- By Afolabi Ige
Former President Muhammadu Buhari, a man of slim frame and naturally dematerialized configuration was a three term head of state of Nigeria by providence on the strength of his honesty.
First, it was in 1983. Some ambitious young military officers had found a ripe atmosphere in the cacophony that succeeded the 1983 presidential election in Nigeria and decided to strike under the leadership of Ibrahim Babangida et al. Being a putsch against a civilian regime under the watch of the Western world, beyond all the excuses provided and supported by the politicians themselves, the military needed a clean and irresistibly honest figure as the face of the putsch and hence they went for Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. He gave his conditions which included allowing him to appoint his No.2 and was granted. He and Tunde Idiagbon gave their all to cleaning the mess occasioned by gross indiscipline in our national life at the time while the real coupists keep scheming and monitoring time until the 17th of August, 1985 when the same IBB gang decided to end what became the 20 months of war against indiscipline (WAI) in Nigeria.
When Nigeria gregariously “transformed” to democratic rule in 1999 through the IBB flank, Muhammadu Buhari saw a good opportunity to leverage on his integrity and good standing with the ordinary Nigerian voters in the democratic space. Thrice he contested and failed marginally until a minority opposition hero (Bola Tinubu) spotted the honey-comb in an alliance with the dejected Muhammadu Buhari.
The hand of fate thus thrust him up again in 2015 as the opposition coalition presidential candidate and for the first time in Nigeria history, defeated and laid to rest the behemoth PDP unbroken 16 years hegemony.
As a civilian President, he has his eyes majorly on three things which were very critical at the time to the survival of the nation: onslaught on the grave insecurity in the nation as posed by the Boko Haram insurgents which has nearly overrun Abuja the Federal Capital Territory with bombs and explosions; onslaught on the already legitimized stinking official corruption and the diversification of the economy from oil dependency. Opinions remained highly divergent on his scores on all these three major planks but one indubitable fact is that while Nigeria remains in the trenches, we were never at the same level in the war against insecurity, the fight against leakages through official grafts and in the production of what Nigeria eats by Nigerians on Nigeria soil.
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While it remained subject to debate whether 8 years was enough to see the end of deeply rooted social problems such as insurgency, corruption and economic mistletoe syndrome.
It is however not in doubt that former President Muhammadu Buhari gave his utmost best at all times to his country. His government dismantled Bokoharam and has continued to change form since; he prosecuted a far reaching technological war fare against graft by implementing the TSA, BVN,TIN, NIN etc. He even pursued a whistle blowing policy and Property Verification Number (PVN) policy to track illicit investment in properties, which were truncated. Government revenue however more than quadruple under his watch due to blockage of leakages.
Nigeria is today not again mentioned amongst net importers of rice and many cereal courtesy of his regime’s agricultural policies and the current regime is re-gigging all his policies for better performance and results.
My deepest condolences to Mrs. Aishat Buhari, former First Lady of the Federal Republic and the children of Baba Buhari, an honest leader in the tempest of the crookedness of the Nigerian political elites. I commiserate with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the loss of his immediate predecessor and the Nigeria state on the loss of a leader most loved by the talakawas.
- Ige, APC chieftain, writes from Abuja