Dear President Buhari, Before You Step Down, Step Up

Dear Sir,

You are without doubt an enviable man for so many glaring reasons. One of which is that you have ruled and led the giant of Africa both as a military general and twice as a democratically elected president of this great country Nigeria.

As a military head of state in 1983 with your extremely effective second in command, late Col Tunde Idiagbon, you tried to instill sweeping reforms in the nation, especially your war against indiscipline. Your administration then just like others before and after you had its ups and downs until you were removed in a coup, though you yourself came in through a coup in 1985.

Fast forward to 2003, after the end of military rule in Nigeria and the reentrance of democracy in its place in 1999, you sought to lead the country again through the nascent democracy and people were wondering if you had an unfinished business in Aso Rock which you could not relinquish.

You lost the 2003 presidential election, yet you tried again in 2007 which you also lost and it was the same story for you in 2011 as you were edged out again in a keenly contested election.

Viola, in 2015 you won on your 4th attempt, a commendable lesson on resilience from you to the records of history. You came back to power with possibly only one baggage – an anticorruption Tsar. Pundits did not really expect you to do much other than fight corruption which was and is still believed to be the root cause of Nigeria’s many problems alongside disunity. Not many expected you to tackle education crisis, perform economic wonders or lead a tsunami of ICT development, if you could just tackle corruption every other thing will fall in place.

After you were sworn in on the 29th of May 2015 and you gave your legendary speech of “I am for everybody and for nobody”, it took you about 6 months to form a cabinet, this and other issues at that time made people call you “Baba Go Slow”. It is believed in some quarters that you and your party the APC did not expect to win the 2015 general elections which was why the APC administration appeared to be at loss many times as to what to do with power and administration.

Experts and novices alike have relied on what they call body language to at least keep abreast with your moves for a major part of your leadership, something that can be seen as poor communication and yet a strategic one. You suffered or enjoyed the lot of leaders before you – the cabal phenomenon. Yet you put a special spin around your own type of cabal; the one-man cabal. In your military era it was Idiagbon and as a civilian it was purported to be your late chief of staff, Abba Kyari, though there were others in the background.

Among the many promises you made to Nigerians, from improving the strength of the naira against the dollar, to fighting corruption and insecurity, building infrastructure, reducing unemployment, etc. it appears only did much in the area of infrastructure, thanks to your minister Rotimi Amaechi.

In fact, in so many instances, the areas you promised to work on turned out worse when compared to the PDP era. Naira lost more value, unemployment and poverty increased, insecurity worsened, ASUU was on strike for 8 months. It then seemed as if you are a conman, defrauding millions of Nigerians, but those who know you say your integrity is unquestionable, this is believed, but then what happened to your administration. You may need to do a sincere deep introspection.

One clear extreme to which your administration went was in the appointment of government officials to top posts; you redefined nepotism. The records are there, you favored the North in an unprecedented ration for a federal structure like Nigeria. The best explanation that can be given to this is that you were in search of loyalty from your appointees, but who told you that southerners couldn’t be loyal to you. Or is it the psychological trauma you suffered from the coup which ousted you as a military leader, was that coup not carried out by northerners. Loyalty is not as forceful as interest in politics, imagine what the northern governors did to you in the matter of the naira redesign, telling Nigerians to go against your order, these were men who worshipped you before now, all of a sudden they threw the Lame Duck garb on you in full glare of Nigerians with reckless abandon.

After 8 years in power you will be handing over to a new administration in about 3 months from now, some say it is not a long time, yet 24 hours means a lot in politics. The question is; are you satisfied? Has the hunger which pushed you to power after many attempts been satiated?

Let these coming months be the hardest you work, to check contracts you awarded and their performance, heal wounds, check on those awaiting justice, sweeten sour relationships through diplomacy, both in Nigeria and abroad (even if you have to travel out for a month, you have a capable vice president who can stand in for you). Even if you can’t clear your large table, at least clear your mind and heart in these final moments.

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