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Buhari for President.

Femi Meyungbe-Olufunmilade 26/12/2010
00:00:00

Muhammadu Buhari, from my father’s
mouth. That was at our country home in
Ijebuland in the early hours of 31
December, 1983. “There’s a coup,” my
father announced and jolted everyone
around into alertness. But I didn ’t
understand what a coup meant. So I got
curious, watching my father ’s lips for
explanation. Then came the clarification,
“ The army have removed Shagari and an
army officer has taken his position,” my
father announced further like a repeater
station of the BBC, the station from where
he picked the news from his world receiver.
Finally, he reported, “His name is Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari.”
I didn’t know who Buhari was then but I
was very happy about his accession for the
simple reason that the National Party of
Nigeria (NPN), the party of the deposed
president, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, had been
swept out of power. Though I was only 13
years plus in 1983, I was mature enough to
appreciate the fact that Nigeria was adrift
without vision or leadership under Shagari.
Prices of commodities were on an upward
spiral. My favourite Walls ice cream slipped
out of the reach of my daily school
allowance. And it was about that time I first
realized that people could buy cars, second-
hand. Hitherto all the cars bought by my
dad, friends, relations and friends were
brand new, freshly minted from the local
assembly plants of Peugeot, Volkswagen,
and Leyland or imported, if it were the more
classy type like Mercedes Benz. It was under
Shagari that my high school and sister
schools in Ibadan lost most of their
expatriate staff from Ghana and India. It
was at this time the economic recession
from which Nigeria has not fully recovered
till this day began.

So, I was indeed very happy with Buhari’s
accession. It brought hope of a new
beginning and better times. While the
Buhari government lasted, my expectation
of better things wasn ’t disappointed.

Prior
to this time, government, just as is presently
the case in many Nigerian states, had failed
woefully in rendering even basic,
elementary services. A veritable illustration
on this score was environmental sanitation.
Ibadan, the city of my birth, which I love
dearly, though I hail from Ijebuland, was 70
percent slum. It was only places like Bodija
Estates, Oluyole Estate, Moor Plantation, IITA,
Felele and a few others that were fairly
clean. The other areas were like refuse
dumps. Gege was so dirty that it soon got
the unenviable appellation of Gege oloorun,
meaning Gege, the foul-smelling place.
Kudeti, too, was such that could compete for
and win the world cup of slums. An Ibadan
man, Saidi Raufu, once told me that the
word “Kudeti” was a corruption of the
words of a British colonial officer, who, in
disgust, during an inspection tour of
Ibadan, described that part of the unwieldy
city as “too dirty!” As you may be aware,
we Ibadan people would not lose our teeth
in an attempt to pronounce oyinbo words
fluently. The stormy petrel of Ibadan politics
in halcyon times, late Chief Adegoke
Adelabu, who passed on in 1958, cannot
forget this wherever he is. The day the
cerebral lawyer forgot to come down to our
level and described a matter as a “peculiar
mess” in our hearing was the day we
nicknamed him Penkelemesi!

But lo and behold! Ibadan became a model
of cleanliness within three months of
Buhari ’s accession. That was not just
because a monthly environmental
sanitation exercise was introduced by
Buhari. In Ibadan, as elsewhere across
Nigeria, every blessed day was indeed an
environmental sanitation day. A piece of
paper found around your residence, shop
or office or whatever you called it attracted
a fine of N50 – a big sum in those days
when the naira was almost on par with the
British pound. Every shop-keeper had one
eye on her wares and the other on the
shop ’s ambience. Commercial buses carried
waste-paper baskets and over-loading in
those buses was a War Against Indiscipline
(WAI) offence.
The queue culture at points of service of
diverse hues became the vogue. I travelled
to Lagos and I couldn ’t believe what I saw:
Lagosians queueing for a bus still being
awaited! Hitherto, you hopped in or out of a
Molue while it was still in motion. You could
be old, frail, or pregnant, that was your
bloody business. The Lagos of yore was no
respecter of the weak. It was an “urban
jungle” as former President Obasanjo once
described it. But Lagos was as orderly as
Mecca under Buhari.
(contd.)

Let me digress to advise those who think
Buhari achieved all this simply because he
was a military Head of State. What about the
military leaders before and after him? The
man was simply visionary and committed.
Some traducers say it was his Deputy, Gen.
Tunde Idiagbon, that should take the credit.

I answer back by quickly saying Buhari was
smart then to have gotten a resourceful
deputy and even smarter to have stuck to
him till the end. Afterall, his successor got rid
of his own best deputy in a matter of
months. Yet, other hecklers say, well his
military governors in the various states,
then, obeyed his directives in pure military
fashion and he might not succeed in such
efforts as a civilian president. I advise them
to save their breath till 29 May, 2011. Where
there is a will there is always a way. You will
find that persuasion and pressure tools
abound with the central government even
in a federation to induce submission to a
good initiative nationally from top to
bottom. Watch out as President Buhari, in a
change of tactic as an astute general
running a democratic government, would,
for instance, co-opt the press in prosecuting
an ethical revolution, among other
transformative innovation from 29 May.

The West African parallel, except in
bloodiness, to the Buhari revolution was
Jerry Rawlings regime in Ghana. The only
snag in the comparison is that while
Rawlings stayed in power long enough to
institute lasting positive change that has
outlived his days in power in Ghana, the
Buhari effort was truncated midstream, no
thanks to the Babangida coup of 27 August,
1985. But God is a God of second chance.
On 8 December 2010, Buhari, by popular
demand, accepted to run again for
president via a public declaration in Abuja.
Nigerians have another opportunity,
therefore, perhaps for the last time, now
that it appears we might have credible polls
in 2011, given the assurances of President
Goodluck Jonathan and a confidence-
building Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC), to bring the Buhari
revolution back on course by voting him. Of
the lot aspiring to be president and
whatever his shortcomings, he is the best
that can tackle the cankerworm of
corruption that has undermined Nigeria’s
progress with the courage, sincerity, and
ferocity it deserves.

This is the time all those who are fed up
with the rot dogging this country and
desirous of a better country should rally
round Buhari. That is precisely what I am
doing in my own modest way by writing
this piece, which is coming straight from
my heart. Not because Buhari has paid me
or because I am sure I would have an
appointment in his government. On its own,
Buhari becoming president in 2011, is
enough reward for my effort. And I am sure
Buhari will succeed as president because he
is avoiding anything that will later
undermine his capacity to lead as
president.

Femi Meyungbe-Olufunmilade teaches
Political Science at Igbinedion University
Okada, Edo State. Email:
femiology@yahoo.com; Mobile:
+234-80-57345436

if he comes back with similar agenda we would see major developments within a few months.