Erstwhile President Muhammadu Buhari zoomed through news headlines recently. The headline was like a falling small piece of meteor or dust we refer to as a shooting star or a falling star. It flashed through our sight and dazzled our memories with its unmistakable, meaningless glow. The legendary Nigerian Tribune newspaper of Monday, 4 September, 2023 titled the story thus: “Corruption: I was on a rescue mission – Buhari.” Like the appearance of a shooting star, Buhari spoke at a very auspicious time. The time of his reminder that he came on a rescue mission is the darkest of our nights of economic distress and woes. Because of its timing, his speech glowed and was very conspicuous but like the shooting star, it was useless. It made Buhari seem like a big star in a cameo appearance – of course as in a horror movie. It also reminded one of the movie star Geto Boys described in their 1991 hit single ‘My Mind is Playing Tricks on Me’.
My mind, however, was not playing tricks on me when it raced into numerous thoughts about Buhari as a civilian president and what heroes actually do. Sam Levenson in his very hilarious autobiography ‘Everything But Money’, warned that thought “is a very strange area.” The humorist Levenson holds that “it is easy to get lost in thought because it is a strange area.” Indeed, thought is so strange an area that I even ruminated about Spider Man and how he saves situations. You know that hero situation… The thought that the foundation of today’s economic confusion in Nigeria was laid by the eight years of Buhari is not in any way a trick on one’s mind. Yes, there is no doubt that Nigeria’s case is long, dotted and a messy cluster like the eggs of the toad. We also know too well that the eggs of the toad are useful only to the toad. But the last eight years have been the icing on the cake in our long chain of unwanted memories of leaders. Right now, the quality of life in Nigeria is absolutely nothing to write home about. Is it because Tinubu, as he said, is building on the legacies of Buhari?
Ex-President Buhari was elusive as an incumbent. He was nowhere near the Nigerians he herded roughly nor was he available for them. Nigerians can easily agree that he was an absentee father to more people than he cared for. During his austere tenure, our immediate past president was like that mysterious creature the Yoruba refer to as ewú (the Igbo’s ewi or eyi). A kiir’ewúl’osan… the ewu is such an animal that is rarely sighted in the daytime. He never addressed the Nigerian press like he does foreign media organisations. Now he has appeared in the most unusual manner like the ewú, to tell us how much of a messiah he was when he reigned in Aso Rock. In eight years of Buhari’s presidency, how many times did he talk to Nigerians directly? How many Nigerians can corroborate Buhari’s rescue tenure? It could be counted on the fingers. And he has continued to explain.
The Olu of Aso Rock which he was, was not meant to be seen or heard by annoying, unappreciative common Nigerians. Since he never spoke to us directly, we made do with what the amorphous ‘the presidency’ said the president wanted us to hear or do. Like the Yoruba kings of the years gone by, he hardly appeared in public. The kings of yore were not recluses per se but as true royalties, culture and tradition kept them from so much interaction with and the possible contamination by mere mortals. However, when it became so necessary for the Kabiyesi to grant us the privilege of his exceptional public appearance, he would wear a crown that had beaded strands that would cover nearly all of his royal, impeccable face. So we heard. So we experienced it with imperial Muhammadu Buhari. We are now ruminating on the sordid fact that for eight straight years he was our unseen, unheard, unfeeling president. Yet, he was on a rescue mission.
He was succeeded by Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Tinubu, while campaigning for votes, told the electorate that he would continue from where his predecessor would stop. One of the most prominent of the Buhari legacies inherited and adopted wholesale by Tinubu is speaking to us through proxies. The other legacy upon which Tinubu promised to build was recently explained by his National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. In mild terms, Ribadu said President Tinubu inherited “a very bad situation” as exemplified by the nation’s economy. Governor Chukwuma Soludo was less charitable. Soludo said the inheritance Buhari gave Tinubu was “like a dead horse, but standing, in macroeconomic terms.” Adams Oshiomhole lent his voice too by saying Tinubu inherited a “terrible economic situation.” The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, also spoke about the disaster we survived in the eight years that had just passed. Edun listed things like our per capita he said “has fallen steadily”; “inflation is at 24 per cent, youth unemployment is unacceptably high.” Edun said “these are the key metrics that we met.”
But ex-President Buhari will have none of that dragging through the mud. Through the runway of a former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, he rose from his lethargy in an impulsive reaction to tell how he came on “a rescue mission.” He spoke out in the “presence of igwemmadu” – apologies to Chief Zebrudaya – to set the records straight and tell busybodies and the learners that were trying to drag him to mechieonu (shut up). He told the upcoming vampires getting set to perfect how best to suck our blood, that he came on a ‘rescue mission’ but left everything he did at the doors of a depraved Adoke and the P&ID debacle. Buhari said he came when he did to rescue Nigeria from corruption, its mindless minders and its depraved enablers. It would be interesting to see how Nigerians rate stars in his government’s anti-corruption war. He had generals like his Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; Minister of Aviation, HadiSirika of the Nigeria Air fame and his Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq.
Through that statement, Buhari tried to resume his exalted position of a messiah. Through that fake façade he ate up our soup with his hidden Agege bread. Pre and post-2015, Lai Mohammed et al trumpeted the need for the rescue mission. Nigerians fell for it and here we are. The same messianic posturing was the message people like Yakubu Dogara were harping on deep into Buhari’s years as a president. Garba Shehu repeated the same message in September 2023, a few months after Buhari had just stepped on and out of the ruins of our nation’s economy.
What kind of messiah was Buhari? Who needed his kind of rescue mission if all he left for his successor and supporter in the All Progressives Party (APC) was a ruined economy? If indeed he was a president that came on a rescue mission, he wouldn’t need to explain to Nigerians and educate the world; his work would be speaking for him. But the evidence made available by Mallam Garba Shehu has been destroyed by the testimonies of Wale Edun, Nuhu Ribadu, Charles Soludo, Adams Oshiomhole and the confused state of our economy.
We can no longer be distracted from the fact that Tinubu inherited an economy destroyed by Buhari and his bandits. The time of that farce: “Buhari is a saint” is past and we have removed that with which the elders eat their àgìdi or èko from under the leaf. Buhari cannot continue to act holier than we have seen him to truly be. We survived his time by providence. He should quit acting like he is unaware of the terrible mess he created and its effect on the country.
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