Even if there is nothing else to cheer us up this Saturday, the fact that in 19 months President Muhammadu Buhari will complete his tenure should. That is one year and seven months away. That thought is one of those things that could lighten the heart – just like a heavy purse does. It is the Irish that say “a heavy purse lightens the heart”, but a heavy purse is one rare thing in Buhari’s Nigeria. Even when the purse is eventually loaded and made heavy, the value of the content is another source of anxiety in the Nigerian economy of the Buhari era. So, remembering that we have just 19 more months to grind with him is a puff of fresh air.
Before the presidential election of 2015, and before May 29 of the same year when the administration of Buhari came upon us, we had thought we were going into a period of bliss post-Jonathan. The impression we had was that if we didn’t have Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, Nigeria’s economy would whizz down like a badly injured aeroplane. We are wiser now and we are individually analysing our personal finances, each at the point of the Buhari impact. Some are seeking food, just to be able to afford something to eat. Some are nursing their sick, impacted businesses. Some are wondering where their salary has gone to, having fizzled out a few days after getting ‘the alert’.
There is famine in Nigeria. To put it euphemistically, there is food scarcity in the land. Where you get to see food to buy, it is very expensive. The price of common staple food such as beans, rice and garri etc is unbelievably exorbitant, the highest we have had it in this country. Nigerians blame this trend on insecurity. They hold that a vicious combination of killers headlined by Boko Haram have driven hardworking Nigerians out of the farms. Farmers in the north and in the south are in one loop of fear and cannot go to tend their crops. If they are not kidnapped, they might be raped and (or) killed. Many other Nigerians are no longer interested in the usual crop farming because other people’s cows would destroy their crops, and nothing will be done about the willful destruction.
Benue State was one example that stood out. The state is not on the same league as Plateau, Taraba, Adamawa, Borno, Zamfara, Sokoto, Niger and beleaguered Kaduna in the scale of violence received. But they all have their doses of the bitter pill of Fulani herdsmen violence while Benue got an overdose. Those who survived the Benue massacre are currently quartered in internally-displaced people (IDP) camps around the state. Apart from losing their voice, they also lost their lands and homes, following which they were advised to find how to accommodate their assailants. Benue State prides itself as “the food basket of the nation”, but no one knows how confidently the state could still claim that sobriquet.
Since the Buhari administration, “bandits”, “killer herdsmen”, “unknown gunmen”, “Independent People of Biafra (IPOB)”, “Yoruba Nation agitators”, have been added to our everyday lexicon. These new and old dangerous customers add to the current hunger woes across the country, but our president does not agree with that. President Buhari says it is middlemen that have made food expensive in Nigeria and brought about the raging famine.
Our president has characteristically passed the buck to his unknown middlemen. He loves to pass the buck and does that a lot whenever he decides to talk to us about any of the numerous pressing issues. Our president is not like Harry S. Truman of the USA who said “The buck stops here.” It is recorded that Truman kept a sign with “The buck stops here” on his desk in the Oval Office. One explanation of “passing the buck”, an old saying from the poker game, says “The phrase refers to the notion that the President has to make the decisions and accept the ultimate responsibility for those decisions.”
Well, that is for a president that accepts responsibility and faces challenges. Passing the buck is one of the hallmarks of the Buhari administration. A coarse check shows that there is hardly any time the Buhari government accepted responsibility for any of the ills bedeviling the nation he is governing. Our president is more interested in how popular he is, or who he is more popular than as explained by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and accentuated by Mr. Femi Adesina.
On Thursday, Mr. Shehu Sani, a former senator representing Kaduna Central, reported on his social media handles that the rail line between Abuja and Kaduna has been compromised by bandits. He said the bandits attacked the train conveying passengers. The Nigerian Railway Corporation confirmed that their rail track was compromised and said they have instituted a probe. The government is quiet while its only notable legacy comes under the attack of bandits. When these issues are raised, you are hushed because you must “see no evil, hear no evil” and speak no evil. If you do, you are a ‘wailer’ and a corrupt man who has refused to see the good things the Buhari administration has been doing.
The Buhari regime has made a near mess of the calling of Pastor Tunde Bakare. Pastor Bakare has been beating around the bush on the government of his friend, Buhari and this has thrown some of us into the shame which we haven’t seen Bakare demonstrate. The cleric has said one thing in July and done the exact opposite just three months after, a deed embarrassing to Christianity but not to Bakare. The various deeds of the federal government to shut dissent up were among the ills Bakare had called him out for. This week was the first anniversary of the #End SARS protests. We saw how it all went. It is obvious that the Buhari administration is still not willing to listen to and hear the people. Rather, they should be gagged and jailed for daring to ask a government to fulfill its promises to them.
Nigerians also thought we would fight corruption better than we did before the advent of Buhari. We have seen the true nature of his brand of war against corruption. People talk about ethnicity and bigotry in all of these things, but we have seen much more than that. Nigeria will never be the same again after Buhari.
In 19 months, we expect that there would be a better person to lead the country. We must all work to achieve this and see how we can steer our country back on track. For now, we take solace in the thought that we have survived thus far, and the perseverance will lead us home.
S FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
We Have Not Had Water Supply In Months ― Abeokuta Residents
In spite of the huge investment in the water sector by the government and international organisations, water scarcity has grown to become a perennial nightmare for residents of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. This report x-rays the lives and experiences of residents in getting clean, potable and affordable water amidst the surge of COVID-19 cases in the state…
Selfies, video calls and Chinese documentaries: The things you’ll meet onboard Lagos-Ibadan train
The Lagos-Ibadan railway was inaugurated recently for a full paid operation by the Nigerian Railway Corporation after about a year of free test-run. Our reporter joined the train to and fro Lagos from Ibadan and tells his experience in this report…
and then