Whether to Daura or to Niger Republic, Just Go! -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen

So this is how time flies. At last, Buhari is about to be shown his exit. I learnt he is already in the Glass House. Any moment from now, he will be addressed as “ex”—he will join the long list of ex-presidents. Many Nigerians could not wait to thank God for the completion of these inglorious, unillustrious, and wasted eight years. “Wasted” is not even the right word, wasted years are years without achievement; they are years without progress. In other words, wasted eight years are static years. But Buhari’s eight years are more than wasted. They are years of doom where progress itself retrogressed and lost all its meanings. Nigerians, under Buhari’s unexemplary eight years, stopped thinking of achievement. What many think of is survival. One needs to japa, under Buhari, to start thinking of achievement. Even her Excellency(the First Lady), at some point, had to japa to Dubai to secure herself from the soaring insecurity under his Excellency.

A good fact about history is its mastery in the art of recording. The ugly fact of history, however, is its inability to sieve records. History does not discriminate, it does not separate the grain from chaff. If it does, we would have appealed to History not to record these wasted and useless eight years in its annals. Nigerians are traumatized. My greatest disappointment in all of this is that we can not obliterate this eight year trauma. It will remain with us for life—as long as we live. As long as our memories are functional and History is read, we shall remain traumatized for the sad memory.

There are some realities that are, though ugly, unchanged and unchangeable. How do we change the reality that we are Nigerian citizens under President Buhari? Many Nigerians have witnessed Hell on earth. You may not fully understand how hellish was the past eight years because you are fortunate not to have been kidnapped. Perhaps, you have not also plied any of the Nigerian roads that torturously meanders and connects travellers from the North to the South. These roads are not meandering by design, drivers have to meander through them because they are full of deadly craters which must be tactically avoided to avoid sudden death. Travelling on Nigerian roads is a necessary punishment which every traveller must be served.

You may still not understand how hellish Buhari regime is because you are fortunate not to have been admitted into our “doctorless” and reptile-invested public hospitals. Nigerian medical doctors, in their thousands, fell, and continue to fall, on top of another to escape Nigeria under Buhari. What about Nigerian students? They were not only locked out of schools, they were assured of not getting job even if they manage to graduate against the wish of the government. From Buhari regime to university staff, the unambiguous message is “die if want to die, I will not pay your salaries.” The message is very clear. It is like, after all, “I have Chris Ngige—a medical doctor—to certify anyone who chooses to die if they are actually dead. Any lecturers certified dead, Malam Adamu Adamu and Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba will lead the funeral prayers for Muslims and Christians among them respectively.”To digress a bit, I learnt Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba thought he will be Nigerian president after Buhari. He managed to get one single vote in the APC presidential primary election. Buhari’s regime is essentially a draconian regime that extols ignorance and ignoramuses; and debases scholarship and scholars.

As if Buhari’s regime has some think-tanks whose primary assignment is to research and brainstorm on how best to keep Nigerians wailing under the regime’s merciless and heavy jackboot. Before you know it, the cashless policy was hatched. I have observed and concluded that the regime is very uncomfortable when the masses have a brief sense of relief. To be comfortable, the regime must secrete its venom in form of policy to unleash untold hardship on the masses. That is exactly what the cashless policy does. After the policy achieved some of its objectives: to send as many as possible Nigerians to their graves and to economically strangulate many others and to collapse many businesses, it was relaxed. Some said the policy was designed to catch a BAT, but the BAT outsmarted both the policy makers and its implementers. The BAT is on his way to ASO Rock while Buhari is on his exit.

Nigerians are very tired of Buhari. But for him, Nigerians are ungrateful. Buhari breaks some certain records for which he is not praised. He established and approved the highest number of universities, though there are millions of out of school children and it does not matter whether these universities are under lock or under funded. He recolored the naira for face-lifting after degrading its value—the naira was literally worthless. His government is so transparent that corruption is no longer shrouded in secrecy. Acts of corruption are comfortably committed in a broad daylight. Buhari regime makes government so easy that all a president needs to do is to give directives and relax wielding a toothpick—it does not matter whether the directives are obeyed or not. I personally don’t know, and the President does not also know, why Nigerians are not praising him for generously widening the frontiers of the ungoverned space so that bandits and kidnappers can share in governance. After all, devolution of power, probably in his understanding, is one of the features of federalism. He is also not praised for lowering the bar of governance to the lowest of the low which suddenly makes ex-president Jonathan—whose government was generally adjudged to be clueless—a hero.

Buhari has created enough problems for his successor. Yet, he is not tired of creating more. The recent one was an attempt to get an approval of $800 million loan for distribution to the masses whom he never cared for. Calculatedly, if the loan is approved, about 10 million poor and low-income households will getN5,000 per month for a period of six months. Mind you, that will supposedly be paid by the next government. This was rebuffed by the legislators who find it too ridiculous. What of salary increments for civil servants? He made it unlawful for himself to increase workers’ salaries but expects his successor to do that.

After making Nigeria a country deserted by its people and making most Nigerians derelicts, the President promises to retire to anywhere far from Abuja. He feels unsafe in Abuja just like in Kaduna—his former state of residence. His regime has polluted the whole place from which he must run away and very far away. The stench oozing out from the pollution is obviously unbearable. His choicest location is Daura. Not because he feels safe in Daura but because Daura is very close to Niger Republic—a country that is dearer to him probably than the Nigeria he is about to leave in mess.

Whether to Daura or to Niger Republic, the concordant voice from Nigerians is; “JUST GO”! Mr. President should just go to wherever he prefers to spend the remaining days of his sojourn on earth.  May we never witness calamitous regime again. Bye-bye!

Abdulkadir Salaudeen

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com