REFLECTIONS!

By Akaninyene Esiere

The Buhari Years (1)

In a way, Journalism is history in a hurry. The profession has “hurriedly” helped put together the history of the eight years administration of President Mohammadu Buhari. As to be expected, some of us may have forgotten about some of the significant events that have happened in the last eight years.

Soon, historians and other scholars will go back to the work of journalism to pen compendia on the regime for posterity.

Let me add to what journalism has already done. As this regime comes to an end in the next 14 days, a lot of X-raying from different quarters is going on. And, no matter the work of revisionists, history will certainly have its verdict on the eight years of the Mohammadu Buhari government.

At the core of defining the Buhari’s regime is this: here was a man who sought for power in 2003, 2007, 2011; and when he eventually got it in 2015, and eight years later, one has yet to find a spark.

Upon his inauguration as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29, 2015, he first tried to take us back to 1984/1985 where he left off as a military ruler. Jolted by the realization that this was a 21st century Nigeria and that the way things worked then would be dramatically different from now, he struggled to adjust. The first sign that he would stutter was when it came to the composition of the federal executive council. It took him six precious months to nominate the first set of ministers; and it was a lackluster team. By then, the economy that was beginning to do a yoyo had started nosediving.

Full disclosure: I was a diehard Buharist. In 2014/2015, I was one of those who vigorously supported the man, dreaming that the no nonsense, corruption-shy, war-against-indiscipline former military ruler would come turn things around in our country. Uncontrolled corruption and insecurity, accentuated by the kidnapping of over 200 Chibok Schoolgirls in April 2014 under the Johnathan administration, did not leave people like me with any option than to root out for Buhari.

And Buhari did not waste time in disappointing people like me! He made many promises during the election stump speeches which his government later denied. That is now beside the point. I will attempt to review his regime from the three prisms he has so graciously asked that his government be judged, and not on those campaign promises.

The three areas are: Security, Economy and Corruption. The fourth area which came into the basket later in 2022 is the conduct of the 2023 election. He vowed to give Nigerians a very credible and acceptable election. One wishes he didn’t make that promise!

So as not to detain us here, I will quickly dismiss the fourth promise because REFLECTIONS has written twice on it in previous editions. But suffice it to say that there are many who are still struggling to come to terms with the outcome of the last elections. For the first time in history, some people are in court, not to contest the outcome of the presidential election, but to ask that the man the electoral commission announced as the winner  should not be sworn in.

But before I delve into the three major areas he wants to be assessed, I must admit that this regime has been very liberal in terms of accommodating political opposition and in upholding press freedom. I can almost certainly say that it will not be the same under a Bola Tinubu regime, that is if the regime is sustained by the Supreme Court.

This is a two part article. The first part will focus on security while the next will be on economy and corruption.

Security:

For me, the easiest way to approach this issue is for one to answer the question as honestly as possible: if you have lived in Nigeria since 2014, do you feel safer now than you were in 2015? If you answer in the affirmative, you are certainly not living in Zamfara, Southern Kaduna, Benue, Niger, Imo, Katsina, Borno, Plateau, Sokoto States and one or two other states.

Most Nigerians would say they feel more unsafe now than they were in 2014. For some Nigerians, especially the southerners, they have voted with their feet seeking shelter in far flung corners of the earth just to stay safe.

Before the advent of the Buhari regime, insecurity was concentrated mainly in the three states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa where Boko Haram fighters wrecked havoc at will. True, there were pockets of kidnappings and herdsmen attacks in some other parts of the country, but not on a scale that we have now.

Today, much of the North West is ravaged by violence from bandits; and, sadly, the Boko Haram rebels have not been fully rooted out eight years after. Maiduguri, the sprawling capital city of Borno State, is a garrisoned territory while the other parts of the state are left to bear the brunt of attacks by the ultra radical islamists.

Bandits abduct people at will anywhere in the country. Kidnapping is a national phenomenon. During this regime, it has become part of what Nigerians have to live with; a normal abnormality on a national scale. Even Abuja, the federal capital territory, is not spared. Now children organize their own kidnap in order to fleece their parents! Schools, churches, mosques, markets, farms and just about any place are good places for kidnapping.

As a proof of the sophistication of these bandits, the other time, they went after a moving train conveying passengers from Abuja to Kaduna; killed a few people, kidnapped many. It took months and several millions of naira changing hands before the last set of the hostages could be freed.

Talking about Kaduna; the southern part of the state has never had it so bad. Even though there were security concerns since the 1980s (I remember the crisis in Zango Kataf and the subsequent arrest and trial of General Zamani Lekwot by the Babangida government), insecurity in the area in the last eight years has been the worst. There’s hardly a single month where people of southern Kaduna have not been attacked, kidnapped and killed by supposed gunmen; and their houses destroyed. In some cases, they set houses on fire along with the occupants. In fact, the State has a commissioner whose main job seems to be to count the number of dead people killed by armed gangs.

Apart from Southern Kaduna, the people of Zamfara, Niger, Plateau and Benue deserve our pity. They have come under frequent attacks and kidnappings by armed bandits and territorial herdsmen. Some of the weapons used by these non-state actors are more sophisticated than the ones used by our military men. Samuel Ortom, the governor of Benue State, ‘achieved’ perhaps just one thing in eight years: always yelling at Buhari to deliver his people from Fulani herdsmen who were killing the people at will. Due to the persistent attacks on the state, there is a huge internally displaced persons camp there. The other time, the camp was attacked too. You cannot understand what is in the minds of such attackers.

The South East, particularly Imo State is a theatre of instability. The police are killed with reckless abandon. Police posts are frequently attacked supposedly by unknown gunmen. There, everyone knows the group responsible for the killing of policemen and innocent civilians, but because in Nigeria the first thing that dies is the truth, we have agreed to lie to ourselves by calling them unknown gunmen. In the end, whether it is a police man or a civilian that is killed, the person bled kindred blood.

According to the Nigeria Security Report by Beacon Inte, 792 abductions took place in the first quarter of this year. That comes to a handsome 9 abductions per day. Nigeria is globally a High Risk Country, one with the second highest rate of terrorism. Nobody factors what that translates to in the cost of doing business in the country; and what a waste it is when you hear a governor say he’s going out to look for foreign investors.

Nigeria and Libya are said to account for 70% of kidnappings in Africa. The North Central (read Niger), North West and South East are the main culprits here. There is no state that has been spared this malady.

Kidnapping for ransom is not the only situation. Terrorist attacks are frequent. One will not forget the attack on a Catholic Church in Owo, a sleepy town in Ondo State some two years ago where 40 worshippers were gunned down.

The national security tracker has claimed that non-state actors have killed 4,545 people in the last few years. These are real human beings, so we don’t bury this in a statistical haystack. As I start to scribble this piece, looking at daily newspaper headlines is scary because of the number of reported violence against innocent civilians.

Perhaps over a trillion Naira has been spent on security while the situation grows worse. Of the hundreds of security attacks on Nigerians, the president rarely leaves Aso Rock to visit and succor victims even within the Federal Capital Territory. His reactions to those attacks are easily predictable: his media aides would issue statements condemning the attacks and assuring Nigerians perpetrators would be brought to justice. And then another attack, and then another cycle.

To think that we are being ruled by a retired army general and things are this bad from a security standpoint, is simply unimaginable. Now that his regime is coming to an end, government is no longer promising to root out insecurity during this regime. Instead, Buhari is asking Nigerians to forgive him. Forgive him for what? Doing all the right things the government defended?

And, as the curtain draws on this regime, most Nigerians will not miss the driver!

Esiere is a former journalist!