Nigerians have never had it so tragic. May the likes of Baba Buhari never rule this nation again. May the likes of APC fail woefully in the next election. Nigerians must stay wide awake and sweep away Buhari, his APC shenanigans and his tragic assault against our democracy into the dustbin of history.
By Taju Tijani
General Mohammadu Buhari, the leader of Nigeria, is today a hate figure. Call him a lame duck president you are right. Buhari has polarized Nigerians mainly on tribal lines. He sold the dummy of change to Nigerians. We bought it with glee, especially when it became the right thing to do after the darkness of PDP misrule of Nigeria for 16 punishing years. Collective hope translated into action when Nigerians voted out Jonathan and his brood of vipers who looted Nigeria dry.
Seven years under Buhari, yesterday’s hope has turned into despair. He has tarnished his integrity with weakness for tribal clannishness. He has demonstrated his weakness for his Fulani clan. Nigeria is standing still under Buhari. He has been hampered by a tiny cabal who daily put fetters of chain on his hands. Under Buhari, looters are becoming bold to even accuse his government of incompetency. Yesterday’s thieves have regrouped to truncate his desire to fight corruption. The media have colluded with the looters and have turned their news platforms to looters to abuse, respond and dare the government of Buhari.
Seven years on, General Mohammadu Buhari has turned out to be the saddest joker Nigeria has ever seen. His story is the story of an old jackboot rebel, who, at a time of Nigeria’s military rule, straightened some of the contours of our national aberrations. Today, the same Buhari, hiding under the mantra of change, is the worst conformist of all time. Ancient Buhari, at the risk of what anybody might say about his early 80’s iron rule, made Nigeria work. He made Nigerians walk tall and proud. He shifted the paradigm of our indolence, corruption, indiscipline and brought both tears and joy to a tottering nation that had refused to drop her farcical dark sides.
In the 80s we idolized Buhari. He was the iconic leader who shook us to our foundation. He unplugged us from the long and tragic trajectory of dancing to songs of pain and sorrow. He turned Nigeria upside down. He destroyed our idols. He burned our altars and set out to rededicate Nigeria to a new set of godly values. He brought illumination to the monstrous darkness that was Nigeria then and we all supported Buhari with fierce loyalty. We warmed around the glow of his “War Against Indiscipline” and most of our old ways collapsed as we embraced the new.
We queued to get into commercial buses. We queued at the post offices. We queued at the banking halls. Food prices stabilized. At the entry points to all our towns and cities were soldiers with horse whip to deal ruthlessly with fomenters of trouble or anybody who wanted to operate from the fringe and against what was then normal. Adulterers changed their ways and began to love their wives again. Money doublers abandoned their stalls and melted into thin air.
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Philippians 4:19 was a passage in the Bible that speaks of God’s provision for his children during 80s Buhari. During Buhari’s earlier incarnation, the purity of that passage had not been corrupted to mean what 419 means today – scam, corruption, looting, gbajue, fraud, odaju ole, robbery, deceit, and abracadabra! Armed robbers knew their fate. They were routinely shot into pieces at the firing squad along Lagos bar beach. White collar thieves were hammered with long jail sentences. Corrupt politicians or those perceived to have stolen our national cake had dust for dinner. They were humiliated, battered, hounded, and handed long jail sentences that looked like eternity.
A new general or sheriff was in town and when the show was going on we all gave the main actor, General Mohammadu Buhari and co-star, late General Tunde Idiagbon and other supporting cast our standing ovation. The oxygen of Buhari’s fame then was nothing but his doggedness, fanaticism to right the wrong of society, eradication of corruption among public servants, reinvention of discipline, accountability, punishment for misdemeanour, respect for social values and accountability. It was truly a defining moment. We had believed then that Buhari was enough to get us to heaven and not our righteousness.
Like all great imperial or military powers, an end must come. However, before ancient Buhari faded into oblivion, we had built so much mythology around his personality to a point of a cult figure. In the arc of time, opinions were divided about his ancient legacy. Many cursed his military regime. Politicians with axes to grind called him a dictator and a man of Hitlerite tendency. Others who could not get close to him to inflict vengeance on him rushed his carved image to Babalawo, alufa and various supernatural covens. Baba Buhari remains solid like a statute in his rural Daura plotting a comeback. All the arrows thrown at him returned to sender.
By 2015, a new Muhammadu Buhari emerged like a sphinx from his ashes. Like Lazarus, a resurrected Buhari, reading the temper of the time, wooed Nigerians with a promise of “CHANGE”. Older, gaunt looking, immovably handsome, thoroughly innocent, and winsome, we fell for his old charm as a performer, action man, honest and rule breaker. He ticked all our boxes of a rare quintessential Nigerian. If Buhari were to be a bachelor, many of us were willing to thrust our daughters on him. Such was the power and potency of our love for him that we blindly bought into his change agenda.
After seven years, Baba Buhari where is my change? I learned from my scripture that in any labour, there must be profit. Where is the profit for all the tailors, mechanics, bricklayers, carpenters, okada riders, teachers, roadside sellers, shop keepers, cleaners, civil servants, phone unlockers, gatemen, molue drivers and millions of granddads, grand mums, dads, and mums who braved rain and fiercely burning sun to cast a covenant vote for you? Where is the fruit of change for all the dynamic mix of support, loyalty and expectations showered on you by expectant and thoroughly traumatised Nigerians who cast their hope on you for a better future?
President Muhammadu Buhari, once again, where is my change? Where is the fruit of change for the working class, poor, alienated and forgotten Nigerians whose collective vote gave you your mandate? Where is the gain for that innocent and explosive euphoria for your second coming? Where is the gain of that common destiny woven around your vision to change Nigeria and make it better? Are Nigerians naïve and silly in their innocent assumptions that you will do politics differently? Are Nigerians paying the price for mythologizing your ancient performance without a prophet to warn them of the word of Proverbs 24:22 – “Do not associate with those given to change?”
Today Nigerians are living with a bitter sense of betrayal. The Buhari’s lies have become permanent fixture even among liberal commentators. For seven years, the nature of the political narrative is that the change mantra has remained meaningless without tangible proof of what has changed so far. The political, social, and economic reclamation promised by Buhari via change have all floundered dramatically and tragically. Your change has not unseated corruption. Your change has not unseated unemployment among our youths. Your change has not unseated our social paralysis. Your change has not unseated cabals from the interior recesses of our political life. Buhari’s changed has turned into bitter ashes in the mouths of Nigerians. If we had known that Baba Buhari was coming to turn Nigeria into a failed state, we would not have embraced such tragic change.
Nigerians have endured seven years of Buhari’s lies. They have endured seven years of decay, death, and debt under APC. They have endured seven years of bloodshed, Fulani ethnocentrism, asset capture, massive looting, lawlessness, destruction of education, oil theft, and widespread kidnapping. Nigeria, under Buhari, has remained one of the most hated and corrupt countries in the world. Nigerians have never had it so tragic. May the likes of Baba Buhari never rule this nation again. May the likes of APC fail woefully in the next election. Nigerians must stay wide awake and sweep away Buhari, his APC shenanigans and his tragic assault against our democracy into the dustbin of history.