Showing posts with label British Broadcasting Corporation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label British Broadcasting Corporation. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Nigeria: Writing Buhari’s Scorecard

 By Rotimi Fasan

The consensus among Nigerians across different parts of our country today is that President Muhammadu Buhari has failed both as a leader and a two-term president. His inability to deliver on his electoral promises to secure Nigeria, making it a safe polity for life and property aside food and job security in the wake of what Nigerians then thought was the demolition job of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP-led government of Goodluck Jonathan; fight corruption and relate with the people of Nigeria without fear or favour, in regard to religion, ethnic and gender identity- all of these have conspired to undermine his claim to a favourable place in history.

*Buhari

For a man who at a point enjoyed the unalloyed support and admiration of the vast majority of Nigerians from his part of the country, was accorded grudging respect from other parts on account of his apparent spartan lifestyle (which was seen as the appropriate antidote to the corrupt profligacy of the Jonathan years) and spent the latter part of his adult life aspiring to lead the country he once ruled as a military dictator for almost two years before he was ousted from power in a military putsch, this turn of events is without any doubt tragic. The more so it does not appear there is much the administration can achieve in the few months left before a new government comes into office.

President Buhari, indeed, has just about five active months, between August and February, left to ameliorate the harsh verdict of history. Not enough time to do much to say nothing of achieving a fundamental shift in opinion, expectations of Nigerians or his own capacity for any miraculous transformation in the state of the nation.