Buhari, Nigeria and the Nigerians of today.

By Ganiyu Ayanniyi M.

Nigeria is regarded as one of the Africa great nations which is expected to lead other fellow African and non African countries by examples. But, is the nation showing her great resourceful prowess by leading herself and other nations ? That is what many people ask "Where does the greatness of Nigeria now lies ?"

Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari had faced and still going through a lot of criticism both at home and abroad in which some lead to appraisals or condemnations that fuel to being "hate speech" when turnout hot.

Buhari's policy is seen as many as being silent through voice but louder through action. This is to say that Buhari is a man of few words but full of actions which might be positive or negative.

BUHARI'S NEW KYARI, PROF. GAMBARI.

It is no longer breaking that Prof. Agboola Gambari, a native of Ilorin in Kwara state, is the new Chief of staff of President Muhammadu Buhari. The new chief of staff, who is in his seventies (70+) as well as President Buhari, replaces Abba Kyari that died on the 17th of April, 2020 at the age of 67 as it was reported. The new CoS was official sworn in by Buhari on the 13th of May, 2020. It can be recalled that Prof. Gambari had also served as Minister of External Affairs when Buhari was Head of state from 1984 - 1985.

The opinion of some Nigerians is that the man is old for the job while some buy the idea that the man is fit since he had served in different places, nationally and internationally.

According to Yemi Alade, a popular Nigerian artist, reacted to that through her tweet as thus "75 years old as Chief of staff. God save Nigeria".

SECURITY: THE FIGHT AGAINST BOKO HARAM.

The Nigerian Army and President Buhari had been slammed by the public in the recent time of April after the republic of Chad gained ground in fighting the Boko haram around the lake chad. This development was made known in April by the Chadian Spokesman Azem Bermenda Agouna that less than 60 Chadian soldiers were killed by the terrorist group while on their part they executed more than 1000 terrorists and recovered huge weapons through an operation launched on March 31. This brave ambush on Boko haram which was led by the Chadian president Idriss Déby Itno, a military oriented, gained international stance as many people think Chad did great compared to Nigeria which had seemed to have relented on her battle against terrorism. Though Nigeria is respected for her current and past military might in West Africa (ECOMOG) and other part of Africa, like Liberia etc, in assuring peace.

Since then, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, Chief of Army staff of Nigeria, instructed his relocation to the northeast to redefined the fight against Boko haram.

It is assumed all these developments had been yielding positive results since Shekau, the leader of the terrorist group Boko Haram, was rumoured to had voice out in two different audios that he would like to surrender to the right authority and recently in the early of May, he announced while crying that the Nigerian armed forces are hitting hard on him and his men, terrorists.

Nigerians reacting on that want the Shekau dead for the pay of all his atrocities while the Nigerian army claimed that he would be received  if he raises the white flag and frees the dove.

ECONOMY: CLOSURE OF BORDERS.

In August 2019, President Buhari administration ordered the closure of all the Nigerian borders. It was believed that this decision was taken in order resuscitate the economy, by encouraging locally made goods, especially agricultural products and also avoid smuggling of arms, cars etc. 

This development was countered by some people that Nigerian borders need not to be closed since Nigeria and the rest of ECOWAS signed agreement of free movement of ECOWAS citizens. In other way, some now give credit to the Buhari led administration for the increase income it caused, promoting and encouraging local farmers & producers, and reduce the influence of smuggled goods into the country. More so, in this time of corona virus, the worldly ravaging pandemic that led the world economy to doom, closure of border avoided import of foreign goods, especially rice which would have had a lot of negative effect on Nigeria since almost all nations closed their borders and suspended some business operations.

CORONA VIRUS IN NIGERIA.

