Buhari: The long-awaited messiah? (1)

For everybody on our shores, that should qualify as a trillion naira question. I have done my best to answer it in this write-up. I mean from the point of view of a political historian! So far, only late Murtala Muhammed had such a pretension. I am not a politician per se. As far back as the 1959 federal election, however, I was abreast of political events in our country. For instance, I know all about the intractable Awo and Akintola ‘war’. When Awo was unjustly sent to Calabar Prisons late in 1963, I was sad. At that time, I was in a USAID secondary school at Port Harcourt. Foreign and local publications were available in the library.

In the course of the January 1966 “Ibo coup plot”, Akintola, Western Nigeria premier, had chosen to resist arrest. He had exchanged ‘fire for fire’ with the Northern soldiers who came to get him and had killed some of them too. What a brave man! On his own part, deputy premier, Remi Fani-Kayode, had wept like a baby and knelt down begging for mercy. Yet he was the one insulting other politicians in the West and creating tension. Incidentally, his son is exactly like that today. Deep down, the boy is probably a coward, too. All these could be read from Chapters 2 and 3 of my book.

Things are not looking good for Nigeria, or do you pretend not to know? In the past 16 years, the PDP has almost run the ‘Ship of State’ aground. The events of the past five years of President Jonathan’s watch have tended to worsen matters. If Nigeria is to survive, it would be because God, in His Infinite Wisdom, chose to plant Gen. Buhari in our beleaguered polity, at this very point in time. Let me explain!

Buhari is not better than every other politician aspiring to reside at the Aso Rock Villa. However, the man possesses the only combination of qualities that should help the Nigerian ‘Ship’ avoid a catastrophic shipwreck. Such include integrity, courage, purpose, perseverance, experience, honesty, frugality – as well as focus. To find all the foregoing in a single man, at that level, is not a coincidence. Certainly not! God desires to use the man. Are you one of those who think he is too old and might even drop dead any day? That is a silly joke. A man like Mugabe of Zimbabwe is 90 years old and is still working. Anyway, ‘dropping dead’ has nothing to do with age. I believe that God who gave Buhari the task is capable of adding more years to his life.

I had voted for Gen. Buhari but my wife opted to vote for Jonathan. Well, that was fine with me. She has a vote which she can use in any way she deems fit. However, I think millions of Igbos had made a similar mistake because they had listened to the “Islamisation” propaganda. For sure, the dynamics of religion in Nigeria has drastically been altered by the Boko Haram debacle. The Islamic disunity has become obvious. Moreover, most of those talking about “Islamisation” are not even Christians. Rather, they are mere, ignorant, churchgoers. A genuine Christian would spend time propagating the Gospel of Christ…

Fall in oil prices? So what?

There is no space to treat all our woes in this write-up. Let me simply deal with an aspect of the economy. There were early warning signs that oil prices were going down. However, those who should have done something to somehow stave off the catastrophe failed in their duties. I do not intend to zero in on any person or persons. Suffice it to say that Nigerians must gird their loins for the difficult times ahead. For your information, things are going to get much worse before they get better.

The devaluation of the naira ordinarily would make imports more expensive while promoting exports. Unfortunately, we do not have anything (except crude oil) to export. As we all know, the demand for it is plummeting. At one point, the US was buying about one-third of our global crude oil export. Devastatingly, that market has been lost. Let me not talk about African countries which now export crude. The only difference is that they refine sufficiently, unlike Nigeria, to meet their local needs. I remember that in Biafra, we had two major refineries. Our problem had to do with the dearth of crude oil, especially when several of the oil fields fell to federal troops. That was why the Uzuakoli Refinery came about. It had utilized the abundant palm oil in the Eastern Region – instead of crude oil. The end products were the same – petrol, kerosene, diesel, etc. Indeed, Biafran technology was something else.

The first Standard Biafran Refinery had been sited at Amandugba (then in Nkwere Division). Today, it is in Imo State. No white man was around to help us. When the war ended in January 1970, Gen. Gowon and his envious, corrupt and myopic Supreme Military Council told the world they did not desire “rebel technology”. How about that for a country that had no technology at all! Cowardly Egyptian pilots of the NAF were ordered to bomb out and dismantle Amandugba (see Chapter 5 of my book).

Ndubisi F. John-Ibelegbu