A COUNTRY AT A CROSSROADS

Save the period when Nigeria was embroiled in a bloody civil war between 1967 and 1970, it has never been troubled at any other time as it is troubled now. Nigeria’s many persistent but endless ills, which range from dire economic problem to security challenges, and from corruption to technological backwardness, have caused many a Nigerian to rue the ascendance of Muhammadu Buhari to the summit of political power in the Lugardian contraption called Nigeria. Before he became President of Nigeria in 2015, after he had tried unsuccessfully on some occasions, millions of Nigerians believed him to be the political messiah who will save the country from her economic woes, and set her on path of unity and rapid national development.

But before our eyes, President Buhari’s personality has unravelled, and his mystique of incorruptibility, ascetism, and fairness of mind demystified. So, then, we came to the bitter realisation that President Buhari is not the political Messiah we thought him to be. For example, it took him a considerable length of time to cobble an executive for the leadership of Nigeria. His tardiness and sloppiness in that regard boldly underlines his unpreparedness to govern the country. Elsewhere, political leaders, who are prepared for political leadership, have programmes of action ready before they’ll assume the mantle of leadership. And they would hit the ground running as soon as they receive the baton of leadership.

President Buhari’s tardiness in constituting an executive cabinet partly caused Nigeria’s economy to slip into recession; however, it slipped out of it, soon after. But has the APC-led government made efforts to diversify and shore up the economy so as to curb the high rate of unemployment and improve the living conditions of millions of Nigerians? That millions of Nigerians live below the breadline is a testament to the fact that our economy is troubled. More so, the depreciation in value of our national currency (naira) is an indictment of the federal government for its sloppy and ineffective handling of the naira.

But it is not only in the area of economic development that this government has scored an abysmal low mark. President Buhari has not been able to unite the people of Nigeria. Rather, his use of double standards in handling issues involving Nigerians from diverse ethnic groups and his recruitment of people into national security outfits in utter disregard of the Federal Character principles have deepened our ethnic and religious fissures. He has not hidden his intention regarding the enthronement of the Fulani political hegemony in Nigeria.

Has his lenience on his murderous Fulani compatriots not emboldened them to continue perpetrating the crime of homicide, destruction of other people’s farmlands, and rape? And the irrepressible Boko Haram insurgents have not let up in their abduction of school pupils and students for ransom. Surprisingly, the Boko Haram insurgents, who blighted the educational prospects of teenage girls by putting them in the family way, are being considered for pardon on the grounds that the insurgents have become repentant. Is that proposition not preposterous?

However, the APC-led government is using strong-arm tactics to squelch voices of dissent in the polity. And it has clamped down on such secessionists as Sunday Adeyemo (Igboho) and Nnamdi Kanu for their clamouring for the creation of the sovereign states of Oduduwa and Biafra.

The treatment of Igbo and Yoruba people vis-a-vis the Hausa/Fulani people by President Buhari has lent credence to the theory that islamization of Nigeria is afoot. So, the vituperations and outrage of Gov. Samuel Ortom against the inaction of President Buhari on the Fulani herders and farmers’ clash are understandable. It is doubtless that Fulani cattle herders, who live peripatetic lifestyle, have embarked on an expansionist move to take over the ancestral land of the natives in Plateau, Nasarawa, and Benue States. Benue state, for example, has become a river of blood. No day passes without gunmen ransacking villages and killing people in the state.

Chiedu Okoye, writerlyadichie@gmail.com