By Lasisi Olagunju

(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 29 May 2023)

There is a road in Canada that is officially known as ‘Road to Nowhere’. Road signs there say so. At the terminal point of that road is virtually nothing apart from an access to a shooting range and a gated path that leads also to nowhere. A political journey can mirror a cruise on that road. There is also a popular town in Norway officially called Hell; the road to that town is the Road to Hell. In Oyo State, Nigeria, there is a town called Ilu Aje (town of witches); the road to that town is paved with misery. Each of these places has a history behind the weirdness of the name it bears. Road to Nowhere. There is a rock song of that title too. Its supposed writer and Talking Heads singer, David Byrne, told Q magazine in 1992 that the song is “about how there’s no order and no plan and no scheme to life and death and it doesn’t mean anything, but it’s all right.” Those words sound so much like the Nigerian experience with democracy. It has not been pleasant for the peasant, yet the chorus is “it’s alright.”

Another leg of the journey starts today. A new president, complete with his own cabal, takes charge of Nigeria. In every home, the unasked question is: The journey which these people are starting with us today, where is it taking us? Igbó rèé, ònà rèé. It could be ‘Nowhere’; it may be ‘Somewhere’, the choice is for the driver to make.

I can hear prayers binding the devil and declaring that today’s journey will lead not to nowhere, not to hell or to the witchy world of grief and anguish. The prayer will be answered only if the new regime breaks ranks with the Buhari tragedy and the personal flaws and failings of the principal characters on the new stage. How is that possible? In a government that will run well and end well, there must be certain ingredients in its leadership: “trustworthiness, fairness, unassuming behaviour, capacity to listen, open-mindedness, sensitivity to people, sensitivity to situations, good judgment, broadmindedness, flexibility and adaptability, the capacity to make sound and timely decisions, the capacity to motivate, sense of urgency, and initiative, initiative, and initiative.” This list of essential attributes I took from G.R.K Murty (2009) who paraphrased Marvin Bower in his ‘The Will to Lead’. Now, did you see a single item from that list on Nigeria’s leadership menu in the eight years of Muhammadu Buhari? His review would have been positive if he had had a space for just two of those demands. But, no; the man had his own priorities and they were selfish and sectional. It is only operatives and direct beneficiaries of the outgoing regime that will swear they saw equity or fairness or competence in the leadership experience that is expiring today. We wait to see which of those items Tinubu is bringing to the table.

From the frenzy I see around Bola Tinubu who takes over today, it appears that everyone holding the hem of his garment has a personal reason for doing so. They await the “So help me God” end-line of his oath of office for them to unfurl their ensign of claims without objections. That is an expressway to failure. Real lovers of the new president should tell him that personal and institutional rebirth is the sacrifice. What will matter ultimately is how he uses what he has just got to cleanse Nigeria of its bad head.

There is also something about a government engine that is run on grudges, bitterness and vengeance. The Buhari regime had more than a full tank of that toxic fuel. There was an unreported meeting between President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the General from Daura became president of Nigeria in 2015. At that meeting, the old reportedly told the new to forget and forgive anyone who might have hurt him in the past: “Now that you have become president with the support of everybody, it is time for you to forgive everyone who might have hurt you in the past.”

The host casts a serpentine look at his guest and asks: “including Ibrahim?”

“Yes, especially Ibrahim,” the guest responds, curtly.

The new man bites his lips, nods and changes the topic.

The ‘Ibrahim’ in that conversation is Ibrahim Babangida, the man who sacked Buhari in August 1985. Someone very close to two of the three actors told me that story days after the encounter. He had no reason to make it up.

You remember how General Buhari spoke repeatedly with bitterness about losing power in 1985 and his subsequent detention. The man simply could not imagine his new power ignoring a vengeance that was just thirty years old. He wanted a pound of flesh but apparently, he realized the folly of his kite going after the fox. He talked to himself or he listened to the big boss. But because hawks feed on preys, there were other victims. You remember how he spent his eight years not tired of mentioning his repeated failures to be president in 2003, 2007 and 2011 and how the courts failed him. He eventually became president and the courts got raided and thoroughly whipped. Can you remember too how the outgoing president described the South-East as a dot in a circle? You remember his reference to Igbos of the South-East as those who gave him just “five percent” of the votes that made him president in 2015? You remember how that unfortunate comment dictated government policies and alienated that part of the country permanently from Buhari and his government – and how he did not care? And, please do not forget that there was no pervasive agitation for secession in the East until official vengeful alienation burst the people’s long pipe of endurance. A new regime comes in today; it will succeed only if it stops talking about continuity, charts its own course and brings the country together under the roof of fairness and equity.

