The setting was ideal, so was the time. It was
morning in Daura, Katsina State, and General
Muhammadu Buhari’s hometown. The sun was
readying itself to rise, with an eye peering through
the greyish northern sky to spy on the earth
beneath.
My contact had warned me to be there before
dawn and, like an ambusher, lie in wait for the
general to be up to do his morning ablution and
prayers. “He’s an early riser,” he had told me. But
he knows you are around and would attend to
you, ‘briefly,’ he had said, since you have come
from far away land and have been here for two
days already. But you must be here before the
loving masses start to amass. For, then, it would
be over. And he will be off to Kaduna today.”
When finally at about 6 am the lanky general
sauntered into the lounge, he had a warm smile
across his face, a bright white set of teeth
breaking through the lightly ajar lips. The thought
of how this mimics the rising sun crossed my
mind. But this is no time for idle reverie.
“Hello, Tunde,” the general said, “hope the vigil
has not been too long.” He smiled.
TF: “Congratulations, sir, on your victory.”
MB: “Thank you, thank you, but the victory is
everyone’s, and yours, or you didn’t vote for me?”
TF: “I did, sir.”
MB: “Then congratulations to you too. In another
15 minutes we shall be mobbed. So you are well
advised to be quick with your questions,”
(He sat down across to me, his mien suddenly
drawn and serious.)
TF: “Sir, fourth time lucky. Did you at any time
truly believe that this day will come, that
Nigerians will finally come round to voting you in
as their president?”
MB: I never do anything if I don’t have the
conviction that it is possible, if I give it my best.
My policy is never to give up — on anything:
people, the country, desire, anything. If I don’t
achieve the result I aim for, it should never be for
want of trying.”
TF: “But you gave up in 2011, literally, after your
third attempt and being rejected by Nigerians.”
MB: (Cuts in) “If I ‘gave up’ as you said, I
wouldn’t have allowed myself to be persuaded to
run again. And, I believe I was not ‘rejected by
Nigerians’ as you put it. If I thought I was truly
rejected by the majority of Nigerians and that I
lost fairly, I wouldn’t have gone through the
trouble of challenging the result in the tribunal. Be
that as it may, that is behind us now.”
TF: “Many Nigerians, sir, even those who hate
you…”
MB: “No Nigerian ‘hates’ me.”
TF: “Sorry, sir, even those who are against you,
recognise certain admirable qualities in you from
the experience of your time as military Head of
State, to which perseverance has now been
added. One of them is my friend Lawson
Omokhodion who held an unshaken belief that
only a Buhari can save Nigeria.
“In one of my columns in August last year titled,
‘Examining the Buhari Option,’ I despaired on the
prospect of the ‘Buhari Option’ (BO). If I may
explain sir, the BO is a romantic notion of a Gen
Buhari coming to clear the deck of corruption and
indiscipline in Nigeria, a la Jerry Rawlings in
Ghana, spearheading a ‘revolution’ as it were.
“My despair at the prospect was explained thus:
‘A civilian Buhari cannot do much amidst the
barracuda politicians we have without being
impeached, compromised, forced to resign, or
eliminated.’ I argued that even as a military
government, it didn’t take long before an internal
military putsch terminated it.
“My question sir, seeing, as Nigerians believe,
that your APC is the PDP in all but name —
comprising largely of politicians who are either
not different from or have migrated from the PDP
— how do you propose to go about your
‘cleansing’ of the systemic rot without being
consumed by the system in a manner akin to how
your military rule ended?”
MB: “Yes, I remember reading that your piece
which had an insightful beginning and middle and
a poor, very poor, and despairing conclusion.
(Laughter). You talked like one who has lost faith
in Nigeria and the Nigerian. I think you even said
something like you are sad or convinced that
Nigeria’s problem is unresolvable. And that things
will continue in the same ways for a long time to
come — unmitigated rigging by unpopular
incumbents to remain in power; corruption;
indolence; etc.
“But it hasn’t taken long before that premise of
yours was disproved, has it? For the first time in
Nigeria, an incumbent president was rejected at
the polls to continue in office, even in spite of
scattered attempts to keep to the rigging
tradition. It has reached a point that Nigerians
have had enough, and the majority truly yearns
for a country that is well run, an economy that is
structured and buoyant, a military that is capable
of defending their country, a judiciary the ordinary
man can repose faith in, institutions that are
structured, disciplined, and patriotic, and a
‘Fourth Estate of the Realm’ that is not brown-
envelope driven.”
(Laughter)
TF: “The colour of the envelope has changed, sir.”
(More laughter)
MB: “Tunde, on a serious note, a lot rests on the
