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It is with utmost reluctance that I write this posthumous epistle about former President Muhammadu Buhari, who passed on in a London hospital on Sunday July 13, 2025, after what was described as a “prolonged illness.” My initial reluctance was because of the popular saying that you do not speak ill about the dead. True, you do not only speak ill of the dead but also of the living. But upon realising that it is a duty to country and God, the imperative of speaking the truth of the living and especially of the dead, no matter how unpalatable, uncomfortable or bitter, cannot be understated, I overcame my reluctance. And speaking the truth about our political leaders [living or dead] is a sacred duty that is incumbent upon every patriot who seeks the common good of the Nigerian people because in these truths the dead teach the living an immortal lesson that should remind them of their own mortality.
I have observed without surprise as many Nigerians have become divided over how to properly situate the legacy of the late President Buhari in contemporary Nigeria. While some Nigerians have outrightly denounced him as the worst leader in the history of the Fourth Republic, his supporters have maintained that he was a good man and a well-intentioned leader who was incorruptible. But that is as far as even his most ardent supporters are willing to go as none of them, including his appointees and spin doctors, can say with a mouth not shaking that Buhari achieved much as the leader of Nigeria.
I have said it before and I will reiterate it again that, as a fierce critic of President Buhari throughout his eight year rule in office, I was his greatest friend and lover and not his hater, because I knew that a day such as this would come when men would judge his actions as their leader before his case gets to the Supreme Court of God Almighty for final adjudication.
Born on December 17, 1942, in Daura town of Katsina State, north-west Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, was an accomplished public servant, military officer, public administrator and politician who was privileged to lead Nigeria twice: as a military head of state and a democratically elected President. In between, the former President was a military governor, federal minister in charge of petroleum resources and, later, chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund under the General Sani Abacha military regime.
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According to his contemporaries, Buhari was a disciplined and incorruptible man who wanted the best for Nigeria. But, sadly, Buhari’s accomplishments and personal attributes of integrity didn’t materialise into achievements for the generality of the Nigerian people. Whereas accomplishments are personal attainments in life, achievements are a collective of the positive impact your accomplishments bring to bear on the generality of the Nigerian people. Accomplishments without achievements means Nigeria has done so much for you while in turn you have done little or nothing for Nigeria.
My position on Buhari’s life and times in power is well documented and needs no further regurgitation here. The fact that there was a spontaneous breakout of celebrations in some parts of the Hausa-speaking Muslim North, a region where he was deified as a living ‘god’ over the news of his death, the passionate appeal from some of his supporters against speaking ill of the dead and his wife’s revelation that the late President asked for the forgiveness of Nigerians before his demise says the truth and nothing but the whole truth about his legacy.
That Buhari died in a London hospital two years after he presided over the affairs of Nigeria for eight years, between 2015 and 2023, manifests the truth that, while Nigeria did so much for him, he did little or nothing for Nigeria.
If only those in power today are paying the much needed attention to Nigeria’s recent history with the late President Muhammadu Buhari! Sadly, history is the best teacher but its students are the worst learners.
May the soul of President Muhammadu Buhari find peace with his creator and may his family find the strength to bear the loss. And may Nigerians forgive the late President for his shortcomings. We will always remember him because Buhari did not ask us to forget his time in power.
