Ardo: Nigeria Drifted Into a Failed State Under Buhari

Social Democratic Party’s candidate in the 2023 governorship election in Adamawa state and a former close associate of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, Dr Umar Ardo, in this interview with Chucks Okocha said the eight-year administration of Buhari was a monumental disaster to the Nigerian nation.

You once claimed to have been  responsible for former President Buhari’s victory in 2015. But President Bola Tinubu and former Governor Nasir El-Rufa’i, also made such claim. What’s your story?

President Buhari contested presidential elections three times and lost in all. Feeling dejected, he cried publicly on April 13, 2011 and said he won’t ever contest again if he lost the 2011 presidential election.

On April 16, we went to the polls to elect the president and on 18th Attahiru Jega, INEC Chairman announced that President Goodluck Jonathan won the election.

Based on his 13th April avowal, it was over for Buhari. It was I that then approached and convinced him to accept my blueprint for the formation of the APC and contest under its platform again, and allow me organize and drive the process.

He accepted and allowed me do as I proposed, and he played every role as assigned. It was me that showed him the indispensable role of President Tinubu to his winning the presidential election in 2015 and advised him to go and approach Tinubu with the proposal of forming a merger between his CPC and Tinubu’s ACN to be known as ACPC, with him as President and Tinubu as Vice President.

He went and met Tinubu and Tinubu accepted, making minor amends including the name APC. He then came back and briefed me of the positive outcome of his meeting with Tinubu. With this decision taken by him and Tinubu I knew it was over for the PDP. Yes, Tinubu played the role he played in Buhari’s victory, but all Tinubu knew was that Buhari came to him with a political merger proposal, but he didn’t know what happened or who influenced Buhari to come to him after they fell apart in the 2011 political arrangements. This was in March, 2012.

The indisputable fact is that if I hadn’t played the role I played, Tinubu would not have had the opportunity to play the role he played in forming the APC and making Buhari president.

As for Nasiru El-Rufa’i, he played his own role with Buhari in the formation of the CPC. He and General Jafaru Isa and 10 others, as Buhari told me, were responsible for the formation of CPC and his 2011 contest after losing two times under ANPP.

The condition he gave them was that if he lost in 2011 no one would approach him to contest again. They agreed. So El-Rufa’i never approached him after he lost in 2011; it was I who did. Everything I’m telling you is evidential and verifiable, and the details are contained in chapter 7 of my book “Court and Politics”. President Buhari has the book and President Tinubu was also given a copy of the book by elder statesman, Tanko Yakasai.

If your claim is true, why didn’t you feature in Buhari’s regime?

My claim is true alright. You should  however direct this question to President Buhari himself and not to me. All I know is that we parted with him at the Abuja airport on March 27th, a day to the 2015 presidential election; he took a chartered flight to Katsina and I took a chartered flight to Yola.

The next day I texted him and wished him good luck on the election and assured him of victory, and he texted back and thanked me for that. That was the last of my communication with him till date.

Mind you I have a written letter of the CPC authorized by him signed by Prince Tony Momoh, national chairman of the party, mandating me to do everything that l did on behalf of the party. And between April 2011 when CPC went to tribunal and July 31st when APC was registered nobody was ahead of me in Buhari’s politics. So why he locked me out after becoming president go and ask him.

How would you assess Muhammadu Buhari’s performance as president.

To be blunt, and without any prejudice, I will say Buhari was an unmitigated failure. Judging by the high spate of insecurity, collapsed economy, endemic corruption in public affairs, among several other vices pervading the country at the time President Buhari left office on May 29, 2023, Nigeria can be rightly said to have drifted into a failed state. All over the country, especially in the North and the Southeast, kidnappings, killings and bloodlettings of horrifyingly unimaginable proportions had become standard daily occurrences of communities. While internecine genocide, communal killings and banditry were going on in villages and towns unabated, highways had been taken over by armed robbers and kidnappers. Almost on daily basis villages were raided and people abducted even when the previously kidnapped ones were still in captivity. Since there were no federal or state authorities to turn to, citizens were left with no option but to negotiate with the new rulers of the day – kidnapers, bandits and unknown gunmen – to secure the release of the abducted. Il

In the Southeast, for about three years, IPOB, commanding ‘Unknown Gunmen’, became so strong it declared and enforced a sit-at-home order on Mondays throughout the region.

In the South-south, pirates were seizing oil installations and siphoning national oil at will. In the Southwest cultism and harvesting of human organs for ritual purposes had been standardized.

To all intents and purposes, therefore, no one was safe in Nigeria under the Buhari government. And when the president’s convoy was itself attacked by bandits the circle of lawlessness became complete.

 Eight years of his leadership had not improved the national economy either; rather, the economy actually collapsed.

The national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), representing the total value of all economic activities in the country, had nosed-dived and remained down, pushing the country into almost a state of permanent recession throughout his regime.

Depletion of our foreign reserves and humongous debts with no productivity combined to send the value of the naira plummeting to an exchange rate of N650 to $1 by the time he left office, and the resulting inflation sent many Nigerians below poverty line into state of deprivation and destitution. In 2018 Nigeria was pronounced the poverty capital of the world.