Vengeful leaders lead into the gully; they hurt their nation and their people. They destroy themselves too and cancel everything that recommends them for leadership. That explains the thought of the elders who say revenge destroys the seeker. In William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (Act 3; Scene 1), we see Salerio asking implacable Shylock what he wants to do with a pound of Antonio’s flesh. What is it “good for?” He is asked and Shylock replies that it will “feed” his “revenge.” He says Antonio “hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million…” So why would he not sink his cleaver knife into his debtor’s thigh and go to bed in a meaty mirth? Let no one tell him not to do it; he will do it because he is human: He says: “If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not take revenge?” Shylock promises to “execute” and “go hard” and “better” others in doing wrong. He thinks revenge and vengeance are the way of a world which forgets nothing good, nothing bad. And, because he is fixated on revenge and will not listen to wise counsel, he ends disgracefully.

Instead of Tinubu looking for a list of enemies to hurt, his friends should advise him to draw up a list of things to do to heal Nigeria. He should look at the North especially. Anyone that will fix Nigeria has northern Nigeria to fix first. The North is Nigeria’s problem incubator. Particularly because of the North, the population of Nigeria is projected to hit 400 million in the year 2050. At about half of that figure today, 133 million of the population are multi-dimensionally poor. It can only get worse. If the North is not saved from itself and from its ways, the country is doomed and whatever government or president comes in today is doomed as well. UNICEF’s current statistics says that “one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria.” The North gives Nigeria that dubious reputation. The brand of religion that is practised there is nowhere else in the world – not even in Afghanistan. In May 2017, the Sultan of Sokoto told a gathering of northern Muslims in Kaduna to end Almajiri and embrace education. “Almajiri does not represent Islam but hunger and poverty. Almajiri system of begging does not represent Islam and must therefore be distinguished from Islam. Islam encourages scholarship and entrepreneurship and frowns on laziness and idleness as exemplified by itinerant Almajiri. Therefore, attempts must be made to stop the practice of the Almajiri system of begging among Muslim faithful.” That was from the Sultan six years ago. What has changed? Nothing, except that the uneducated children of the past have grown to master assault rifles to demand their share of Nigeria. Is it not said that an untrained child will not fear God and will not live righteously? The untrimmed Iroko has grown wild; it now demands sacrifices from the state.

Three years ago, the Sultan cried out again that the North was the worst place to live in Nigeria. The North is not safe, he said. “In fact, it is the worst place to be in this country. Bandits go round in the villages, households and markets with their AK-47 and nobody is challenging them,” Sultan Abubakar told a meeting of Nigeria’s Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) in Abuja in November 2020. You cannot have a vast region of misery and lawlessness as the North and have peace of mind. My people say the child that is not built will sell the house that is built. We saw how the joy of the multibillion naira Abuja-Kaduna rail service was destroyed by the North’s children of the forest. That is what you get where priorities are not right and the vehicle of state faces where the world backs. If the North remains a region of subjects without citizens, there cannot be peace in Nigeria. If it remains a vast desert of the uneducated poor, banditry will not end. It, in fact, will spread and it is spreading anguish already from the North to the South.

Coming down south, the West will always fix itself. But the Tinubu presidency is putting the ‘pesky’ Yoruba elite on trial. Like debauched widow-inheritors, they are upbeat that it is their turn to fill/feel the space and build castles on Mars. The world waits to see if they will stop saying that Nigeria, as it is, needs restructuring because it is fundamentally defective. We won’t keep quiet. Leaving Nigeria in the hands of its abductors is leaving the proverbial madman to roast his mother’s corpse; he will endanger all of us with the entrails. Tinubu’s friends should keep reminding him that the foundation is the most critical part of a building. If Tinubu and his victorious people say from today that they are satisfied with ugly, decrepit Nigeria because they are the latest inheritors of the estate, we should be around and we will be available to remind them that those who negotiated Nigeria had wisdom and saw clearly that the chemistry of the Nigerian soil was not balanced; they insisted on what they knew was safe for all. The negotiators of Nigeria knew that a wrong foundational decision would give them a building with a fissured base; a house that would endanger everyone; that would soon sink and collapse under a weight it was not designed to carry. The founding fathers considered everything and rejected a multi-storey unitary Nigeria with an emperor reigning in the penthouse. They opted for a federation of manageable low-rise structures in the Nigerian estate. Angels of confusion soon systematically converted what we inherited to a choking, poorly constructed skyscraper without elevators and with a foundation cracking under a weight it cannot carry to success and safety. The structure today chokes and puts all of us in harm’s way. History will pat Tinubu on the back if he surprises himself and rebuilds the house using the original plan of the architects.

