Buhari’s Surpassing Failure: Nigeria’s Dashed Hopes

 By Tony Eluemunor

How many citizens remembered that 29th May was supposed to be a major anniversary? It was on May 29, 2015 – seven years ago – that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari became Nigeria’s President. Also, this Fourth Republic incepted on May 29, 1999, when Nigeria’s last military rule interval which began on January 1st, 1984 came to a frantic end. Frantic? Yes, the military by then, having thoroughgoingly disgraced itself, was forced back into the barracks as Nigerians agitated against military jackboot despotism and campaigned for democracy’s return.

*Buhari 

And Nigeria had a party. Hope was renewed. Many of the state governors were young and the smiles on their faces hinted of the goodies to come.  The President in that promising era, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, was no neophyte.  He had not only been a military Head of State (1976-1979) he had been almost so superlative in office then, providing leadership to the African continent, standing up to the West in Africa’s fight against the accursed apartheid system in South Africa, that Nigerian university students tagged him “Uncle Sege”. 

Nigeria: Will There Be Revolt Vote In 2019?

By Banji Ojewale

Of two evils, choose neither
—Charles Haddon Spurgeon
(English Baptist preacher) 1834-1892

Now, it is certain that of the nearly 100 political parties asking Nigerians to vote for them in 2019, two are in the forefront: the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) governing at the centre and in some states, and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in opposition at the national level but in administration in a couple of states.

*Atiku and Buhari 

We are glued to these two, courtesy of what our media gives us and the tin gods we have made of the candidates thrown up by the two political groups. So regardless of who they are, what they stand for, what they have said, their background and the implications of the sum and weight of all these on them when they become elected public office holders, we deem them worthy of our vote solely on account of their party and endorsement by a godfather or a cabal. 

Killings: Blame Buhari Not Service Chiefs!

By Richard Maduku

Despite a presidential appointee’s numerous enviable privileges, there are persons who don’t wish to become one today under President Muhammadu Buhari. A few even pity his aides. This is not because contractors will not build houses or buy cars for them because of the anti-corruption stance of the man. It is also not because they detest being referred to as usurpers, hyenas or jackals by the first lady whose outspokenness could sometimes be more critical of the government than that of a spokesperson of the rival political party. Neither are those who feel this way nursing presidential ambition come 2019 general elections. Rather it is because of the shortcomings of the government for which, whether out of fear or reverence for the President, the aides are always being blamed. 

For instance, the exasperating ineptitude if not sleaze that plagues the Ministry of Petroleum Resources which the President has appropriated for himself despite his enormous responsibilities are never attributed to him. It is the Junior Minister and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company that always take the flak for everything including the frequent scarcity of petrol all over the country especially at Christmas/New year periods.

Nigeria: June 12: I Still Remember

By Ikechukwu Amaechi
June 12, 2018, was the 25^th anniversary of Nigeria’s historic election, which outcome held out so much promise. How time flies! Who will believe that 25 years have rolled by and yet the June 12, 1993 poll, which by the sheer magic of one man’s transcendental personality almost obliterated the country’s primordial fault lines of religion, ethnicity and prependalism, remains on the front burner. 

Generals Abacha and Babangida 

While some claimed to have stood on June 12 in the days the locusts ate under military jackboots, many dismounted the high horse at the return of civilian rule on May 29, 1999, partly because the primary beneficiary, President Olusegun Obasanjo, worked so hard to ensure that the date and what it represented were consigned to the dustbin of Nigeria’s history. The winner of the election, Bashorun MKO Abiola, had died almost a year before the 1999 polls and most stakeholders had been sucked into the new political tendency.

Nigeria: Gen Gowon’s Desecration Of History

By Sunny Awhefeada

Nigeria’s history has been so abused and distorted that there is hardly a consensus on what constitutes a genuine national narrative. Nigerian rulers have had to manipulate the history of their record in office to suit their whim. History ought to be sacred as the ultimate guide of a people. It is the unseen, but powerful propelling force from which a nation derives inspiration in the tortuous odyssey of national evolution. But when the history of a nation is subjected to deliberate distortions then such a nation is bound to be moored to the past with the people as captives. This has been Nigeria’s lot. 

*Gen Gowon

Nigeria hosted the 8th Commonwealth Regional Conference for Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa last week. It was at that forum that Nigeria’s former military ruler, General Yakubu Gowon (rtd) did what amounted to a desecration of history. Hear him: “During our time, we did not know anything like corruption”.

He went a great length to buttress his assertion. Let us dream up an apotheosis for Gowon so that even in his lifetime he could become Saint Yakubu Gowon! What Gowon told his audience was far from the truth. The government he led from the hurly-burly of 1966 to the sedate ambience of 1975 was one of massive corruption.

President Buhari’s Naked Self-Interest

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It was not really unexpected that President Muhammadu Buhari would hinge his bid to return to office on patriotism. It is the way of all politicians. They are not tired of striving to mislead us into considering their personal ambitions as goals that are inextricably tied to our collective good. Thus, Buhari wants us to see him as a good patriot who is only responding to the call of his people to serve again.

*President Buhari

But it is clear to those of us who are far from the madding Buhari chorus that he is propelled by naked self-interest. Before the leaders of his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), Buhari rhapsodised about how much the people who are appreciative of his service to them want him back. But he should have gone further to provide the specific areas in which the citizens have benefited from his government.

Nigeria: Nasir El-Rufai’s Politics Of Demolition

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Carl Von Clausewitz has an ardent disciple in Nigeria. Clausewitz was the Prussian general and military strategist who theorised that war is an extension of politics by other means. But Nasir El-Rufai who is evidently enamoured of this theorisation has reformulated it to suit his condition.

*Gov Nasir el-Rufai

Obviously encumbered by his lack of access to an arsenal to prosecute his political war, the Kaduna State governor might have appropriated demolition as a form of war to extend his politics.