In Defence of Muhammadu Buhari

by Deji Yesufu

The supporters of Muhammadu Buhari, the Nigerian President, are fast dwindling within the nation. The following, to a large extent, depict the progression of thoughts of many Nigerians on the President:

2015: Sai Buhari
2016: Chai Buhari
2017: Kai Buhari
2018: Change Buhari

In spite of the increasing disaffections with the President, a few people are still die-hard supporters of Mr. Buhari. I met one of them recently and I will endeavour in this piece to relay his thoughts on the challenges which the leader of Africa’s most populous country is facing.

At the start of our conversation, my friend tells me that he sees clearly that I have bought into the narratives of those who are bent on destroying the Buhari government with negative propaganda. I understood immediately what he meant.

In the past, he had warned me against being overly exposed to negative news on the Social Media about Buhari. He said that though the government cannot be explicated from a few faults, there is clearly a systematic attempt to paint the Nigerian government bad so that Buhari does not win re-election in 2019.

My friend tells me that men like Ayo Fayose, Femi Fani-Kayode and Deji Adeyanju are still smarting from the loss of the 2015 elections and these men are sponsoring negative propaganda to tarnish the image of Buhari. It is a perfect example of giving a dog a bad name so as to hang it.

Then I put it straight to my friend that though I am not one to be easily taken by such propaganda, I cannot but be outraged by the government’s inability to protect lives and property. My friend stops on his track and begins to lecture me.

“Is it today that Fulani Herdsmen began to kill people in this country; will you truly buy into the narrative that uneducated fulanis can actually handle sophisticated weapons to destroy lives and property in the magnitude that we see today; can you not see that it is very easy for detractors of this government to cash into the insecurity of the nation, kill people in their hundreds and blame it on persons from the President’s ethnic group?”

I was quiet.

My friend goes on to explain that the killings are clearly the failures of the Nigerian security system. And that these failures are not peculiar to the security system alone but to everything in the country.

As he explained this point, I remembered asking a medical personal why there is such an increase in the mortality rate in our public hospitals, following incidence of accidents; as against years past when people were brought almost dead to the hospitals but were almost always revived. I could identify with this scenario because my own mother had a ghastly motor accident on the old Oyo Road, coming from in Ibadan, in 1981. She was the only person recovered alive from the accident scene and she lived another 25 years after that accident.

The doctor I was discussing with, a senior consultant in a public hospital, explained to me that the whole decadence in the Nigerian system has also affected the hospitals. He told me that in those days public hospitals had enough funds to take care of patients but that when things got bad in the country, government instructed hospitals to ensure that patients pay for their bills before they were treated. This was the beginning of the decadence that has now spread to other ways in which medicine is practiced in the country.

So when my friend told me about the decadence in the security system, I could understand his position.

Then he said that there was a committed campaign to malign Buhari in the Social Media. He showed me a WhatsApp message where somebody quoted the Nigerian land mass in kilometer-squares. Then this person quoted the proposed land mass for cattle colonies in hectares.

Then this person took a ratio of the two and came to the conclusion that the government was going to be giving a third of the whole country’s land mass to the fulanis for cattle rearing. This person, who sent this message, which had apparently gone viral, carefully avoided the fact that he was taking a ratio of kilometer-squares to hectares. Most of the people who will read this text will simply conclude that the government is giving a third of Nigeria to Fulanis; they will not see the error in the ratios of the units used.

Then my friend said that when he voted Buhari, he felt that Buhari as one person could influence a change in Nigeria. But what is clear to him now is that the Nigerian trouble is beyond what just one man can fix. The reason being that Nigerians themselves are their own enemies. We are the architect of our own misfortune. Nigerians will not do the right things in their private walk but they want government to fix everything for them.

On a final note, my friend refers me to another powerful block in the Nigerian polity that is against Buhari. It is the top echelon of Pentecostal Church leaders in this country. My friend reminds me of how these group of persons had benefited illegally from the Jonathan government – many of them enjoying tax wavers from the federal government on their numerous imports of construction materials for their never ending church buildings.