There is an undeclared civil war going on in the East. People get killed daily, the murderers are not known, the state shrugs its shoulders, it picks its teeth and belches. But the crisis is an ill-wind that should not become a firestorm. Smothering the fire should be a deliberate agenda of the new regime. Equity and fairness in a restructured Nigeria appears the only remedy here. If the Igbo say they want Senate presidency and if you won’t support their aspiration, Tinubu, please don’t oppose them. If Nigeria fixes the East with the tools of equity, the country will have the mouth to tell the Igbo man to embrace peace. And, really, the alternative to peace is misery in unimaginable proportions.

Nigeria has a generation of angry youths who want a Nigeria that is safe and prosperous. They worked for candidates they believed would work for their future; they did very hard work to birth their dream nation. They came out disappointed and angry and are watching what is unfolding. They need to be convinced that with what we have as a country, elections can be nuts with kernels.

Tinubu is leaving Bourdillon, Lagos, and will be the Lion of Aso Rock for four years – or for eight years – at the end of which a Daniel will come to judgment. He will be judged not by the number of roads or bridges he built; he will be judged by how well he tamed his own personal foibles; how well he detoxified northern Nigeria, settled the quarrel between the Igbo man and Nigeria and got the entire country rebuilt for the wellness of all. If the country, however, remains its odious, unwashed self after Bola Tinubu’s regime, he would have tragically proved right the millions opposed to his person, his politics, and his methods, particularly the feudal rungs he took to the throne.

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

You may have received a strange text message from a certain self-styled Presidential Transition Council (PTC), pleading with Nigerians to accept Bola Tinubu as their President. The text message reads: “Presidential Transition Council (PTC) – Let’s maintain unity as one people and one nation. Let’s support the new administration and build a Nigeria that we can be proud of.” Prior to sending this laughable text message, Tinubu himself was begging Nigerians to let bygones be bygones and accept him as their President, on the premise that he would “hit the ground running” upon being sworn in. Isn’t this simply ridiculous or nauseating? After conniving with INEC to rig the February 25th presidential election in their favor, they are now suffering from an illegitimacy crisis and begging Nigerians to accept Tinubu as their President. Buffeted and pummeled on all sides by an illegitimacy crisis and the conscientious conviction that INEC rigged the February 25th presidential election in their favor, they are now pleading with the Labour party to withdraw their case in court challenging INEC’s declaration of Bola Tinubu as the President-elect.

The pertinent questions are: having stolen the people’s mandate in broad daylight and apparently getting away with it, why are these criminals soliciting people’s endorsement and acceptance of their crime? Reflect on it. Think about it. A certain thief has stolen what belongs to you. Now, without repentance and without returning what he stole from you, the same thief dramatically comes to you and starts begging you to endorse his theft or acquiesce to his thievery. Are these criminals who stole the people’s mandate aware that justice comes before unity? Are they aware that God is a God of justice? Are they aware that justice begets mercy? Do they know, as Cicero rightly stated, that “the brightest of virtues shines above all in justice”? Do they know that without justice – giving everyone what he or she deserves – it would be impossible for Tinubu to build Nigeria? Are they aware that the preamble to our 1999 Constitution states, inter alia, that in order to build Nigeria and promote the unity and welfare of all persons in Nigeria, the principles of freedom, equality, and justice must be allowed to prevail? Do they know that justice begets unity and unity grows in the crannies of justice?

Unity has a price tag; it is not something imposed from the top through executive fiat. Unity is earned, not imposed. If you want unity and peace, allow justice to prevail. You cannot claim that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable while simultaneously robbing the people of their mandate. If you desire unity, heal the blistering wound and restore the mandate of the people. Request Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu to announce the correct results of the February 25 presidential elections as recorded in the BVAS. Contrary to Machiavellianism, the end does not justify the means. The Machiavellian doctrine simply teaches that the end justifies the means, suggesting that there is no morality in politics. It implies that a politician could commit any atrocity, such as murder, like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in order to satisfy their ambitious political goals and later justify it with Lady Macbeth’s words: “a little water cleans us of this deed.” No, Machiavellianism is wrong. Morality exists in politics, and political strategy does not excuse the need for moral discipline. A politician cannot, for instance, commit evil acts to achieve a greater good. They cannot, for example, bribe INEC and Prof. Yakubu to seize political power in the name of improving the welfare of the people. Some argue that, unlike Buhari, Tinubu would turn Nigeria around for the better. In response to such claims, I have always posed the following questions: “How did Tinubu come to power? Did he bribe Prof. Yakubu and INEC to refrain from using BVAS to upload election results on February 25?” You see, one cannot steal what belongs to another and then use the proceeds from that theft for charitable purposes. I recall an incident from the past when there was a notorious armed robber in Benin City. Upon being interrogated after his arrest by the police in Benin, he claimed that he resorted to armed robbery so that he could subsequently use the stolen proceeds to help the poor. In the same vein, Tinubu and his associates are telling us exactly the same thing: “Forget that we stole your mandate. Just support us in building Nigeria.” Have you ever heard of a more irrational pseudo-rationalization?

