…his accomplishments and personal attributes of integrity didn’t materialise into achievements for the generality of the Nigerian people. Whereas, accomplishments are personal attainments in life, achievements are a collective of the positive impact your accomplishments bring to bear on the generality of the Nigerian people. Accomplishments without achievements mean Nigeria has done so much for you, while, in turn, you have done little or nothing for the country.
It is with utmost reluctance that I write this posthumous epistle about former President Muhammadu Buhari, who passed on in a London hospital on Sunday, 13 July, after what was described as a “prolonged illness.” My initial reluctance was within of the popular saying that “you do not speak ill about the dead.” True, you do not only speak ill of the dead but also of the living. But upon realising that it is a duty to country and God, the imperative of speaking the truth of the living and especially of the dead, no matter how unpalatable, uncomfortable or bitter, I overcame my reluctance. And speaking the truth about our political leaders (living or dead) is a sacred duty that is incumbent upon every patriot who seeks the common good of the Nigerian people, because in these truths the dead teaches the living an immortal lesson that should remind them of their own mortality.
I have observed, without surprise, as many Nigerians have become divided over how to properly situate the legacy of late President Muhammadu Buhari in contemporary Nigeria. While some Nigerians have denounced him as the worst leader in the history of the Fourth Republic outright, his supporters have maintained that he was good man and well intentioned leader, who was incorruptible. But that is as far as even his most ardent supporters are willing to go, as none of them, including his appointees and spin doctors, can say with a mouth not shaking that late President Buhari achieved much as the leader of Nigeria. I have said it before and I will reiterate it again that as a fierce critic of President Buhari throughout his eight year rule in office, I was his greatest friend and lover, and not his hater, because I knew that a day such as this will come when men will judge his actions as their leader, before his case gets to the supreme court of God Almighty for final adjudication.
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Born on 17 December 1942 in Daura town, Katsina State, North West Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari, was an accomplished public servant, military officer, public administrator and politician, who was privileged to lead Nigeria twice; as a military head of state and a democratically elected president. Equally, Buhari was a military governor, federal minister in charge of petroleum resources and later, chairman of the Petroleum Development Trust Fund under the General Sani Abacha military regime. According to his contemporaries, Buhari was a disciplined and incorruptible man who wanted the best for Nigeria. But sadly, his accomplishments and personal attributes of integrity didn’t materialise into achievements for the generality of the Nigerian people. Whereas, accomplishments are personal attainments in life, achievements are a collective of the positive impact your accomplishments bring to bear on the generality of the Nigerian people. Accomplishments without achievements mean Nigeria has done so much for you, while, in turn, you have done little or nothing for the country.
My position on President Buhari’s life and time in power is well documented and needs no further regurgitation here. The fact that there was a spontaneous breakout of celebrations in some parts of the Hausa speaking Muslim north; a region where he was deified as a living “god” over the news of his death, the passionate appeal from some of his supporters against speaking ill of the dead and his wife’s revelation that the late President Buhari asked for the forgiveness of Nigerians before his demise, says the truth and nothing but the whole truth about his legacy. That President Buhari died in a London Hospital two years after he presided over the affairs of Nigeria for eight years, between 2015 and 2023, manifests the truth that while Nigeria did so much for him, he did little or nothing for the country in return. If only those in power today are paying the much needed attention to Nigeria’s recent history with the late President Muhammadu Buhari, but sadly while history is the best teacher, its students are the worst learners.
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However, it is important to point out that President Buhari’s elevation of ethno-geographic and religious sectionalism to a near state policy, in his administration, was his greatest undoing. The fundamental social condition precedent for national development and the security of a sovereign entity must be the unity and social cohesion of its constituent peoples. And to achieve this, the political leadership of such an entity must rise above the pettiness of race, ethnicity and creed to administer it as one nation that belongs to all.
The fact that contrary to his vow to “belong to nobody and to everybody,” President Buhari ended up belonging to his Muslim, Hausa speaking Fulani northern half of Nigeria, which not only undermined the unity, social cohesion and collective development of Nigeria but also hampered his role and as commander in chief of Nigeria’s armed forces. So, despite his much talked about personal qualities of integrity, honesty and moral uprightness, the late President Muhammadu Buhari left Nigeria worse than he met it, as one of the world’s most impoverished, pauperised, terrorised and traumatised countries on the brink of state failure. This is so because, according to Uthman Dan Fodio, the founder of the Sokoto Fulani Empire, “a nation can endure in disbelief but none can survive injustice.”
May the soul of President Muhammadu Buhari find peace with his creator and may his family find the strength to bear the loss. And may Nigerians forgive the late president for his shortcomings. We will always remember him because President Muhammadu Buhari did not ask us to forget his time in power.
Majeed Dahiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja and can be reached through [email protected].