The cases of Coronavirus (Covid-19) in Nigeria continue to rise since President Muhammadu Buhari announced the step by step relaxation of the lockdown through his broadcast of 27th of April, 2020. The Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), in the late hours of Wednesday 13th May 2020, released its daily update on Covid-19 which informs that the nation's confirmed cases had increased to 4,971 with 1,070 recovered patients and the number of fatalities increased to 164. Lagos state remains the epicentre of the pandemic with 2,041 confirmed cases with 528 recoveries and it's followed by Kano state with 707 confirmed cases.

It is gathered that some Nigerians don't believe that corona virus truly exists in Nigeria even though a top profiled associate of Buhari, Abba Kyari: the deceased chief of staff to President Buhari, died from complications due to Coronavirus.

In an interview with a Nigerian student, Muaz, believes the Covid-19 cases are over hyped as he opined thus: 

"Corona virus is not real in Nigeria. They  (politicians) are Sakamashe nah (They are scammers). They want to embezzle money and they want to make it real to the people. So, they need to strategize very well".

In addition, many Nigerians as well as the HIM Ooni of Ife, Ojaja Ogunwusi, who stands as the spiritual father of all Yoruba at home and in diaspora who is also Co-Chairman of the National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria opined that Nigeria should make use of herbal mixtures. He attested the africana mixtures (remedies) to be efficient on Covid-19 patients. This made his team working on the herbal mixtures to associate with medical scholars in Afe Babalola University to ensure the provision of drugs and vaccine particular to Covid-19 and all other problematic diseases.

This proves that Nigeria is ready to follow the part of Madagascar who boasts as the first African country to have found a remedy to Coronavirus that she named Covid-Organic derived from herbal mixture.

CORRUPTION: EFCC AND ABACHA LOOT.

The Economic and Financial crimes commission (EFCC) under President Buhari is lauded for doing great in prosecuting financial criminals and bringing them to book. This commission had helped the nation in recovering billions of naira. 

Recently, in the early hours of 12th May 2020, one of the news topping the headlines was that two Chinese men were involved in bribing one EFCC official with the sum of 100 millions of Naira to maneuver their probe. 

Despite EFCC getting appraisals, some Nigerians feel the commission is not doing well by not investigating some men of the opposition party, APC.

Furthermore, many Nigerians are excited when they do hear some portions of the Abacha loots are being recovered by the government. Some believe that Abacha didn't loot but saved money for future in case if Nigeria is in need as a good father does for his children. 

According to Femi Falana, a Senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), an interview on Channels Television, on Wednesday 6th May 2020. Falana opined that: “first of all, this fund was stolen from the federation account in the Central Bank of Nigeria. So, if the money is going to be returned, it’s being repatriated, it has to go back to the federation account. The money does not belong to the Federal Government alone; it belongs to the three tiers of government. If money was taken from the federation account, taken away, and is being brought back, it must go to the federation account for sharing by the three tiers of government. So, it cannot be spent alone. The money cannot be used for funding the budget of the Federal Government alone. So, that is number one.

“Number two, the United States of America has no right under our law to dictate to us how to spend our recovered money. It was insulting, and embarrassing on the part of the Buhari administration to have accepted the insult. The Federal Government should have told the American government how dare you; this money was stolen from our country, taken away and kept for 20 years, 20 years, nobody is talking of interest; nobody is talking of penalizing the banks that kept the loot. But as far as the law is concerned, this money does not belong to the Federal Government, so it cannot be used by the Federal Government alone”.

The renowned lawyer insisted that “If the Federal Government wants to use the money to fix some roads, so be it; that’s good enough. But the Federal Government must be prepared to refund the part of that money belonging to the state governments and local governments in accordance with the revenue allocation sharing formula”, cautioning that “If the Federal Government goes ahead to use the money, that would be against the provisions of the constitution because the Federal Government cannot deploy money, cannot spend money without appropriation. So, we expect the Federal Government to have an appropriation because money has been budgeted for the Lagos/Ibadan road. If the money can no longer be found, you now want to deploy other funds, there has to be appropriation. There has to be accountability”.