Muhammadu Buhari, Mai Gaskiya at 81

BY DAPO Okubanjo 

Former President Muhammadu Buhari is one Nigerian leader that can be described as an enigma.

He means different things to many people depending on the political divide they find themselves and which is why political allies who used his image on campaign posters and publicly sang his praises for five years would turn full cycle and call him names on social media like the case of an activist who had a brief spell in the Senate.

As someone who was in the periphery of politics in the Buhari Presidency even while still in the media, I can still vividly recollect a chance meeting with a top political figure (still alive and active politically) who defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) just before the 2019 election, he was emphatic that folks like him know Buhari as a good, truthful person but they simply have to play politics to ensure that their new party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) win.

That was a profound comment that confirmed what I had always believed to be true about the man, Buhari.

So it was not surprising to me that PDP, as a party, as well as its members and leaders did whatever they could to taint the Buhari administration with all sorts of false narratives bordering on perceived corrupt acts in his first term but majority of the Nigerian voting public saw through it all and gave him a second term in office.

This further endeared me to the man I grew up to know as a tough military leader who meant well for the country but ended up being kicked out of office by his colleagues in a well planned palace coup.

That would have been the swan song for many but probably because he did not have enough time in the saddle as head of state, he pushed hard to be a civilian President several years later but failed in all his three attempts before 2015.

By this time, the retired General had somehow built a cult following among young people across Northern Nigerian in such a way that it was inevitable that all he needed was a coalition across the Niger for his dream to be reality.

After an initial failed effort to build a coalition with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Buhari eventually succeeded and the rest like they say is history.

It’s more than 8 years now but it would be difficult to forget how former President Buhari ensured that about 27 states which could not pay salaries and pension got budget support within his first few months in office.

It was same Buhari who after about two years in office told some state governors that he did not know how they can comfortably sleep at night knowing that they were owing civil servants and pensioners.

And lest I forgot, he did some things about it. He ensured that the states again got budget support but no one is sure if all those governors did what they were meant to do with the funds.

It was the same Buhari that launched the largest infrastructural development that Nigeria has seen in recent times by amongst others building the Lagos-Ibadan railway from scratch, completed and remodelled the Itakpe-Warri railway that was abandoned for 33 years, built the Second Niger Bridge and completed the 2,055 km-long Loko-Oweto bridge that has drastically reduced traffic time between Southern and Northern Nigeria by as much as 5 hours.

This is just a snippet of what Mai Gaskiya did in eight years and if there are people who are still not convinced about President Buhari’s achievements and how he acquainted himself,they should take a few minutes to go through the compendium in
https://pmbscorecard.gov.ng/.

Yes, many of the projects were funded by loans and that’s because options were limited in a country that needs about $100bn annually over 30 years to bridge its infrastructure gap.

And of course, the jury is still out on his tenure in office but for some of us, President Buhari came, saw and conquered!

*Dapo Okubanjo, a media and public affairs analyst writes from Abuja via dokubanjo@yahoo.co.uk*