Buhari’s Polarizing Years And The Project Renew, Unify Nigeria

By Mallam Ahmed Farouk –

After Buhari’s eight polarizing years, Nigeria needs a unifier and performer like Nyesom Ezenwo Wike – N.E.W. This is the only known project that has the capacity to renew Nigeria and unify the country as argued in this piece.

Following his historic 2015 electoral victory, President Muhammadu Buhari prefaced his administration with an infamous quote that came to define it.

Fielding questions from journalists in Washington DC, USA, the then President-elect offered a needless and alarming delineation of Nigerians into two distinct groups: his own people, invariably the northerners, and then the rest of Nigeria.

To quote him directly, he said “the constituencies that gave me 97% (of their votes) cannot, in all honesty, be treated on some issues with constituencies that gave me 5%.”

It was an astonishing resort to tribalism by a man whose emergence was helped by a broad national coalition, and whose party, the APC, had inflicted serious wounds on Nigeria’s stability and sense of unity with a scorched earth campaign that exploited fault-lines and encouraged bitter divisiveness.

Whereas many expected President Buhari to provide a healing balm and rally all Nigerians to move past the bitter conflicts of the election, he instead announced a plan to skew governance and award privileges on the basis of tribal membership.

As a result, he affirmed the suspicion of critics that he had not shed his ethnocentric and sectional worldview, despite claims to the contrary.

Worse than the inciting and reckless comment was his raft of early appointments which solidified the suspicion for many Nigerians.

Largely skewed north, President Buhari did not hide the fact that his 97% vs 5% categorization was a declaration of intent and the governance template for his tenure, not a gaffe as some initially reasoned.

This of course compounded Nigeria’s ethnic tension and gave rise to an unprecedented level of support for a restructuring of the country’s federal arrangement, if not outright secessionism.

Ordinary individuals who perhaps never saw themselves as anything but Nigerians became radicalized by the blatant favoritism and nepotism on display, and joined calls for Nigeria’s federal structure – or unity as a single country, in the extreme – to be reconsidered.

The social disintegration, rising bad faith, and heightened sense of division have wrought disastrous consequences on Nigeria’s internal security and economic growth.

A prime example can be seen in the herders-farmers clash which though predates the Buhari-administration but has certainly escalated in frequency and dimension under the watch of the current President.

Combined with the negative effects of a number of controversial policies, the rising violence and disruption of economic activities, including agriculture which is Nigeria’s largest employer of labor, have resulted in a record inflation, two damaging recessions (the first in 25 years), and food insecurity.

Even the best propagandists of the administration have failed to persuade Nigerians to ignore the spike in the prices of basic commodities and staples in the seven years that President Buhari has been in the saddle.

President Buhari has failed several tests since his emergence, but perhaps the worst is his management of Nigeria’s fragile matrimony. His lack of tact and narrow mindset have helped legitimized the exaggerated claims of those whose view of Nigeria is that of an ‘unworkable contraption’.

This concerning development makes it of extreme importance, especially for Nigeria’s continued existence as a single and united country, that his administration is followed in 2023 with the renewal of the country’s national bond. It is an all-important project that must be led by a certified detribalized leader who has a keen sense and appreciation of Nigeria’s diversity.

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, is one of such leaders, and he has expressed his interest in leading the country with the recent announcement of his #ProjectReNewNigeria.

Since his election in 2015 as the Governors of Rivers State, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike has displayed an uncommon zeal for development, justice, and good governance – attributes that have stood him out as one of the best among the present class of Governors.

Nicknamed Mr. Project for his immense infrastructural investments in Rivers, Governor Wike has demonstrated a clear and excellent understanding of how to unite the various sides of the economy to produce an inclusive and sustainable growth, capable of raising living standards and substantially increasing earnings. That’s a skill Nigerian youths in particular would appreciate in their next leader, owing to the present crisis level of unemployment and under-employment.

His outreach to Nigeria’s other regions, especially in the north, also provides evidence that he would do a better job of managing Nigeria’s diversity and uniting behind a national march towards prosperity – an ambition shared collectively amid other differences.

An instance is his 500 million naira donation to Sokoto State, the home of the Sultan, in 2021 for the reconstruction of a market razed down in a fire outbreak.

The gesture was a continuation of his extension of support, where feasible, to Nigeria’s other regions to forge a national unity in which differences are not regarded irreconcilable points of conflict.

Where President Buhari wittingly and unwittingly promoted division, Governor Nyesome Ezenwo Wike would seek the alliance of all Nigerians towards confronting and providing lasting solutions to the challenges that we all face.

Such image and posturing would restore the faith of Nigerians in conflict flashpoints that the federal government can once again be trusted as an impartial mediator, thus increasing the prospect of peace and fruitful dialogue.

Governor Wike can be trusted to undo the negative effects of President Buhari’s polarizing tenure.

Mallam Ahmed Farouk sent in this piece from Katsina State.