Muhammadu Buhari: My take (2), by Ochereome Nnanna

Many Nigerians expressed their shock that the late President Muhammadu Buhari, despite his  extremely nepotic rule, still attracted so much outpouring of eulogies at his graveside. I want to remind such people that even the Devil itself has admirers and fanatical devotees. That deranged people can strap themselves with explosive devices and detonate to kill themselves and others for any reason proves this.

Buhari ruled Nigeria for nine years and eight months, second only to Olusegun Obasanjo who holds the national record of eleven years and six months. Also, for four years or so, he presided over the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund, PTF, where General Sani Abacha gave him absolute free hand to do as he wished. Buhari used that opportunity to build up his future political capital in the North in addition to rehabilitating himself financially.

Much has been said about Buhari’s mindless nepotism in favour of his Fulani ethnic group and the Muslim North on each occasion he was in charge of our affairs. He also had allies in the South-West. As Head of State, he forged a “Muslim-Muslim ticket” with Gen Tunde Idiagbon, a Fulani prince from Ilorin who was mistaken for Yoruba. And as President, Tinubu’s alliance helped him win the presidency after four tries. These were the quarters from which those largely contrived encomiums came. Those whom Buhari benefited had good reasons to mourn him. You don’t expect those of us he cheated of our rights to join in the crocodile lacrimation.

As a South-Easterner, Buhari was not my friend. He was the first politician that Igbo people turned their backs on of all the presidents that ran the affairs of Nigeria since 1999. Tinubu later followed, all for justifiable reasons. Ndi Igbo did not believe Buhari and Tinubu were worth supporting due to their past records. All the presidents they voted for: Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, were performers though no saints. Can you compare them with these All Progressives Congress, APC, presidents when it comes to material quality and performance? How did you feel then compared to now?

Apart from the civil war which Buhari fought against the Igbo with a heart full of bile, he never pretended about the evil feelings he had for the Igbo. Others who also fought for the federal side, such as Gowon, Obasanjo, Babangida and even, Murtala Mohammed who committed war crimes, came out of the conflict with observable readiness to accommodate the ex-Biafrans as much as they could. Buhari levied an act of enmity against the Igbo people when he announced on his trip to the USA on July 22, 2015, that he would marginalise those who did not vote him to the tune of “97%:5%”. He kept his word throughout his eight years in power. He loaded his government lopsidedly in favour of the North, with a good grain of South-West hands.

This was what eventually created the phenomenon known as Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. Kanu’s Radio Biafra which operated out of London, England, did not attract the attention of many serious minds until Buhari unfolded his package of marginalisation. Buhari simply ignored any constitutional provision that did not support his personal goal in power. Section 14(3) of the Constitution provides for government posts to be shared according to the Federal Character principle, to: (A) give every section a sense of belonging; (B) ensure that no part of the country dominates the rest and (C) sustain the loyalties of all Nigerians.

Buhari’s refusal to abide by this provision created the impetus that enabled Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to launch his campaign for the restoration of Biafra through referendum. Kanu wanted a peaceful exit of the East from Nigeria through a democratic, peaceful referendum; a re-enactment of the “Brexit” which enabled Britain to leave the European Union. Buhari reacted with seething anger that the Biafra they thought they killed almost five decades earlier was being revived under his watch as president! He sent the armed forces after Kanu and his supporters, and Kanu fled only to be brought back, Umaru Dikko style, into Federal Government custody.

It was also because of Buhari’s fanatical drive to force-settle Fulani herdsmen among indigenous communities in the Middle Belt and South that prompted IPOB to create the Eastern Security Network, ESN, to protect the Igbo people and their land. From the foregoing, it should be clear that Buhari was the sole perpetrator of insecurity in the South. Before Buhari came to power, the South-East was the most peaceful geopolitical zone in Nigeria.

The South-East was the only part of the country that Buhari called dirty names without regard to the sanctity of the presidential office occupied. He described it as a “dot in a circle” and threatened to deal with them “in the language they understand”. Twitter, the platform where that horrendous statement was published, was thoroughly spooked. They booted Buhari’s account out. Buhari’s forces attacked, bombed and burnt down villages in the South-East. Thousands of the indigenes (especially the youth) were massacred or taken away to unknown places, and many remain unaccounted for. Amnesty International and Inter-Society advocacy groups reported the discovery of mass graves containing the bodies of unarmed Biafra activists, with Inter-Society providing the names of some of them.

The same Buhari, it is widely believed, gave the army, under Gen Yusuf Buratai, the green light for the massacre and burial of 347 Shiite Muslims in their commune in Zaria, in 2016. At Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s invitation, he authorised the army to storm the Lekki Toll Gate on October 20, 2020 leading to the shooting of some unarmed youths. Under Buhari more Nigerians were killed than any other president. More Nigerians perished at the hands of terrorists, herdsmen and bandits under his watch than at any other peace time.

May such disaster never befall us again!

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