I informed my friend that this set of pastors had actually not supported Buhari on the eve of the last elections. They had gathered together at the Redeemed Camp and had told the then aspiring Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, that they and their church members will not be voting for Buhari. The Buhari/Osinbajo team went on to win the elections and these pastors were silenced. The patronage they use to enjoy at the seat of power ceased immediately.

My friend then tells me that these pastors are also at the root of a campaign of calumny against Buhari.

My friend does not absolve Buhari of blame but he showed me that the President’s motives are at least not driven by greed and gain, as it was in the former political dispensation in this country. While my friend is not enthusiastic about voting Buhari, he insists that there are still no alternatives to him in the coming 2019 elections.

What exactly then is my reaction to all that my friend has said in defence of Buhari?

Buhari’s introductory remarks to Nigerians, a statement which in recent times seem to be at odds with Mr. President’s actions, was that he was not for anyone while at the same time he was for everybody.

In the same way, my political persuasions in recent times is neither against Buhari nor is it for him. My commitment is simply to see good governance manifested at every political level in this country. My desire is that equity, justice, transparency and truth reign in the Nigerian polity until the good of the land reaches every ordinary Nigerian on the streets.

The victory of the 2015 elections was not a Buhari victory par se; it was the victory of the Nigerian electorate over nepotism, rigged elections and corruption. In that year’s Presidential elections, Nigerians voted out an incumbent because they considered him inept, corrupt and unsuitable for office.

Nigerians voted in Buhari, not because they were confident Buhari will excel but because they needed a breather for another chance. Muhammadu Buhari, though President of Nigeria, is the servant of the people. His primary responsibility is to safe guard the lives and properties of the people.

Regardless of the failures of the security system in the country, as commander in chief, he must bear the responsibility of the actions and inactions of his security apparatus. If the person Nigerians voted for to provide them security cannot do this, Nigerians have the right to vote someone else into office come 2019. And this they can do as they will simply replicate what they did in 2015 in the coming presidential elections.

Having said that, all Nigerians must realize that the destiny of this nation is a collective pursuit. While the President has his responsibilities, his success in office cannot be divorced from the duties of every Nigerian in whatever sphere of influence they operate in.

In conclusion, my friend said this, and I agree with him, that if Nigeria is presided over by an angel and most Nigerians decide to behave like devils, our country will not be delivered from the hell hole it has found itself in.

In other words, the success of this country is a collective one; it is not just the responsibility of the President alone.

source: http://mouthpiece.com.ng/in-defence-of-muhammadu-buhari/

CC: Seun, Lalasticlala, Mynd44

Hum

"Ayam not understanding"

Deji Yesufu

Another afonja Muslim always ready to defend their Fulani masters and their cows

As a die hard buharist, it's getting very difficult to defend president buhari, as much as I have made up my mind to follow PMB to the end,but the president is making it easy for his critics to destroy whatever good work he has done.
There re things the president must do asap,
1) He must make an example of those fulani herdsmen,it's been almost a month since those killing and they haven't arrested any fulani herdsman,haba
2) Buhari is nepotic,he is very comfortable in the midst of northerns,the man is the president of Nigeria,not the north,for every northern he appoints,he must match with a southerner
I will vote for PMB in 2019, but I believe buhari's biggest problem was coming to power without an agenda, up until when tinubu joined buhari, his most intelligent personnel was EL-RUFAI, buhari's crowd can't move Nigeria forward, he has appointed all his inner caucus,the man should begin to look outside of his small inner circle if he wants to move this country forward

GOD BLESS PMB,GOD BLESS NIGERIa

okoyemekun:
As a die hard buharist, it's getting very difficult to defend president buhari, as much as I have made up my mind to follow PMB to the end,but the president is making it easy for his critics to destroy whatever good work he has done.
There re things the president must do asap,
1) He must make an example of those fulani herdsmen,it's been almost a month since those killing and they haven't arrested any fulani herdsman,haba
2) Buhari is nepotic,he is very comfortable in the midst of northerns,the man is the president of Nigeria,not the north,for every northern he appoints,he must match with a southerner
I will vote for PMB in 2019, but I believe buhari's biggest problem was coming to power without an agenda, up until when tinubu joined buhari, his most intelligent personnel was EL-RUFAI, buhari's crowd can't move Nigeria forward, he has appointed all his inner caucus,the man should begin to look outside of his small inner circle if he wants to move this country forward

GOD BLESS PMB,GOD BLESS NIGERIa

Am with u on this

What then.
Shall we continue with buhari till 2023 or we should continue in corruption.

