Sometimes, democracy shows contraptions that can only be given an acceptable substructure of meaning by the power of mysterious reasoning. Let’s speak truth to power now. The stock of ‘blessings’ this Fourth Republic democracy has provided for our circumstances as Nigerians is greater than can be hidden under the bushel.
For example, in our strange democracy, backed up by indolent legal interpretations, Nigerians have in history earned the awareness of one personality, a prisoner either of or not of conscience who was picked, while still tenuring in the prison yard, to be voted as President. Party and power-driven cabals acted in concert to achieve this.
His choice by those who went for him was not established based on the seat of any campaign promises or visible preparation to be President. Jesters selected and dragged him, slithered into winning the election, and no legal ding-dong could revert the cabals’ joint intention to make a king out of an elephant in 1999. They knew who they wanted, and since Nigeria was like their corporate property as if for keeps, any rantings made by a non-member of their confederacy for a change to the norm were only as loud as graveside laughter.
Not only did this incident appear as anathema but a mystery, coming first in Nigeria’s history. Do you wonder why the cabal-made President turned out a woeful report card after eight uninterrupted years in power? Did he prepare to preside over anybody?
It became a wonder of correspondence when another man in prison, who never ran any electioneering campaign nor went through any conventional regulation of security examination, won the election into the Senate in Nigeria. He won his votes while in Agodi prison! This is publicly confidential and may not be good to discuss here, but you can ask Sen. Iyiola Omisore.
The man left the Senate only to become a preyed species sought after by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC
Why would his Ife political constituents issue a query for non-performance to the gentleman of no fundamental principled distinction for party ideology? Did he plan for any lawmaking in the Senate?
Let’s move up. Nigerians knew how Chief Olusegun Obasanjo installed the late Mallam Musa Yar’Adua as his successor. Through the latter’s holy confession, we noted truly that the results of the election upon which he was sworn in to rule Nigeria were flawed. It was a near-fetched intelligence that Obasanjo only installed an accolade, paying the piper insofar as he would call the tune.
Then came a man whose luck was legendary. The trailing history behind his name has been a bold revelation that confirms the spiritual strength in a name: Goodluck Jonathan. Not everyone, especially non-Christians, can tell what Jonathan as a name means, but nearly everyone knows good luck is the opposite of Bad luck or misfortune.
True to his name, Goodluck Jonathan became favoured as political functionaries ranging from a state commissioner to deputy governor, governor, vice president, and President. He became the President according to the law after the death of his principal, Yar’Adua, not according to his prepared intention.
Buhari eventually wrested power from his predecessor after his (Buhari) fourth attempt. He got the baton without controversy. Even when one Orubebe was acting a drama in public glare to truncate the process of making a new president, the will of God and the masses stamped him out.
The Daura cattleman, Buhari, mounted the saddle for an uninterrupted eight years, as did Obasanjo, only to leave the country with wrong apprehensions of heartbeats. Mention it. Bad and if not ‘bader’ state of the economy in such a way that the Naira became a barren entity, truly in the global economy.
Buhari left the country with a murky slate of insecurities, clipping all aspects of national existence. He left some fine records of infrastructural development, though he aptly represented all imaginable woes betide a nation.
Buhari didn’t set a priority, thus exposing himself in a visible state of mix-ups as a careless and confused index of nepotism. All praise is due to Pastor Tunde Bakare, who told us in his sermon to his Church congregation that the sacred confluence of voices spoken to restructure Nigeria for a good economy, security, physical appropriations, federalism, and so on only resonated in Buhari as staccatos of rebellion to his reign.
Buhari did well in his career, and he was appointed a military commissioner in the earliest responsibilities of his duties. He was sure a performer when appointed a military governor of Kaduna State. He was sure a fine, patriotic, and corporate Nigerian military man when he was invited to take charge as the head of state in 1983.
In the days of despot, Gen. Sanni Abacha Buhari was appointed the chairman of an important board, the Petroleum Trust Fund Development Board. He got there on merit and merit, too; at an old age, Nigerians voted him their President, making him the steward of public governing authority. But sadly, he crashed out of goodwill from Nigerians as a failed president at an age when he may never have the opportunity to redeem his image ever again.
