By
Ikechukwu Amaechi
Let me make a
confession from the outset. I have always been a fan of President Muhammadu
Buhari and I didn’t hide my admiration for him.
On the four occasions he
contested for the Presidency, I voted for him except in 2007. And that was
because I left the country late 2006 for my Chevening Scholarship programme at Cardiff University , United Kingdom and returned after
the 2007 polls. Had I been around, I would have voted for him.
Not only did I vote
for him, I wrote articles extolling what I thought were his unassailable
qualities.
*Buhari
Yes, no man is a saint and
I never deluded myself that Buhari was one. In any case, angels and saints
don’t populate this space with us. They populate the outer space called heaven
where, we are told, they are in perpetual camaraderie with God.
But if there was any former
Nigerian leader I thought was inherently a good man, it was Buhari. I saw him
as a man of integrity, incorruptible – and a man who believes in Nigeria and the
greatness it can aspire to and, in fact, achieve if all its potentials are
harnessed and aggregated.
I believed Buhari when he
said he was a changed man, a democracy convert who has no place in his heart
for vendetta. I looked forward to a man who would be president of all Nigerians
and not president of only those areas where he got his fabled 95 per cent of
the votes by hook or crook.
I looked forward to a man
who would transcend the limitations of partisan politics, who would stop being
the presidential candidate of a political party with all the shenanigans, to
being a statesman, president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and father of
all.
His age, 72, qualifies him
to be exactly that – father of the nation.
I expected so much from
Buhari, not the least a man who would govern Nigeria and deal with fellow
citizens on the basis of equity, justice and fair play. But I must confess
again that Buhari has greatly disappointed me.