VBCampaign:
In Defence of Muhammadu Buhari

The following, to a large extent, depict the progression of thoughts of many Nigerians on the President:

2015: Sai Buhari
2016: Chai Buhari
2017: Kai Buhari
2018: Change Buhari

Gbam

cc sarrki alariwo2 alariiwo amarabae yarimo lzaa ngeneukwenu

imhotep:

Gbam
cc sarrki alariwo2 alariiwo amarabae yarimo lzaa ngeneukwenu

so true

imhotep:

Gbam
cc sarrki alariwo2 alariiwo amarabae yarimo lzaa ngeneukwenu

so true

Your friend is a zombie

okoyemekun:
As a die hard buharist, it's getting very difficult to defend president buhari, as much as I have made up my mind to follow PMB to the end,but the president is making it easy for his critics to destroy whatever good work he has done.
There re things the president must do asap,
1) He must make an example of those fulani herdsmen,it's been almost a month since those killing and they haven't arrested any fulani herdsman,haba
2) Buhari is nepotic,he is very comfortable in the midst of northerns,the man is the president of Nigeria,not the north,for every northern he appoints,he must match with a southerner
I will vote for PMB in 2019, but I believe buhari's biggest problem was coming to power without an agenda, up until when tinubu joined buhari, his most intelligent personnel was EL-RUFAI, buhari's crowd can't move Nigeria forward, he has appointed all his inner caucus,the man should begin to look outside of his small inner circle if he wants to move this country forward

GOD BLESS PMB,GOD BLESS NIGERIa

Spoken like a true ewedu guzzling afonja

Mohammad "Shithole" Buhari is a bastard. End of story.

okoyemekun:
As a die hard buharist, it's getting very difficult to defend president buhari, as much as I have made up my mind to follow PMB to the end,but the president is making it easy for his critics to destroy whatever good work he has done.
There re things the president must do asap,
1) He must make an example of those fulani herdsmen,it's been almost a month since those killing and they haven't arrested any fulani herdsman,haba
2) Buhari is nepotic,he is very comfortable in the midst of northerns,the man is the president of Nigeria,not the north,for every northern he appoints,he must match with a southerner
I will vote for PMB in 2019, but I believe buhari's biggest problem was coming to power without an agenda, up until when tinubu joined buhari, his most intelligent personnel was EL-RUFAI, buhari's crowd can't move Nigeria forward, he has appointed all his inner caucus,the man should begin to look outside of his small inner circle if he wants to move this country forward

GOD BLESS PMB,GOD BLESS NIGERIa

If the quotes below are the appraisal of Buhari by these two people long before now, then what more are your expectations?

Exactly how do you people make personal decisions?

A

"... Tinubu admitted that... Moreover, Obasanjo is the only candidate who stands a chance of blocking his rival, General Muhammadu Buhari, whose ethnocentrism would jeopardize Nigeria"s national unity. Buhari and his ilk are agents of destabilization who would be far worse than Obasanjo. Tinubu and many other governors are therefore implementing a strategy to re-elect Obasanjo, partly in an effort to prevent Sharia from spreading." - Wikileaks 2003

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/03LAGOS369_a.html

B

"Mallam El-Rufai wishes to remind General Buhari that he has remained perpetually unelectable because his record as military head of state, and afterwards, is a warning that many Nigerians have wisely heeded. His insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity and his parochial focus are already well-known." - Nasir El Rufai, 2010

http://saharareporters.com/2010/10/04/el-rufai-buhari-should-stick-facts