It is evident that the Tinubu government lacks the necessary popular mandate to hold power. And the only way it believes it can overcome this deficiency is by soliciting acceptance and endorsement through bulk text messages. However, this approach will not work. Text messages promoting support for Tinubu cannot confer legitimacy on the illegitimate Tinubu government. Being an illegitimate government, it will encounter significant opposition and resistance from the public, political rivals, and the international community and institutions. This can lead to political instability, protests, civil unrest, and even violent conflicts among different groups in the country. Illegitimate governments typically lack recognition and support from both domestic and international actors, resulting in diminished legitimacy and credibility, which hinders effective governance. It may also impede international agreements, foreign aid, and diplomatic relations. Additionally, the government may face economic consequences due to a lack of investor confidence, reduced foreign aid or trade partnerships, and internal instability. This can result in economic downturns, increased unemployment, inflation, and a decline in living standards for the general population. Let us pray that the presence of an illegitimate Tinubu government does not lead to external intervention or efforts to facilitate a regime change. Such intervention could involve diplomatic, economic, or military measures aimed at removing the illegitimate government and establishing a more legitimate and stable leadership.

The toleration of injustices in Nigeria is giving rise to more injustices, leading to the ruin of Nigeria. During a public gathering at the Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, Dr. Tunji Braithwaite (may he rest in peace) stated that Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu did not declare war against his fatherland, but rather declared war against injustices in Nigeria. According to Dr. Braithwaite, Biafra symbolized the suffering of Nigerians who yearned for justice. Instead of confronting these injustices directly, we hypocritically sweep them under the carpet, pretending that time will heal the wounds caused by these injustices. Unfortunately, the passage of time has not managed to heal the wounds of injustices in Nigeria. Yesterday, they came for the Igbos and conquered them. This explains why an Igbo person cannot be the President of Nigeria. Today, they are coming for the rest of us, intending to massacre the rest of us. Who knows who they will conquer tomorrow? It seems as if we are helpless before them.

When President Buhari unilaterally appointed Prof. Yakubu as the INEC chairman, we remained silent. When Prof. Yakubu facilitated Buhari’s re-election in 2019, we kept quiet. And when the same Prof. Yakubu rigged the presidential election on February 25 2023 in favor of Tinubu, we also kept quiet.

Even before the presidential election on February 25, I wrote the following piece: “Those who are hopeful about the 2023 Presidential election should be reminded that as long as INEC is headed by Prof. Mahmood Yakubu and the Supreme Court is led by Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, it is not unlikely that another figure of nepotism will be imposed on Nigerians in 2023. The APC is already boasting that it will rule Nigeria for 32 years. I don’t think this is a joke; it is their dream. With the people’s complacency and reluctance to fight their battles, the worst citizens may continue to rule Nigeria for a long time.” Has this prediction not come true? Although Justice Tanko fled the Supreme Court after his fellow Justices leveled corruption charges against him, the Court remains unchanged under Justice Tanko’s successor. With this corrupt superstructure in place, I foresee the APC ruling Nigeria for 32 years. How? Tinubu will appoint his own man as the INEC chairman. His chosen candidate will secure his return to power in the 2027 presidential election. Afterward, the same person will facilitate the election of another APC candidate in the 2031 presidential election. In the Nigerian presidential democracy, the President who appoints the INEC chairman holds sovereignty, not the people.

By Martins Oloja

As we bid President Muhammadu Buhari and the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, a professor, goodbye till we meet again, it is fitting to ask the outgoing President an update on one not-so-popular but so-significant promise he didn’t fulfill to Nigerians and humanity: release of Ms. Leah Sharibu The Guardian, Nigeria had in 2019 tagged her as ‘A goddess of resistance.’