 The same failure was as well evident in the fight against corruption. With the appointment of Ibrahim Magu as the head of the EFCC, the key anti-corruption agency, in contravention of the law, the fight against corruption started on a wrong footing under Buhari.

On account of security reports accusing Magu of corruption, thus denting his moral standing to prosecute the war, the senate declined to confirm his nomination as required by law. Still, President Buhari put him in office for about five years, thus calling to question the sincerity of the administration’s commitment to fight corruption.

In effect, the twin evils of bribery and corruption continued having a field-day under the Buhari-led APC regime. Hence, all over the country, persons on corruption charges were roaming about free. Many had even bribed themselves back into public offices either in elective or appointive capacities. There were also widespread outrageous open display of stupendous wealth by several serving public officers, hitherto living from hand to mouth, suggesting corrupt enrichments in the Buhari government.

Less than two years before he left office, Nigeria was ranked among the top most corrupt countries on earth.

As it is, Magu’s successor at EFCC, AbdulRasheed Bawa, is currently under detention for more than two months on allegations of impropriety.

Aside from these core issues, there were also many other aspects of our national life that similarly deteriorated under the Buhari administration, principal of which is ethical decay. What was morally wrong, had become politically right. But one needs not list instances, for they were endless!

Under Buhari, we helplessly watched Nigeria drift into a failed state. This is the stark reality that must be admitted of the Buhari regime.

But you cannot put all the blames on him?

Or sure I can, and my reasons are cogent and verifiable, if I can use this phrase.

You see, Buhari ran for office and was elected president on a set of principles of trust and hope. In 2015, the overriding factor in his campaign was Buhari himself, on his assumed integrity, incorruptibility, forthrightness and the magic ward to deliver! The presidential campaign was mainly about Buhari the person – not his policies, nor his programmes, nor even his political party, but Buhari the man and his promises – that had received the drumming endorsement of the Nigerian people, particularly northerners.

To virtually everyone in the North, Buhari was the only man, and therefore the only hope, for the people. I should know because I drew up that sophisticated strategic blueprint for him, drawing on his previous three failed attempts. And because I believed in Buhari himself, I didn’t bargain with him for anything. I just did it in trust. And that was why an old woman of over 80 years would sit out in the scorching sun of the northern desert for a whole day just to see the man Buhari and donate her life-long savings towards his election bid without expecting anything back from him.

That was why poor wheel barrow pushers, nail cutters, shoe shiners, hewers of woods and fetchers of water, literally the wretched of the earth, would starve themselves to buy cards and donate their meagre earnings towards his election without any hope of ever meeting him. And that was why someone would trek from Lagos to Abuja in hilarious celebration of Buhari’s electoral victory without a price tag.

So when Buhari won the contest and sworn-in as president, it was expected he would solve the numerous problems of the country. Other than solving problems of individuals’ survival, there were also along with them daunting challenges threatening the very survival of the nation itself that President Buhari was equally expected to resolve.

In his campaigns, Buhari summed these concerns up into three – insecurity, corruption and economy. In other words, the resolution of these three would resolve both the individuals’ and collective developmental challenges of the nation; to create sense of belonging and forge functional unity to a desperate and despairing nation torn apart by cries of marginalization, agitations and separatist tendencies.

After doing all you did and was not given any recognition, and the way things finally turned out do you feel disappointed with the Buhari administration?

Of course, I feel disappointed. Who wouldn’t? Not only he didn’t ever speak nor consider me for anything, but all my businesses were grounded.

Invariably, I became his ardent critic to the point that before he left office, EFCC was even unleashed on me. But I am able to weather it all and survive out his regime.

You see, if Buhari had edged me out as he did and succeeded in leadership, I would have felt pained. But he edged me out and failed. So I felt happy. But Buhari’s leadership failure is of course not about me; it’s about the country and its future. And that’s the only reason why his failure saddens me. Given that President Buhari came to office with the confidence and goodwill of Nigerians behind him, it was sad that, as seen above, he woefully failed in his leadership and lost the peoples’ confidence and goodwill till he left office.

So how and why did he fail as president?

To me, the simple and truthful answer to this twin question is that President Buhari just lacked leadership acumen. In spite of his experience in holding key public offices, as governor, minister, army commander, which informed my confidence in him, he actually did not possess much leadership insights.

What then are your concluding remarks on all that you have said?

These manifest deficiencies of Buhari weakened his regime, and rendered it highly vulnerable to internal manipulation and external sabotage. It created a situation that was both unsuited to the active requirements of a country in dire need of peace, economic growth and political stability, and uninspiring, discouraging and disappointing to zealous and devoted politicians, intellectuals, bureaucrats, patriotic citizens, etc. who were eager to see Nigeria leap forward into the developed world of the 21st century.

And holding onto this poor leadership style to the end, his presidency became for Nigeria just another eight years of squandered time and resources that offered no solutions for salvaging the country, redeeming and securing her future. Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, admonished leaders to spare no effort in protecting the polity and the ‘kingship’ institution. But President Buhari failed to heed to Aristotle’s admonition; and with this failure, he failed in leadership and collapsed the nation under him. His regime was, as Aristotle would say, “like a cloud that passed on without dropping rain”.