How I Remember The Life Of Former President Muhammadu Buhari

One thing that remains consistent in the description of the late former President Buhari was his most astounding quality that not even his most ardent critics can strip that away, the integrity personality he exemplified and lived by throughout his life. Therefore, despite the negative reviews that may follow his death, to some of us that worked in his administration at some capacities, we take the solace that we believed in him, we knew him up close, his strengths and flaws like every mortal, we are content even if what the world will remember about Muhammadu Buhari was only the strength of his character and integrity. That does it for some of us and justified our years of sacrifice working with him. It’s a vindication of some sort.

For me, I never knew I would feel his passing the way I do now, since I knew about his sickness and since I met him some few months ago in kaduna, nonetheless, that knowledge did not prepared me for the loss and sadness I felt with his passing. I had no plans of writing an eulogy or any tribute, but two things made me to write, one, the news and videos circulating on the social media about some youth from the Northern part of the country celebrating his death due to uninformed position about the kind of work he did as a President, perhaps had they know some of these work, they might have shown sympathy and understanding rather than hatred in death to a leader who spent all his life in the cause of the common man. Secondly, I decided to write this form of tribute due to paucity of materials on rte work ye has done but rather his personality. I thought let me focus on that.

It is really quite sad that some of the people celebrating the death of President Buhari really do not know his person or what he had done particularly on their behalf.

For many of Buhari’s actual or perceived failings as a civilian President were actually as a result of the love he had for the same category of people dancing to his death today (the poor masses), but hey did not know this.

*Buhari’s socialism operating system*

Buhari ran the most socialism government in recent history of this country, he wanted to build and in fact did built some infrastructure free for the people when modern governance in the 21st century dicatated otherwise, atleast a mixed of socialism and capitalism/free market economy could have perhaps occasion a better economy under him, but not Buhari, he wanted to give to people all he could on education, health and infrastructure freely even when the nation resources did not support this particular ideology of governance, a few of us within the administration did not necessarily agree with the too much leaning towards socialism system of leadership, but Buhari will be quick to remind you, that the poor were his actual constituency anywhere they were in Nigeria.

Buhari ran the first ever comprehensive social investment program (SIP) for the people, despite the allegations being f corruption that characterized some of the programs at some points in time, yet he did it, from N-Power, 30,000 naira were paid to more than 15000 jobless university graduates for years, the program was later extended to secondary school leavers.

Buhari also carried out the school’s feeding program where hundreds of thousands of primary school pupils were fed for years to drive enrollment record and reduce out of school children in the country, as well as fight the scourge of malnutrition that was becoming exacerbated due to the insurgency in the Northeast part of the country as reported severally by the UNICEF.

The late President also carried out a conditional cash transfer program in conjunction with the Worldbank, which saw the administration paying the sum of 10,000 naira per 2 months to the poorest of the poor across the country for years, we heard and recorded various testimonies from old widows and poorest households how that helped to start small and petty trades. Similarly, there various forms of small loans for petty traders under different intitiatives such as GEEP and other development financial institutions where people could access above 100,000 naira up to 500,000 naira without any form of security or collateral deposit, just having accounts with banks and BVN were sufficient, thus no doubt drove financial inclusion in a country with one of the highest informal sector of the economy.