While reflecting the other day on possibilities in a verdict of history, our president had looked into the seeds of time and wondered if history would be kind to him as he was persuaded that he had tried his best. He should leave that to the judgment of history. But there is a sense in which we can claim today that history will be harsh to our outgoing president if he leaves office the morning after May 29 without proclaiming to the nation that he has fulfilled his 2018 promise on Citizen Leah.

And here is the thing, I haven’t been led to do a contextual reporting and analysis of the inauguration lectures and related activities today as there is a time for everything. As I had noted here on January 29, this year shortly before the 5th anniversary of Leah’s cruel abduction that it would be tragic for Buhari to leave Leah in captivity of the wicked. I had noted then that the oracle had nudged me on to raise a flag of appeal to our leader Buhari the Mauritanian authorities just then honoured as a ‘Peace Ambassador, who would leave office at the end of May, 2023.

MY appeal then: “Mr. President, on February 19, it will be five years since that daughter of Zion, Citizen Leah Sharibu was abducted by the wicked ones. Expectedly, on that day (February 19, 2023), there will be another round of activities to mark another dark day in our history of building our strange federation of complex diversity. That will be another day of diverse messages of solidarity and even condemnation for the authorities and indeed your presidency. It is not expedient for me to wait till that day to send this last appeal so that you can get it before the usual noises of February 19.

“What is more urgent, I just read your opinion in the media, in which you stated: ‘I have done my best, I hope history will be kind to me…’ Our dear President, this is very remarkable except to deconstruct it from one of the classics of Williams Shakespeare who notes, ‘the eye sees not itself but by reflection by some other things…’ Yes, you can claim to us that you have done your best within the context of the promises you made to us in 2015 and where we are today as a nation. The verdict of history is inescapable in the end. But one thing you need to do to make history to be kind to you is to work for the release of that daughter of yours, Leah before May 29, 2023. That is barely four months away. Many people believe that her heartless captors will kill her when you leave office. And as our own iconic Chinua Achebe would have written to you, do not allow the wicked ones to claim that you bear a hand in her death despite the fact that that girl regards you as a father, and your administration didn’t reach out to pay the terrorists what they allegedly demanded for her release. Your Excellency, may the good Lord who enabled you to be in the highest office in the land grant you the grace to deepen your understanding of why Citizen Leah should not be left to die in captivity where aid workers and rescued ones have consistently claimed that she (Leah) has been forced to renounce her faith as a Christian and marry a Boko Haram Commander by whom she has had two unwanted children in the wilderness of life.”

It will be recalled that in a 30-second video clip in Hausa, after seven months in captivity in 2018, the 15-year-old then appealed to the president for help and help for her agonising family. In the video, she pleaded: ‘I am Leah Sharibu, the girl that was abducted in GGSS Dapchi. I am calling on the government, particularly, the President to pity me and get me out of this serious situation…I also plead to the members of the public to help my mother, my father, my younger brother and relatives…Kindly help me out of my predicament…I am calling on the government and people of goodwill to intervene to get me out of my current situation. I am begging you to treat me with compassion. Thank you.’

Our outgoing President, recall the last testimony of Leah’s mother who merely responded to a media inquiry about the last time the family heard from you: “…When my daughter was taken away in February 2018, I did not hear from the government; I did not hear from anybody until seven months after. It was then that a video was released of her in a hijab. Boko Haram had released a video to say they had killed one health worker and they said the next person to be killed would be Leah. So, the Leah Foundation organised a world press conference in Jos. We asked the world for help because the next person Boko Haram said they would kill was my daughter. We said we had not heard from the government or anybody as a family and that, as far as we were concerned, we were calling on the international community to plead with the Nigerian government to take action. The night of the press conference, we got the attention of the government and the President called and spoke with me. That was the first time they (the presidency) got in touch with us.

“After speaking to me, he (President) promised that he would do everything possible to bring Leah back. Two weeks after, he sent three ministers led by the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, to us. He came to Dapchi with two female ministers. When they came, they told me the President had sent them with a very large delegation and the media to say that very soon, Leah would be found. In fact, when they came that day, we thought Leah was coming back because we had just spoken with the President two weeks before. But they just came to register their presence with us as Leah’s parents. They took pictures and it was all over the media that the President sent ministers. After that time, we never heard anything from anybody in the government until October 2020 when the Minister of Women Affairs (Paulen Tallen) came to Yola (Adamawa State) to pay us a courtesy visit. She told us that she had brought a message from the President, that the President was still working towards fulfilling the promise that he would rescue Leah. Since then, there has been no contact or communication…”

Our outgoing President, as I was saying, intelligence received on the status of Leah indicates that she has delivered a second child in captivity. There has been no rejoinder denying this unpleasant development even as diplomatic and intelligence sources have also confirmed. This is not a good news item of childbirth, in ay case.

