I was a corps member serving in Osun State when you were campaigning to become president in 2015. Back then, in 2025, and later in 2019, I never wanted you to become president because of the things I had read and heard about you.
So, while serving as a presiding officer (PO) in Osun during the 2015 elections, I was certain you would lose. I beat my chest and bet with some of my neighbours, who were your diehard supporters, that you would lose again, like you did in previous elections, but you disappointed me when the results started coming in by winning massively in the polling unit I presided over and in most states across the country.
Your first few months as president, I forced myself to believe, should have improved the lot of Nigeria and Nigerians. Rather, throughout your first term as president, things became worse than they were, at least for me, throughout my service year and postgraduate studies, and even when I got a media job.
I believed you were the reason the country was not moving forward, the reason everything suddenly became expensive, the reason we were not secure. I believed any other person could have been a better president. I believed that if given the opportunity to be president, I would have performed much better than you.
So, as a newly employed newspaper reporter in 2018, as the campaigns and politicking of the 2019 elections were building up, and you declared to run for a second term, I had no choice but to deploy my pen and anger to stop you.
Through acerbic weekly opinion pieces published in newspapers, online platforms, and social media, I campaigned against you and your administration. I wanted you to lose in 2019 more than I wanted you to lose in 2015. I wanted you to lose so that someone with better health and shrewder disposition would lead us out of the darkness we were wallowing in. It was almost a prayer.
So, with my pen and anger, every week, I wrote and published articles that shed light on your shortcomings and your administration’s failings that presented reasons why you should not return as president.
Those periods, you were too busy campaigning for the election, but did you by any chance stumble on publications with the headlines ‘Mr and Mrs Buhari: Does the future of Nigeria depend on them?’, ‘Herdsmen in church: The Benue experience’, ‘A review of President Buhari’s ‘Change’ and ‘Next Level’ mantras’, ‘President Buhari’s May 2019 inauguration: Are congratulations in order?’, ‘Aisha Buhari, Nigerian education system and the proposed Muhammadu Buhari University’, ‘Buhari allegedly Jubril, Atiku allegedly Cameroonian, and the gyro Nigeria has become’? These, and tens of more articles about you and your administration that I would not want to exhume, were my penmanship, my media interventions, aimed at discouraging Nigerians from returning you as president.
Again, however, with all my articles and social media campaigns against you and your administration, you disappointed me with another victory at the polls, emerging as president for the second time. Since there were no other elections to remove you as president, when the opportunity came, on a few occasions, to impeach you on the grounds of health and other reasons, I wished they had succeeded. Another loss for me.
Intriguingly, your two-term presidency came and gone, and another two years and two months since then, and every Nigerian has their perception of how your government affected them, and each story is as different as each person’s fingerprint.
Throughout your presidency, and a few months after that, I perceived you as the worst president, accused you of bringing hardship to Nigerians, and wished you had never ruled Nigeria. But what would make someone like me, an unrepentant critic who wrote you off at any chance he had, make a U-turn, have a change of heart, and apologise for his actions and inactions against you?
In recent times, with some soul-searching and introspection, I have examined my life and place in the scheme of things in Nigeria. I have questioned why other ordinary Nigerians succeeded during your presidency while I struggled most of the time; why, after all my anger at you, all I experienced was more anger; and why, after all my acerbic penmanship, seldom did anyone notice or care.
And here I am with my pen again, this time not with anger, but with a change of heart in humility, to apologise for the diatribes I meted out on you and your administration, inspired by my ignorance of how life, leadership, and government work. I focused more on your weaknesses, imperfections, and illnesses, instead of on your nuanced dispositions, as you tried your best, within your power and ability, to do what you believed was right for the country. I saw you as the problem of Nigeria. However, since you left government and power, the problem of Nigeria is still the problem of Nigeria. That is to say that it was not entirely the fault of your government that some promises and expectations were not met.
Perhaps, you could have achieved more for Nigeria and Nigerians if the majority of the citizens believed in you and thought more of what they could have done for the country and not for self, like I did back then. All I did was blame and engage in wishful thinking, which was much easier to do, while you served Nigeria and Nigerians according to how your strength could carry you.
And, if certain promises and expectations were not met by you and your administration, we all, I too, would be blamed for it for not believing and having faith in you and in Nigeria as much as we could have, for not consciously contributing our goodwill and selflessness to the common cause of the country.
It was later, after your presidency, that I realised the importance and relevance of the work and achievements your administration recorded for Nigeria. Apart from the ones I read about from the book ‘Working with Buhari: Reflections of a Special Adviser, Media and Publicity (2015 – 2023)’ by your Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, I have seen and heard of many others that I could have been grateful for back then.
In retrospect, I have seen the many opportunities I missed out on that could have impacted me positively while you were president, but which my anger against you prevented me from seeing. I believe it would have been easier to build and achieve more in your government than it is now. I wish I could turn back the hands of time.
In recent times, I have realised that for us to grow and develop as a people, we must be positive at all times and in all situations with ourselves, our leaders, and our country. I did not understand and appreciate the wisdom in this while you were president. But now I do.
Furthermore, in recent times, I have been blessed with a better knowledge of what it means to lead and manage people, which, when I look back at how you tried your best to lead Nigeria, I understand what you might have gone through in all of those eight years. In recent times, I have found myself in positions of leadership and management of a small team, and I must confess that it is not easy to lead and manage people.
Sometimes, it is not easy to control and save oneself, yet the burden of over two hundred million Nigerians was on your shoulders every day and night. I did not understand what that meant then, but I do now, and should have wished you life, strength, and wisdom, and not otherwise.
I have lived all my life in Nigeria, and with all the governments and presidents I have witnessed came the bad, the good, and the ugly. I have realised that dwelling on the bad and the ugly helps no one or the government. I learnt this the hard way.
So, going forward, if I must remember you, I must do so in good light. I would remember you as a leader who lent his life and all to the service of a country whose present and future generations owe an eternal debt.
