 

Buhari’s presidency, especially in his second term, was marred by insecurity, economic mismanagement, opacity and a growing democratic deficit. From the muted response to the EndSARS Protests to the tragic handling of economic policy and widening inequality, many Nigerians felt abandoned, not by fate, but by a government that appeared deaf to suffering. 

Yet, as soon as he died, a sudden rhetorical shift took place. Criticism became taboo. Suffering was rebranded as sacrifice. Silence was demanded in the name of cultural propriety. But who benefits from this silence? Certainly not the millions who lost livelihoods, security and faith in governance during his watch.

To sanitize memory is to rob the living of their right to truth, and the dead of their right to a full, honest legacy. 

I do not trivialize the cultural or religious instinct to treat the dead with dignity. It is noble. But that nobility becomes dangerous when it erases accountability. Societies must learn to hold two truths: the sacredness of death and the imperative of truth. 

Too often, leaders in Nigeria rule with the quiet confidence that history can be negotiated after death, that poor governance will be forgiven or forgotten with time or with burial rites. This belief is part of the political economy of memory: where public figures are remembered not based on performance, but on influence, ethnic loyalty, or who controls the archive. 

Memory is not passive. It is curated. Nations build monuments, rewrite textbooks and assign street names not just to remember, but to signal what kind of leaders are worth emulating. That is why it matters how Buhari is remembered, not because of personal animosity, but because his story becomes a template for future leadership. 

We must ask: do we want a society where leaders can misrule and be canonized by silence? 

The solution is not to speak with bitterness, but with balance. Buhari’s legacy, like every leader’s, should be subject to public scrutiny, even after death. Not to humiliate, but to educate. Not to shame, but to shape our civic memory. Nigeria needs a national culture that remembers responsibly, where leadership is neither idolized nor demonized, but analyzed. 

Truth is the foundation of progress. And a nation that does not learn from its past is condemned to recycle its errors. 

We must move away from emotional extremes, either hagiography or hatred, and embrace a model of civic memory grounded in evidence, empathy, and justice. That is how mature democracies grow.

Let us mourn, yes. But let us not forget. Let us pray, yes. But let us also reflect. And above all, let us build a Nigeria where the death of a president is not the death of accountability.

*Onyeukwu is a commentator on public issues