‘The Guardian,’ Nigeria, had (on January 1, 2019), named Leah Sharibu as its 2018 ‘‘Person of the Year,’’ aptly describing her as “A goddess of resistance.” Remember this story too? To commemorate the March 21 third anniversary of the release of the Dapchi girls returned by their captors and “abandonment of Leah Sharibu,” a US group in its commemorative statement said, “until she is released, Leah remains a poster child and symbol of a failed state that can’t protect its children…” The group also lamented the “full-scale onslaught on education in Nigeria by Islamist extremists: Boko Haram wars against education; bandits mass kidnap of children in school; and religious violence against Christian mission school owners in Ilorin over hijab controversy.” These too are sad commentaries even as we are not talking about the more than 100 Chibok school children that the same Boko Haram insurgents have wasted since 2014. Our father and leader, I hope it is still clear that Leah’s father who hails from Adamawa State is a policeman, who was posted to Dapchi where his daughter was abducted. But they had transferred him to another beat at the time Leah was kidnapped. Does anyone feel how Leah’s family has been coping?

The words of the mother two years ago are still instructive: “…For us as a family, it is very painful; it is not something that is palatable. It is painful when a child is taken for three years and you don’t know anything regarding the child’s whereabouts. We are not happy as a family. I am not happy, her father is not happy and my son is not happy. We are in pain every day. She has just her younger brother, Donald. He is in school… My son has gone back to school, but every day I’m afraid; my mind is not at ease. But he has to continue with his education and people have supported us. The Leah Foundation has taken up his education. With that, he has to go to school, but every day, I am afraid. We are in deep pains. We are not happy. It is not something to be happy about…”

Mr. President, this is the summary of the reality we are checking: while 104 of Leah’s colleagues were released on March 21, 2018, five of the hapless girls died in captivity. Although, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed announced then that the 104 girls’ release was unconditional, the refusal of the terrorist group to release Leah since 2018 because she refused to convert to Islam questions this view, which buttresses some perception that the Federal Government’s negotiations through a back-channel led to the release of the girls.

So, it is indeed becoming inexcusable that the Federal Government has not been able to negotiate Leah’s release for five years. This may account for the resentments by various individuals and groups within and outside Nigeria as aptly captured in the earlier question posed by ‘The Guardian:’ “Mr. President, Where is Leah Sharibu?”

Mr. President, it can be repeated here that on Wednesday, October 3, 2018, you consoled and assured Leah’s parents that the Federal Government would do its utmost for the safety and security of Leah. You were then quoted as telling Mrs Sharibu: “I convey my emotion, the strong commitment of my administration and the solidarity of all Nigerians to you and your family as we will do our best to bring your daughter home in peace and safety.”

Despite your assurance to Rebecca Sharibu (mother of Leah), the Leah albatross still hangs on the neck of your administration Sir, as the girl is still held in captivity. Till the present, there has been no update on the plight of that unlucky girl and her whereabouts have remained unknown, five years on. Our dear President, as I have been saying here, this is an albatross that you should have removed from your neck before leaving for Daura tomorrow (May 29, 2023). As you fly over all the uncompleted road projects along Abuja-Katsina axis tomorrow, let your conscience be aroused by the Leah Sharibu conundrum as a strategic promise not kept, after all. Certainly, that failure has grave implications on the ticklish national question. Goodbye!

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

On 31 December 1983, Sani Abacha, then an unknown Brigadier in the Nigerian Army, went on radio to announce the overthrow of the elected civilian administration of President Shehu Shagari, claiming that the military had done so “in the discharge of our national role as promoters and protectors of our national interest” because of “the great economic predicament and uncertainty, which an inept and corrupt leadership has imposed on our beloved nation.”

The following day, Nigerians learnt that the new military regime was to be led by Muhammadu Buhari, a wiry Major-General with a reputation for asceticism, serving as the General Officer Commanding (GOC) the Third Division of the Nigerian Army in Jos. Commissioned into the Nigerian Army in January 1963 following training at the Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot, England, Buhari was not just the senior-most among the officers involved in the Coup, he was also the most experienced. His contemporary and would-be nemesis, Ibrahim Babangida, who emerged as the Chief of Army Staff, was commissioned eight months later, in September, 1963.

Buhari served out his tour of duty in the Nigerian Civil War in the Third Marine Commando Division (3MCDO) under the command of Olusegun Obasanjo. Alani Akinrinade was Obasanjo’s second-in-command in the last twelve months of the war after Head of State, Yakubu Gowon tapped Obasanjo to replace Benjamin Adekunle as the GOC 3MCDO in 1968.

