My Chatham House account on Buhari -By Segun Ojomo

I must confess that I was disappointed, and would presume the same for a majority of listeners and watchers, at the rendition of the speech of Muhammadu Buhari during his recent visit to the Chatham House, in the United Kingdom.

The mode of delivery would have succinctly put paid to the stance of his major critics that he was not intellectually equipped enough to direct leadership affairs in a crisis-ridden and entropy-laden Nigeria.

And in order to put myself in a position of an individual that was not unfeeling, I quickly concocted a leverage in my mind supposing that apart from the unrare possibility that the speech was written and handed to him by his aides, he also did not have ample chance to peruse it before delivery.

When he was called upon by the sitting usher and compere of the event to field questions by respondents, my fear got heightened by my cognitive assumption that the soft-spoken General would be unable to fix the pegs in their positions.

My anxiety became allayed when he brilliantly, intelligently and painstakingly dealt blows on the various questions posed by respondents with superlative humour unexpected from a former military ruler perceived by a number of people as brash, cruel, sadistic and uncompromising on a wide range of issues.

At this juncture, I find it imperative to summarily consider a few critical points driven home by Buhari which emanated from questions by respondents.

While fielding questions at the civic occasion, declarations by Buhari connoted that:

Boko Haram insurgents would not be granted amnesty and when apprehended, would be compelled to face the full wrath of the law, especially regarding the extent of genocide perpetrated by them and the untold hardships caused harmless and law-abiding citizenry;

It would be erroneous to state that any attack on Boko Haram insurgents was an attack on northerners since the latter were the direct and main targets for destruction by the decimators;

If sworn in to run the country’s affairs come May 29, past corrupt leaders and occupants of positions of authority would not be probed mainly because the inception of corruption in Nigeria dates back to 1960 and the expected cumbersome process of administration of justice would lead to retraction for a government that has loads of work at hand; and it would be fraudulent of him to be categorical about his achievement intentions within his first 100 days in office as the process of delivery of dividends of governance was not akin to miracles that manifest in a jiffy.

Earlier and during his speech at the occasion, the salient points had been that:

Loopholes in budgetary procedures shall be blocked; revenue producing entities such as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Customs and Excise Department and others would have one set of books with their revenue publicly disclosed and regularly audited; institutions for combating corruption would be independent and given prosecutorial authorities without political interference; war against corruption would not be railed towards settling old scores and savings from leakages hitherto caused by corrupt practices would be ploughed into developments in education, health, public works for unemployed youths and pension for the retired and elderly.

The transactions during Buhari’s visit to Chatham House, I believe, should offer Nigerians at home and the Diaspora a basis for evaluation of the retired General’s capability to steer the country’s ship safely to berthing.