From FeBuhari To A February Without Love (Alice In Naijaland)
What a difference six years make. This time in 2015, Nigerians were being sold a dream of FeBuhari.
We were being canoodled, wooed, betrothed, romanced, and sought after by the All Progressive Congress.
“FeBuhari,” they told us. A portmanteau of the Yoruba word for love or marriage, and their presidential candidate, General Muhammad Buhari.
As for all of us that warned that this was alliance would end in premium tears, we were called prophets of doom.
As much as the military is famed for creating disciplinarians, its record for producing statesmen is abysmal at best. Even when they create the occasional administrative success story, that isn’t the same as a worthy leader.
What it takes to be a leader and an administrator are not the same nor remotely similar. An administrator might keep the books balanced and the civil service well oiled, yet lack innovation, foresight, and understanding of what is needed to better the fortune of the state.
As for General Buhari himself, his antecedent in every ramification of government is extremely poor. In a country with a large number of bad leaders to have governed us, General Buhari still sticks out like a sore thumb.
His military administration witnessed the least amount of infrastructural development among its peers. The economy was so bad, it nosedived into a recession.
To escape the human rights violations of General Sani Abacha, all you had to do was step out of Nigeria. That wasn’t a guarantee of safety under General Buhari.
Those who laundered General Buhari’s image and reintroduced him to Nigerians as a reformed democrat should hang their heads in shame.
What they did is the equivalent of reintroducing an escaped survivor to an abusive ex. The same thing the governor of Benue State is guilty of.
The fact that the General Buhari led government is more interested in making a show of pardoning repentant militants, bandits, and kidnappers, rather than acceding the request of its peacefully protesting youths is more repulsively-puzzling than anything else.
Six years later, two recessions later, 110 schoolgirls kidnapped later, one Leah Sharibu later, the worst day under Goodluck Jonathan is looking like a paradise under Muhammad Buhari.
For all it’s worth, the Occupy Nigeria Protest led to the end of the Jonathan administration. The #EndSARS protest meanwhile is looking more like an end to every modicum of hope in Nigeria we had left.
And for all those who believed in “FeBuhari”, I hope this February you enjoy your Valentine with a memory of the loveless affair you have put Nigeria in.
Wilson Joshua is a Video Editor, Content Creator, and Creative Writer.
Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. @IJOSWIL
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