Five years after the Civil War, on the 9^th anniversary of Gowon’s regime, Buhari was one of the officers who engineered his removal in a palace coup in July 1975. At the time, he headed the Transport Corps in the Nigerian Army. This was not exactly the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) of the Army but it gave a clue as to his duty schedule.

Following the coup, Buhari emerged as Military Governor of the North-Eastern State, with Maiduguri as his duty station. He was also a member of the Supreme Military Council (SMC). After the assassination of then Head of State, Murtala Mohammed, in February 1976, Olusegun Obasanjo moved up to become the Head of State and the position of second-in-command in the regime fell vacant. Buhari was one of the two candidates considered for the job.

On the recommendation of Theophilus Danjuma, a three-Star General and then the Army Chief of Staff, the job went to Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Buhari’s friend and fellow Daura native, whose political skills were considered more suitable for the demands of the position. Musa Yar’Adua, Shehu’s dad, was Chairman of the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) and later Minister for Lagos Affairs after Independence. Shehu may have learnt in his political family, life and leadership skills that the ascetic Buhari lacked. In the re-shuffle that followed, Buhari emerged as Petroleum Minister. His last successor in the position of Military Governor in Maiduguri before the military handed over power to President Shagari in October 1979 was one Tunde Idiagbon, a Lieutenant-Colonel.

When he became military Head of State at the beginning of 1984, Buhari appointed Tunde Idiagbon as his second-in-command. Forceful and unsmiling, Idiagbon so became the public face of the era that it came to be called the Buhari-Idiagbon regime. He remains unique as the only Nigerian military ruler who did not promote himself to a four-star General.

As a government, the Buhari-Idiagbon regime knew what it stood against but could not say what it stood for. It arrived with indiscipline as a single-issue diagnosis for the Nigerian condition but was unprepared to question or understand the causes of this symptom. Its prescription was a War against Indiscipline (WAI). Everything radiated from this core. As part of WAI, the regime through the Miscellaneous Offences Decree (No. 20) of 1984, made drug trafficking punishable by death, backdating the sentence by eight months.

When they were arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking at the end of 1983, Bartholomew Owoh, Bernard Ogedengbe, and Lawal Ojuolape, were 26, 29, and 30 years old, respectively. They were subsequently arraigned for felonies but Buhari retrospectively changed the crimes to capital offences triable by a tribunal chaired by a High Court Judge, the only civilian in a panel including four soldiers. In less than five minutes, on 8 April 1985, Buhari had all three men executed by firing squad, their remains poured into a hole at the Atan Cemetery in Lagos.

The gratuitous savagery of the executions framed the regime in public imagination. When, four and a half months later, on 27 August, 1985, Joshua Dogonyaro, a Brigadier from the pioneer intake of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), accused Buhari of “stubborn and ill-advised unilateral actions” whose tendency was to meet advice with resistance or to view it “as a challenge to authority or disloyalty”, no one shed a tear for him.

Retired prematurely from military leadership, Buhari was herded into regimental detention in Benin, where he survived what he believes was an assassination attempt when his cell was machine-gunned, eventually emerging to seek a return to power as elected civilian president. In three unsuccessful attempts over 12 years, Buhari proved that he could be fierce in pursuit of power; tenacious when the object mattered to him; adaptable as an opponent; and single-minded when he needed to be.

Three things could be said about the Buhari who survived all these to be elected civilian president. First, when he eventually succeeded in 2015, these characteristics did not suddenly desert him. Rather, he ran for the presidency on a prospectus for whose delivery he did not have skills in his repertoire. The Buhari who promised “Change” in 2015, was incapable of making it constructive. 30 years after being forced out of the military, he had not run a business, nor returned to school, nor authored a book, nor run a foundation, nor embraced statesmanship. The young people who powered him to victory had no interest in history lessons.

Second, on winning the presidency in 2015, Buhari arrived accompanied by a long memory bearing grudges from a lifetime of slights. Characteristically, his diagnosis of what ailed Nigeria had hardly changed from his last time in the position even if in his framing the problem had changed name. This time, he could not fall back on the regimental structure of the military and Tunde Idiagbon had died over 15 years before. To capture power, he had made deals with politicians of exactly the kind whom he would have sent to the firing squad on his first tour of duty. So, he sacrificed any hopes of progress on his single programme of eliminating corruption long before the votes were even counted.

