Over 100 authors from various disciplines have put together a compendium of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s achievements during his eight-year presidency.
The book, titled “Muhammadu Buhari: The Nigerian Legacy (2015-2023),” is expected to be launched on January 16 in Abuja, along with the book “Working with Buhari: Reflections of a Special Adviser Media and Publicity (2015-2023),” authored by the former president’s Spokesman, Chief Femi Adesina.
Speaking at a prelaunch press conference on Thursday in Abuja, Adesina disclosed that the publication on Buhari chronicles the successes of the former president in five volumes with a comprehensive coverage of all sectors, while the book authored by him is his memoir, providing insight into the life and leadership of the former president.
He noted that the book launch is expected to bring Buhari to Abuja in his first official public appearance since after leaving office on May 29, 2023, adding that President Bola Tinubu will also grace the occasion which will be chaired by former military Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon.
According to him, the publications were necessary to put to rest a narrative that Buhari’s political enemies had sold and fed to the Nigerian public.
“These two books are about chronicling the Buhari years, recording them for posterity so that people that have questions, people that have issues, people who have doubts can have all those doubts addressed and addressed dispassionately.
“There is a certain myth about President Buhari, a narrative that his political enemies had sold and fed to the Nigerian public. I just felt that the true narrative needed to be told and that’s why I have written this book to know the Buhari inflection blocked.
“When you eventually lay your hands on a copy of that book please read the preface; that preface is what will guide you into the book. I have said that book is not about the hardware of governance, economic policy, monetary policy, foreign policy; rather, it’s about the software of governance and the man who headed and government. What propelled him to take certain decisions he took. When he took some decisions I ask him then Mr. President, why did you do it this way and not this way, he explained to me,” he said.
Adesina noted that the book will help Nigerians to know the real and the true Muhammadu Buhari as opposed to the conjurations they have had over decades about the man.
“A lot of people don’t forget 1983 December to August 1985 when a man ruled with an iron fist along with his second, Tunde Idiagbon, the unsmiling duo, the media used to call them. But the Buhari that came in 2015 was in a different mood, he was a democrat, even the clothes were different.
“In his first incarnation he was in khaki. In the second coming, he was in agbada, so the two epochs were different from each other and I felt it was something Nigerians should know and that is why I put this book together. Then embedded in the book is also the checklist of all the glorious achievements,” he said.
Also speaking, the lead editor of the five-volume compendium, Dr Udu Yakubu, said work on the book kicked off effectively in November 2022 with various contributors setting out to do the required research and writing.
Yakubu noted that over 100 contributors drawn from the academia, the media, research institutes and independent scholars made critical contributions to the book as well as about a dozen editors.
On his part, one of the contributors to the book, Dr Chijoke Wigwe, said former president Buhari was the most misunderstood Nigerian president and perhaps, the shyest of them, who didn’t care to fight for himself but allowed people to say whatever they wished.
Wigwe noted that the president’s disposition helped to grow the myth around him, and the books were written to address those myths and for people to draw lessons from the legacies of the former president.