*Agricultural revolution*

Buhari had upon winning his election met with the outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan and asked from him what happened to the country when Jonathan was so lucky in his time that he sold crude oil at $100 per barrel on average for the 6 years he was in power and Jonathan had informed Buhari that the country used that amount for mainly 2 things, buying of rice and fuel importation. Buhari narrating this to us as President-elect, said from that time, he became resolute to atleast fight one thing, if he cannot stop fuel importation due to lack of functioning refineries in the country, then, he was going to tackle the issue of importing rice into the country. It is this resolve that gave birth to the rice revolution witnessed in the country. The Buhari government decided to pursue a protectionist policy for the Nigerian farmers, banning land importation of rice while imposing higher tariffs for sea importation of rice, this action no doubt occasioned some degree of hardship as prices of rice went up and for the borders communities particularly in the north, including his Daura axis where a lot of people depended on cross border trade, however, it was a policy passed with the best of intentions for Nigeria attain food security and for our farmers to be able to compete with their produce. Consequently, there was an upscale in agriculture intervention that was never seen before in Nigeria, again despite the corruption characterized with the scheme nevertheless, a lot of people were beneficiaries of that, from the rice anchor borrowers program by the CBN which targeted big farmers and cooperatives societies to NIRSAL that targeted small holder farmers. We saw the rise of rice mills in the country, we saw rice farms springing up everywhere from Kebbi to Kano and Jigawa, to Adamawa to gar away Ebonyi states. However, despite the Buhari’s efforts on agriculture intervention, some beneficiaries collected those money and misused it, some used that money for oil and gas business, some for real estate, others added wives, some travelled to perform some religious rituals with the money.

*Petroleum Subsidy*

Buhari could have stopped the payment of petroleum subsidy at any point in time in his 8 years tenure, in fact many of us advocated for that from the very beginning when he requested his campaign team to come up with what he could do in his first 100 days in the office, I wrote, remove fuel subsidy. Some 5 months later when has his first sets of ministers in place, majority of them particularly the finance, budget and planning, and the NNPC all advocated the removal of subsidy alongside the Nigeria governors forum, they all wanted subsidy gone. Even when Buhari had his first fuel scarcity, there was some conspiracy from the major oil marketers in collaboration with some in the government to force Buhari’s hands to fully deregulate the oil industry, which was what made the scarcity to linger more than necessary, because the marketers stopped and refused to import fuel into Nigeria. When Buhari ordered NNPC to become the sole importer of the fuel, the marketers refused to use their distribution outlets for the products to flow, as this was going on, Buhari started losing his huge goodwill amongst the masses of the country for the first time, yet Buhari refused to back down, for the sake of the same masses.

Even when he passed the PIB that languished in the NASS for over 2 decades and part of that law provided for suspending all subsidy payment on petroleum products on the 6 months anniversary of its coming into force which coincided with February 28th 2022, Buhari considered the negative impact on the economy, the hardship it will occasion the poor, and he directed the suspension of that portion of the PIA by 18 months and said until we can have the refineries back on track and Dangote refinery, he cannot agree to remove the petrol subsidy. However, he did not sit by idly, he went to work, aggressively pursued the total overhaul of the 4 nation refineries and paid every dime needed to get them back to functioning. He also helped Dangote to realize the dream of his refinery for national interest and even when Dangote was about to give up hope on that, yet Buhari never asked for a single share from Dangote.

He did it that all for the same people dancing to his death today, so that when the 18 months window he gracefully extended elapsed, the people could have some cushion.

*NORTH*

For the North, particularly for those that are dancing and happy Buhari died, I really do not blame them, for they do not know what they were doing. Buhari tried everything to bring strategic development to the North, from investing heavily on farming as earlier highlighted to directing NNPC investment on discovery of oil and gas in the north in places like Borno and Bauchi/Gombe axis, a lot of investment went in there, he also ensured the new PIA law has a clause setting aside some significant percentage even more than what was due for host communities in the Niger Delta just to explore new frontiers of oil, thereby institutionalizing the NNPC investment to continue exploration of oil and gas in the North even beyond his time in office, such were some of the fights he fought on behalf of the North.

He also knew that energy is important to the development of the North, and understood that the hydroelectric source is drying up, the alternative sources in solar is too expensive, and therefore embarked in record time in bringing the Ajaokuta Abuja Kaduna Kano (AKK) gas pipeline, cos he understood Kano to be commercial hub in the North, and needed gas to power their industry, anyone that passes the road from kaduna to Kano as far back as when he handed over power in 2023, would have seen those pipelines being laid in the ground.

Buhari also understood the importance of having intermodal transportation, particularly for the North to connect with the neighboring Niger republic to open up and expand trade routes and development with the Sahel countries and also provide alternative platform for a landlocked northern Nigeria to utilize that rail corridor through Niger and possibly other coastal states as alternative routes and access points for the North. The same northern youth that are dancing and celebrating his death today.