Third, many of Buhari’s critics describe him as “clueless”, an adjective that falls into the error of under-estimating him. Buhari is capable of being acutely focused but only on things that matter to him. In 2015, only two things mattered: becoming president and, on getting there, preventing a repeat of August 27, 1985. As in 1984, Buhari arrived incapable of formulating governance in terms of an affirmative proposition: he defines himself with reference to what he is not or what he against. When the youths did #EndSARS, all he could see was “young people that wanted to march here and remove me.” His response was a history lesson: he asked soldiers to shoot them.

Godwin Alabi Isama, the son of Igbo Christian father from Delta and a Yoruba Muslim mother from Kwara, whose tour of the north in 1961 persuaded Buhari’s generation of Northern students to join the army, titled his account of the Nigerian Civil War “The Tragedy of Victory”. This could easily describe the life of Muhammadu Buhari at the most rarefied levels of political leadership.

Anyone who can achieve the leadership of his country not once but twice, first as soldier and then as civilian, is far from dumb or clueless. But leadership at the highest levels requires not just asceticism and discipline; it is also about coalition building and judgement behind affirmative propositions. Buhari has the former but lacks the latter. He is governed in visceral vernacular by his grudges which make him a compelling psycho-drama of a candidate; but those do not translate into a governance programme, which makes him a vacuous leader.

If Buhari’s second coming were to be summed up, it would be about the “harsh, intolerable conditions under which we are now living. Our economy has been hopelessly mismanaged; we have become a debtor and beggar nation. There is inadequacy of food at reasonable prices for our people….; health services are in shambles as our hospitals are reduced to mere consulting clinics without drugs, water and equipment.” These are exactly the reasons for which he overthrew Shagari at the end of 1983. We would never know what could have happened if the man had been willing to forego his grudges.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at [email protected]

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

The national honours award has indeed become a complete national embarrassment. The award has become synonymous with disrepute and abuse. Every year all sorts of names especially names of serving public officers including names of their friends and benefactors whose credentials and character are seriously questionable are churned out for a national award. As a result, the award has completely become an all-comers affair.

Instituted by the National Honours Act No. 5 1964, the national honour awards was originally aimed at rewarding Nigerians who have rendered special and outstanding services in their various areas of human endeavour to the benefit of the country. It is immaterial if the meritorious candidates are not members of the political class or connected with members of the political class.

But regrettably, over the years the national honour awards in Nigeria have become an instrument of political patronage. For example, perusing the 2009 National Honours Awards list, we find it difficult to understand why some political office appointees who have barely cut their teeth in office should be conferred with the 2009 National Honours Awards. Equally, we cannot understand why a former political office holder who was heavily involved in a large-scale public fraud should make the list of candidates to be conferred with a national award. Is fraud now a virtue in Nigeria to be rewarded with a national award?

There is no doubt that the Nigerian National Honours has lost its meaning and charm. Perhaps that explains why notable national figures like Supreme Court Justice Niki Tobi, former Petroleum Minister Tam David West, and former Director of Military Intelligence Haliru Akilu who got the 2009 national awards did not even bother to show up for the awards let alone send any representatives to the venue of the awards. A few years ago Professor Chinua Achebe also publicly rejected a national honours award for almost the same reason.

The most regretful aspect is that there are many unsung heroes and heroines in Nigeria who ought to be conferred with the national honours awards but their names are always excluded probably because they have no Godfathers in government to push their cases.

Therefore we agree with President Jonathan that the bar for selection of candidates for national honours in Nigeria should be raised. In a country in which the lowest common denominator of acceptable behaviour in public life keeps falling over the years, the national honours ought to be conferred only on a few distinguished citizens who would act as true role models for the Nigerian young. Bloating the national honours list in order to favour some friends of the government or promote party patronage or affiliation is, to say the least, a complete ridicule of the very purpose for which the National Honours Awards was originally set up. In the United Kingdom and other countries national honours are only conferred on a few distinguished citizens.

More importantly, we call for transparency and integrity in the processes of vetting and screening of candidates. The selection of candidates must not be left at the whims and caprices of a few State governors or political office holders. It is important that the government makes the selection criteria known to the public to allow inputs from willing members of the public. We urge the House of Representatives to fast-track the present member Bill pending before the House seeking that national honours nominees in Nigeria should be screened by the National Assembly and that past awardees who have been found unworthy of the awards should be stripped of them.

As originally conceived, the national honours award is an honour bestowed on a citizen for his/her achievement in any area of human endeavour. When the President confers the award on a citizen, he does so on behalf of the people of Nigeria. Therefore if the selection criteria for the awards are bastardized, then we are indirectly affirming that we are a people without honour and dignity.