Obasanjo And Buhari’s Presidency

Last Tuesday, the President Muhammadu Buhari administration came under scathing criticisms from a former President of the country, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
In a special press statement entitled “The way out: A clarion call for Coalition for Nigeria Movement”, Obasanjo berated President Buhari for sinking the ship of the nation deeper than he met it.
The ex-president, in a barbed, caustic manner, catalogued some of Buhari’s failure to include weak knowledge and understanding of the nation’s economy and foreign affairs; shoddy handling of the herdsmen/farmers’ rift; nepotism and inability to discipline errant members of his nepotic court; lopsided prosecution of his anti-corruption war; poor understanding of the dynamics of internal politics that has led to disunity, and buck-passing and blame game.
The elder statesman, therefore, advised President Buhari to step down from the presidential horse in 2019, while also calling for a third force or newfangled coalition that should drive the change to draw the curtain on Buhari’s presidency.
The Tide is quite at home with President Obasanjo’s position. His press statement is a clear vindication of our stand on the state of the nation since Buhari’s administration came on board in 2015.
While we reckon with Buhari’s little achievements in the areas of fight against corruption and insurgency, increase in foreign reserves and blockage of financial loopholes, we consider these strides as not sufficient enough to salvage the country from the perdition and Gehenna to which successive (including his) governments have sentenced it.
In fact, the success recorded in the fight against corruption has been diminished by Buhari’s inability to sweep his regime clean of corrupt public officers, just as the wave of kidnapping and reckless killing of unarmed Nigerians by AK 47-bearing herdsmen has eroded the progress made in the fight against insurgency in the North East zone of the country.
Besides, the President’s incalculable failings in several other areas to wit: clannishness and kinship that place responsibility for governance in the hands of his unelected friends; round-tripping within the inner caucus of his presidency; perennial fuel scarcity; mass poverty in the country and his snail-speed approach to governance have, no doubt, wrecked more immensurable havoc on political and socio-economic life of the nation.
Obasanjo’s statement is, therefore, a vivid and incisive expression of disappointment and frustration of many Nigerians with the Buhari administration, and should serve as a wake-up call for the President to shed his regime of nepotism, cronyism and the influence of incompetent, inept and corrupt cabal.
Regrettably, we doubt Buhari’s capacity to perform beyond the present level, and therefore, support Obasanjo’s admonition to the President to dismount from the horse in 2019. His re-election can only be deleterious to the nation if not amount to sending Nigerians to a prison term of another four years.
Beside Buhari’s impaired health, strain of old age and lack of internal cohesion within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which have all combined to impair his performance and impede national development, the President himself is too lethargic and incorrigible to lead a modern and dynamic society like Nigeria.
Needless to remind President Buhari that the wild enthusiasms that heralded his presidency in 2015 is now at a low ebb. No thanks to a lull in virtually all sectors of the nation’s economy which has visited unsolicited hardships on Nigerians.
We, therefore, implore the President to listen to the voice of reason, resist the prodding of self-serving bootlickers and quit the stage when the ovation is loudest. Although, the President has the legitimate rights to recontest under the constitution, he has a huge moral obligation to take the path of a statesman and disembark on a perilous enterprise of a re-election.
Buhari’s place in history will be more assured only if he can resist the temptation of seeking a second term.