*Infrastructure*

Buhari constructed many roads, bridges in both south and the north, like no other civilian administration before him, only the military administrations of IBB and Abacha could match the level of construction of roads and bridges done by the Buhari government. He constructed second river Niger bridge when no other administration did that before with the old Niger bridge suffering since aftermath of the civil war, this is mostly for he southeast people, yet he was never appreciated for that.

Buhari also conducted the most vital economic road in Nigeria, Lagos to Ibadan, only about 10km left when he handed over to the current government. He also started the East-West road that past administrations couldn’t do. He also worked substantially on the Port Harcourt to Enugu Expressway, with many sections done.

*Rail Network*

Buhari completed the almost 80% rail work Jonathan did from Abuja to Kaduna, he completed about 20% and procured the trains heads and wagons. He built brand new standard modern gauge rail from Lagos to Ibadan via Abeokuta, Osinbajo laid the foundation in 2017. Buhari also completed the Itakpe to Warri railway. He also commenced the rail construction from kaduna to Kano before handing over, and other sections towards Maradi part. He also commenced the reworking of the existing narrow gauge rails networks from Lagos to Kano, fr Port Harcourt to Maiduguri before handing over.

*AIRPORT*

Buhari remodel and refurbished all our international airports from Lagos MMIA to Abuja Nnamdi Azikwe, to Port Harcourt International Airport, I can remember in 2015, when I arrive in port harcourt, we used to land in a makeshift facility, to Enugu International cargo airport and MAKIA in Kano, most of us travel out of the country, we use those airports, we know how they were before and how they are after Buhari left office in 2023.

*SECURITY*

Now to the big elephant in the room, we knew how the Northeast was for states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, we also saw the attempts of Boko Haram expanding to Kano, kaduna, and even Abuja, we have forgotten so soon how in 2015, we can’t even attend both church and mosque services in the capital territory Abuja without being scanned, the many checkpoints on virtually all the roads in the entire north like we were in Afghanistan or present day Gaza. Driving to Abuja from kaduna was a nightmare of checkpoints, even inside Kano at some points, I saw a heavy pregnant woman in 2014, asked to drop from keke Marwa to pass a long checkpoint. We have forgotten all about those days today.

Did all these magically disappeared? Were there no work done to achieve some sanity from those heightened activities of Boko haram then?

Yes, another frontier of security challenge opened up in the Northwest through the activities of bandits and kidnappers, which he was also dealing with before he left office. Yes, people criticized his allowing military service chiefs to stay longer than their effectiveness and results.

But what about arms procurement and defence spending to achieve the level of security we did, a lot of people do not know how many functional fighter jets Nigeria has before Buhari came, we couldn’t boast of more than 5 of them. Under Buhari, he procured both fighter jets and airforce helicopters more than 45 of them, some are still being delivered under the current administration. What about rifles and other arms, we forgot how our military used to run to neighboring Cameroon to hide under the much touted tactical maneuver when in fact they didn’t have arms to confront the non state actors, the highest combat weapons our infantry used to hold were AK47 then, some even use FN rifles, but under Buhari, sophisticated weapons such tabo and others were procured along many armed platforms, could we say in all honesty, Buhari did not fight insecurity to some level?

As leaders, you are expected to face continuous threats and challenges, you work one, another one opens up, your measurement is in your response to the challenges you confront.

You can’t solve them all, you can only do the ones you can, and leave the rest to others that will come after you, if there were no challenges requiring solutions, there would have been no requirement for leaders to emerge.

In the end, just as Franklin Charles noted, none of us is getting out of this life, alive. Muhammadu Buhari will be judged by what he did when he was alive just as we all will be judged by our actions, well. May the soul of the former President Muhammadu Buhari rest in perfect peace.

*Aliyu Abdullahi is a former Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari and Spokesperson of the First Lady (Aisha Muhammadu Buhari)*