It is still about 35 days before President Muhammadu Buhari vacates Aso Rock after eight uneventful years as Nigeria’s No. 1 Citizen.
When the curtain falls on his term in office, it will be more apparent how he wielded power and if indeed his best was any good.
However, it seems that the president is coming to terms with his less than sparkling rule when he begged Nigerians on his last and final Sallah message to them on Friday, April 21, 2023.
In the message made when some residents of the Federal Capital Territory led by the minister, Muhammad Musa Bello, paid him Eid-el-Fitr Sallah homage, the president begged Nigerians for forgiveness.
“God gave me an incredible opportunity to serve the country. We are all humans, if I have hurt some people along the line of my service to the country, I ask that they pardon me.
“All those that I have hurt, I ask that they pardon me.”
Two truths in that remarks are that he had an incredible opportunity not just as president, but to make a difference, but sadly, he bungled it. Also, he deserves all the forgiveness that Nigerians can muster.
At a time, the president ruled as if he had malice with Nigerians for delaying his ascension to office. He was provincial and cared less about the people whose mandate he had. Take his mathematical impossible 97 percent versus 5 percent – referring to the South-East as having given him less than 5 percent at the 2015 elections.
It was imagined that after his lackluster first term performance he will improve and be more profound with governance, the president continued in his anachronistic appointments so much so that at a particular time, all the service chiefs and heads of security agencies were all Muslims and Northerners.
More than that, a man who rode to power on anti-graft mantra became powerless, perhaps, hostage to sinister forces that Nigeria’s corruption ranking continued to nose-dive under his watch.
His whole speech at the visit rankles. To wax triumphant that technology aided his emergence at the polls and for that same technology to become vexatious and an embarrassment with the shambolic nature of the 2023 elections should make the president to be sober and wonder how he got it wrong.
He said, “I dared the politicians and ended up at the Supreme Court three times. They laughed at me, and I responded, ‘God dey’. God sent technology to my rescue, with Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC). The fraudulent people became unemployed.”
If the above statement is not the height of hypocrisy, we wonder what it is.
Further, his take on security is pathetic and requires no patting on the back.
According to the president, “It is good to reflect on what used to happen here, in FCT, especially on security. Security is not only about the North East, it also spread to the FCT and all over the country.
“Those who wanted to make our lives uncomfortable reached the FCT, and they have been marginalized.”
While bombs may not be going off in the FCT, the security of lives and property in the nation’s capital is at an all-time low. On a near-daily basis, citizens are kidnapped for ransom. None have been spared; old, young, rich, poor, traditional rulers, clergy and all segments of Nigerians are at the mercy of kidnappers and terrorists.
Perhaps the president needs reminding that prison break became a routine with terrorists, bandits and murderers escaping not just across the country, but at the heart of Abuja.
In the North-west, hundreds of Nigerians have been killed while ransom running into billions have been paid to terrorists and bandits.
It became so bad that Abubakar Sani Bello, governor of Niger state, raised the alarm that terrorists were less than 10 kilometers from Abuja.
The most revealing of the president’s innermost desire is his lack of patriotism. What manner of president will long for another country more than his even if the situation is not ripe? Only Buhari!
Hear him in his own words: “I have been counting the years. Democracy is good, otherwise how can someone come from one end of the country to rule for eight years. My home town, Daura, is about eight kilometres to Niger Republic.
“When the Minister of Interior wanted to shut down petrol stations ten kilometres from the border, there was a fuel station close to my house, and I pleaded if he could allow it to keep operating,” he added.
“I can’t wait to go home to Daura. If they make any noise to disturb me in Daura, I will leave for the Niger Republic. I deliberately arranged to be as far away as possible. I got what I wanted and will quietly retire to my home town.
“In spite of technology, it will not be easy to get to Daura.”
It is a shame that at a time he shut the borders and Nigerians paid a heavy price, he could corrupt the process by allowing a petrol station to remain open. We at The Abuja Inquirer are surprised that he does not want the “noise” of Nigerians when he has in his eight years as president polluted their very existence with harsh and economically unwise policies like the Naira redesigned and cashless policy.
The expectation is that when he lives office and retires to his closed life, he should look back and genuinely beg Nigerians for wasting the years in office.
