Niger Republic As Nigeria’s 37th State

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Constitutionally, Nigeria has 36 states and a Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja. But under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch, the country seems to have added one more state – Niger Republic – making it 37. The 37th state, ironically enjoys more federal attention than some of the country’s bona-fide states. Nigeriens enjoy more rights than most Nigerians.

It may sound absurd that the president of a country has greater affinity for another country than his own. But that is one of the incongruities that the Buhari government has thrown up in the last seven and half years.

*Presidents Buhari and Bazoum of Niger Republic 

It didn’t start today, though. As military head of state in the 1980s, Major-General Buhari allegedly supported a Nigerien, Ide Oumarou, rather than a Nigerian, Peter Onu, for the post of the Secretary-General of the then Organisation of African Unity, OAU, which is now African Union, AU.

An editorial comment in the Vanguard Newspaper of February 3, 2015 put it thus: “Between 1983 and 1985, Peter Onu of Nigeria was Acting Secretary-General of the OAU. At the 1985 Summit in Addis Ababa, statesmen like Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania, lobbied for his election as substantive Secretary-General. However, there was a major stumbling block to Peter Onu’s candidature: his Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, was campaigning against him.

“… In the election of the OAU Secretary-General in 1985, Buhari voted against Nigeria and for Niger instead. He secured the election of Ide Oumarou, a Fulani man from Niger; as opposed to an Igbo man from Nigeria. By so doing, Buhari became the first and only Head of State in the history of modern international relations to vote against his country in favour of his tribe.”

Is President Buhari From Niger Republic?

 By Reno Omokri

Any follower of Nigeria’s federal budget since May 29, 2015, may be forgiven if they thought that Nigeria, under President Buhari, had performed a Hitler-style Anschluss, and had annexed Niger Republic as part of Nigeria, because of Buhari’s huge spending (of Nigeria’s money), to improve infrastructure in Niger Republic.

                                                           *Buhari

While Seme Border-Badagry express road, the only road currently linking Nigeria to other West African coastal nations, remains in ruins and looks as if it has been bombed, Buhari had spent huge resources developing road networks between Nigeria and Niger Republic.

On February 26, 2020, the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, announced that the government had awarded a contract for the construction of two roads from Sokoto and Jigawa States up to Niger Republic, at the cost of $81 million dollars.

President Buhari And The 20-Month Jinx

By Femi Fani Kayode

Permit me to begin this contribution with an interesting and historically accurate observation made by the Vanguard Newspaper on 3rd February 2015.  

*Buhari 

They wrote: "Between 1983 and 1985, Peter Onu of Nigeria was Acting Secretary-General of the OAU. 

“At the 1985 Summit in Addis Ababa, statesmen like Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania, lobbied for his election as substantive Secretary-General. 

“However, there was a major stumbling block to Peter Onu’s candidature: his Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, was campaigning against him. 

“Buhari claimed: ‘This generation of Nigerians and indeed future generations have no other country than Nigeria.’ 

“But when the crunch came, his allegiance to Nigeria disappeared. In the election of the OAU Secretary-General in 1985, Buhari voted against Nigeria and for Niger instead. 

“He secured the election of Ide Oumarou, a Fulani man from Niger; as opposed to an Igbo man from Nigeria. 

“By so doing, Buhari became the first and only Head of State in the history of modern international relations to vote against his country in favour of his tribe".

Graphically illustrated and succinctly put, that is the mindset of the quintessential General Muhammadu Buhari for you. Yet even in his triumphs and all his glory he has suffered immense pain and his challenges and travails are legion.

Consider the following. In 1983 he toppled the much-loved democratically-elected civilian President Shehu Shagari in a military coup and became Head of State.

He ruled with an iron fist for exactly 20 months (31st Dec 1983 - 27th August 1985) after which he himself was overthrown in another military coup led by his erstwhile and again much-loved Chief of Army Staff, General Ibrahim Babangida. Thereafter he was detained for three years in Benin City.

Exactly 30 years after he was removed from power in 2015 he was "elected" civilian President on the platform of the APC.

Once again he presided over the affairs of our country for another 20 months (29th May 2015 - 19th January 2017) until he was struck by an undisclosed yet strange and debilitating illness, fell gravely ill, was compelled to formally transmit his presidential powers to the Vice President, was rushed to the United Kingdom where, up until today, he has remained incommunicado and on "indefinite medical leave".