A human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, says the leadership of former President Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria was a “colossal disaster”.
Mr Buhari, who served as Nigeria’s president from 2015 to 2023, died in a London hospital on Sunday at the age of 82.
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‘Colossal disaster’
In a Facebook post on Sunday night, Mr Effiong said the late Buhari abused and missed golden opportunities to transform Nigeria during his two terms as the country’s president.
The human rights lawyer argued that as the then-president, Mr Buhari had all “the power and resources” to build a standard hospital in Nigeria that would have catered for his medical needs, but he failed to do so.
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“Our politicians destroy our country while enjoying their best lives abroad.
“When they are sick, most of them seek medical care abroad. Many of them also die abroad and their corpses are brought back to be buried in the same Nigeria that they destroyed,” he said.
“To his family, Buhari may have been a caring and loving father, but to many Nigerians, he was a colossal disaster.”
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He also accused the late former president of transforming into a “civilian dictator and a serial desecrator of human rights”, following his return to power in 2015 after he first led the country as a military dictator from January 1984 to August 1985.
“Those who benefited from Buhari’s misrule can grieve endlessly about his death, but the millions of Nigerians whose lives and sources of livelihood were destroyed by his ungodly and tyrannical actions also have the right to ventilate their feelings.
“Politicians who make the lives of Nigerians miserable during their lifetime cannot be venerated as saints in death,” he said.
‘Reflect on Buhari’s life, it could be your turn’
PREMIUM TIMES reports that while many Nigerians mourn the former president with lavish praise, Mr Effiong and many others chose to focus on the impact of the Buhari presidency on Nigerians.
Mr Effiong advised current leaders, whom he said were “ruining Nigerians’ lives and destroying” the country, to reflect on Mr Buhari’s fate.
“It is a sad commentary that Nigeria is cursed with kleptocratic dictators who are only out to steal, kill and destroy.
“I do not celebrate Muhammadu Buhari’s death, our mortality is what makes us to be humans. However, the living should always reflect on what they’ll be remembered for when they die,” he added.
‘Not sure I want to say, rest on’
In his reaction, Enobong Etuk, a Nigerian entrepreneur and curator of Boldoz Books & Arts Festivals, said she is reluctant to say “rest on” to the late Nigerian president.
In a Facebook post on Sunday, Mrs Etuk said others who have the opportunity to drive change in Nigeria, yet do nothing about it, should learn from late Buhari’s fate.
“Let this be a warning that, at the end of it all, it all goes into a box. I once read a book with a title – It All Goes In A Box.
“What legacy will you leave behind? At the end of it all, money is worthless. It will not save you from appearing before your maker.
“We will be judged by our works. Am not sure I want to say, Rest On!” she wrote.
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