Nigeria: A Timeline of Muhammadu Buhari’s Second Coming and how he’s squandering it all

On May 29, 2015, at Eagle’s Square, Abuja, Muhammadu Buhari, a retired military general, stood before world leaders and a cheering crowd during his inauguration as Nigeria’s new President. He told the world that some of the successors of Nigeria’s founding fathers “behaved like spoilt children breaking everything and bringing disorder to the house.”

As he took over power from Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, majority of the millions of Nigerians who watched him from Abraka in Delta State, Ikorodu in Lagos, Arigidi-Akoko in Ondo State, Tudun Wada in Kaduna South, Kabba in Kogi State, and other communities, were only able to do so with their self-generated power, but they had high hopes. Their hope was surreal and they had confidence in the tall, slim, light-skinned 72-year-old ‘reformed democrat’ to bring change as he had promised. Five years on, the hopes have fizzled out.

We take a close look at how the former general struggled to get back into power, after being ousted in a 1985 coup; how he ran for office four times, how he became Nigeria’s number one man again, riding on a campaign that United young Nigerians. And how he’s squandering it all right before everyone’s eyes.

In his inaugural speech, “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody,” he appeared in the toga of a detribalised leader but it took him just two months to reveal his true identity. Buhari told an audience at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in July 2015 that “The constituents, for example, [that] gave me 97% [of the vote] cannot in all honesty be treated on some issues with constituencies that gave me 5%.” Many Nigerians cringed, while some pardoned him, making excuses for him that it was too early to be mad at the new bride.

It’s five years after and millions of Nigerians, most of them between 18 and 25 years, believe they have been scammed.

Could Buhari, mischievously called Sinzu by young Nigerians, also be one of the ‘spoilt children’? Events of the last five years strongly suggest so.

The 2015 election that brought Buhari to power was not his first stint. It was his fourth. Yet critics say his actions since becoming President have not shown he was prepared for the plum job he struggled multiple times to get. He tried four times and won on his fourth attempt and now he is going down, in the words of Olu Fasan a Columnist and Visiting Fellow in the International Relations Department of the London School of Economics (LSE), as “both extremely incompetent and unbelievably arrogant” President Nigeria ever had, judging by the records of his first time as Military leader and now as a civilian leader.

Buhari’s first time at the helm of Nigeria’s affairs was in 1983 having seized power from a civilian government led by President Shehu Shagari in a military coup. As a military leader in the 1980s he had a reputation for being tough, trampling on human rights and muzzling the media. Nothing appears to have changed, but disregard for court orders and insensitivity to the plight of the citizens he swore to govern have now been added to his CV.

He fell in 1985, fell again in 2003, 2007 and 2011 before rising in 2015, making history as the first opposition candidate to defeat a sitting President in Nigeria, a former British Colony.

He won after he was sold to the young population as a reformed democrat and an incorruptible leader. The young Nigerians who make up 70% of Nigeria’s population did everything to help him unseat Jonathan who, to be honest, had failed woefully.

In the presence of the man he deposed through a military coup 32 years earlier, Shehu Shagari, and Ibrahim Babaginda who ousted him 20 months later, Buhari declared that “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody” and the majority of Nigerians were optimistic that change had finally come to the most populous black nation on earth.

When he took over the leadership of the country in 2015, he met a country remarkably different from the one he ruled 30 years earlier. He met a Nigeria that was Africa’s largest economy but N12.12 trillion in debt. In his first year, the country lost that status as Africa’s largest economy until it was regained recently, while the debt profile has risen to N31 trillion as of June 30, 2020, according to data from the Debt Management Office (DMO).

Widely acclaimed as an incorruptible leader whose government could bring an end to corruption and the Boko Haram insurgency, Buhari has now become a subject of internet ridicule among the youth population that helped him become president.

Half way into his first four years, Buhari was already treading the path of infamy, refusing to talk to the nation and preferring to speak to journalists outside the country where he spent most part of his first term on medical tourism.

With his sweeping acts of turning deaf ears to the cries of the masses, going silent when it matters and his inability to take decisive leadership decisions, critics say Buhari is speedily damaging the goodwill he rode on to power. Many believe the damage is already irreparable.

Millions of young Nigerians who trooped to the streets to campaign, vote and celebrate his victory in March 2015 are now back on the streets from Lagos to Abeokuta, Osogbo, Ogbomoso, Asaba, Abuja, London, Berlin and Canada, protesting against the reckless abuse of power by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a notorious unit of the Nigeria Police Force, that appears to have been emboldened by the deafening silence and inaction of Buhari who said in May 2015 that “as ever, I am ready to listen to grievances of my fellow Nigerians.”

But pundits say Buhari has never been an inspiring leader and it may be difficult for him to sustain the overwhelming goodwill he enjoyed. Asides his debatable integrity which he used to ride to power, there appears to be nothing more to admire in the former general.

Of what use is riding on the collective goodwill of the people to make history and then squander it all before their eyes? Many Nigerians have continued to wonder.

Yet Muhammadu Buhari still has an opportunity to take a decisive action, and repair his legacy, as prescribed HERE by Neusroom editors. It is entirely up to him.