leadership. People take cue from the leadership,
its body language, the matching of its utterances
with its actions; its transparency. Nigerians are
not by any yardstick different from human beings
all over the world. And I will not accept that we
are doomed to remain backward, undisciplined,
unproductive, corrupt, for life. No.
“For a start, I am publicly declaring my assets
from day one, and I am asking my deputy and
cabinet members to do likewise. If you can’t
abide by that you don’t take the position. Simple.
Then after that, the eyes of the world will be on
you and your dealings to see by how much your
declared assets have astronomically multiplied
while in office. The institutions of checking
against corruption will be strengthened and well
funded and headed by like-minded incorruptible
people. And, believe me, there are many out
there. Didn’t we just have a Jega of INEC? How
he has conducted himself throughout, in the face
of unspeakable temptations, would anyone have
believed of such a Nigerian in the past? When
Nigerians begin to believe in the leadership and in
the system, things will start to change and roll
spectacularly.”
TF: “But, sir, all this is sweet without considering
the anomalous system and structure underpinning
the whole wobbly edifice. Starting from the
National Assembly — its size, composition, and
nature — to the whole executive structure where
the number of ministers, special advisers, special
assistants, advisers to special advisers and
assistants to special assistants, etc. have meant
70 or more per cent of our revenue going to
paying overheads and recurrent expenditure. No
nation in the world develops with such crippling
load. Sir, with due respect, without figuring out
how to change all that drastically and
dramatically, it wouldn’t take long before you are
frustrated or booted out of office. And I am yet to
talk of the entire contradictory federal structure
that has brought the clamour for a ‘true
federalism’ or ‘fiscal federalism,’ and so on;
hence the call for a (Sovereign) National
Conference. How do you hope to deal with this
myriad of problems sir.”
MB: “The cynic in you again. Again, Tunde, I
believe in Nigeria and I believe the majority of
Nigerians want a change for the better. I believe
that when they see a leadership that is open,
transparent, progressive and purposeful, Nigerians
will support any action or step to reorder the
system and structure without necessarily bringing
the roof down on everybody. Yes, I agree with you
that the Legislature issues need to be addressed
and urgently. I will support a unicameral system
and will support reduction in size and
remuneration of the legislature and even the
executive.”
(Cuts in)
TF: “But, sir, you will not have the whole time in
the world to work some magic. Nigerians are
impatient lot, especially after the years of locust
they have just suffered. The honeymoon with you
and your government will not be for more than six
months when they would need to see visible
changes in the system or in their lives. I am
worried that…”
(Cuts in)
MB: “Don’t be worried for me. The job at hand is
for everybody to do. We will all have to join hands
and heads to bring the change we want about. I
am over 70 now and so I am not afraid to die. I
am ready to help bring about the change Nigeria
needs or die trying.”
(The noise around the house was increasing in
decibel by the minute. The crowd had begun to
mass and chant: “Sai Baba,” “Sai Buhari,” “Sai
Baba.” There was scant security to deter them.
We could no longer hear ourselves talk. General
Buhari looked at me in pity. “You have to go
now,” he said. “Perhaps another opportunity will
come in future for us to continue from where we
left.”
(The sun had risen out of the sky, its ray piercing
through my window blinds unforgiving of my
extended stay in bed. I woke up to the cacophony
of the menagerie in my garden. The geese were
gawking, the peacocks were neighing, the
cockerels were persistent in their morning alarm,
and my parrot had joined heralding the new
dawn. It was all but a dream. Sai Baba.
www.punchng.com/columnists/tunde-fagbenle-saying-it-the-way-it-is/conversations-with-buhari/

R

MY general Sir, My Presido!!


May God help u sir

Beautiful piece. What a sweet dream
I believed everything until the last paragraph
Wouldn't mind dinning with the GMB, in my dreams too

so it ws a dream, Buhari sounding very focus,intelligent nd confident in ur dream oooo
Sai Baba

No Nigerian hates me- Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.





That's my president!

Optimism at its best...

But I think we will need more than that to move forward...the forces against out nation will not be conquered by sheer optimism...

I'm sorry to say this..... IBB did a great damage to the development of Nigeria has a Nation by overthrowing the Government of Buhari back then... Maybe I won't have met a retrogressive Nigeria if Buhari had rule for maybe 8yrs then.

This man have passion for Nigeria!

Very Nice piece...