A lot have been said about the late former President Muhammadu Buhari, the good, the bad and the ugly. His military career, his record of public service, his spartan lifestyle, his rigidity in principles he held dear to his heart, his silence in times where his voice should have been heard, his anti-corruption stance, war against indiscipline as a military leader and head of state, even his disobedience to particular orders in military under a civilian administration of Late Shehu Shagari, when he pursued the notorious maitatsine into the neighboring Chad.
One thing that remains consistent in the description of the late former President Buhari was his most astounding quality that not even his most ardent critics can strip that away, the integrity personality he exemplified and lived by throughout his life. Therefore, despite the negative reviews that may follow his death, to some of us that worked in his administration in some capacities, we take solace in the fact that we believed in him, we knew him up close, his strengths and his flaws as well like every mortal, we are content even if what the world will remember about Muhammadu Buhari is only the strength of his character and integrity. That does it for some of us and justified our years of sacrifice working with him. It’s a vindication of some sort.
For me, I never knew I would feel his passing the way I do now, since I knew about his illness and also saw him some few months ago in kaduna, nonetheless, that knowledge did not prepare me for the loss and sadness I felt with his passing. I had no plans of writing an eulogy or any tribute, but two things made me to write, one, the news and videos circulating on the social media about some youth from the Northern part of the country celebrating his death due to uninformed position about the kind of work he did as a President, perhaps had they known some of these work, they might have shown sympathy and understanding rather than hatred in death to a leader who spent all his life in the cause of the common man. Secondly, I decided to write this form of tribute due to the paucity of materials on his actual work in office, most of the tributes were largely on his personality. I thought more people need to know not only about his person but also his work when he presided over the affairs of the nation, hence my decision to pen this tribute.
It is really quite sad that some of the people celebrating the death of President Buhari really do not know his person or what he had done particularly on their behalf.
For many of Buhari’s actual or perceived failings as a civilian President were actually as a result of the love he had for the same category of people dancing to his death today (the poor masses), but they did not know this.
BUHARI’S ECONOMIC SOCIALISM PHILOSOPHY
I often hear pundits till today while reviewing the life and times of Buhari, opining that economy was not his strong suit, or that he didn’t perform well on the economy front. I beg to differ with this school of thought, Buhari came to office at a time when Nigeria as a mono product depending economy was experiencing challenges of dwindling revenue from external factors, particularly the crash of the price of crude oil, globally, there was time it crashed to almost $28 dollar per barrel, and production output decreased from 2.2 million barrels per day to a mere 500,000. Even with that harsh reality, Buhari was able to bail out 27 states who couldn’t meet up their basic financial obligations such as paying workers salary. We went into recession due to dwindling revenue, but Buhari got us out of that recession in a record breaking time. Germany has been in recession recently and could not beat Buhari’s record of exiting recession that quickly.
Covid-19 Pandemic came calling in 2020 and due to global economic slowdown, many countries including Nigeria went into recession, some had it worse than us, again for the second time, Buhari was able to take us out of recession with minimal job losses and we were somewhat good on food security, why? Because President Buhari prepared the nation for such unforeseeable economic challenges. Another indicator to disprove those claiming Buharinomics failed, was his economic and recovery growth plan that for the first time in the history of the nation focused significant efforts at diversifying the economy from oil to non oil sectors such as as agriculture, mining and creative economy including the digital economy, Nigeria under Buhari witnessed unprecedented growth of start ups businesses particularly in the fintech sectors. Young Nigerians were cashing out through the use of technology and social media platforms to advance their businesses, advertising, influencing and content creation on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, facebook etc due to the Internet broadband connectivity and penetration under the Buhari’s government. Did I hear propels still laying claims that Buhari did not know economy or has mishandled the economy, even with these records that are by no means close to being exhaustive.
Buhari ran the most socialism government in recent history of this country, he wanted to build and in fact did built some infrastructure free for the people when modern governance in the 21st century dicatated otherwise, atleast he as able to have a mixed of socialism and capitalism/free market economy which helped steady the economic direction of the country.
The arguments of the buharinomics naysayers are mainly in two areas, borrowing threshold under Buhari, but here is the thing, Buhari although wanted to give to people all he could on education, health and infrastructure freely even when the nation resources did not support this particular ideology, a few of us within the administration did not necessarily agree with the too much leaning towards socialism system of leadership, but Buhari will be quick to remind you, that the poor were his actual constituency anywhere they were in Nigeria. However, back to borrowing, a larger part of the borrowing were on capital expenditure such as infrastructure, each loan was tied to a specific project and like experts at that time alluded, those borrowing never crossed the acceptable threshold of our GDP to Debt ratio, and if anything our major economic problem was in area of expanding revenue generation, again here is another cache 22 situation, as a country, you cannot expand your revenue generation without either fixing the infrastructure to create more production or alternatively you block leakages by reducing overhead cost which means losing jobs and squeezing the people through more tax collection, which President Buhari was not ready to do due to his socialist inclinations.
It is also to be noted that Buhari ran the first ever comprehensive social investment program (SIP) for the people, despite the allegations of corruption that characterized some of the programs at some points in time, yet he did it, from N-Power, 30,000 naira were paid to more than 1.5 million jobless university graduates for years, the program was later extended to secondary school leavers.
Buhari also carried out the school’s feeding program where hundreds of thousands of primary school pupils were fed for years to drive enrollment record and reduce out of school children in the country, as well as fight the scourge of malnutrition that was becoming exacerbated due to the insurgency in the Northeast part of the country as reported severally by the UNICEF.
The late President also carried out a conditional cash transfer program in conjunction with the Worldbank, which saw the administration paying the sum of 10,000 naira per 2 months to the poorest of the poor across the country for years, we heard and recorded various testimonies from old widows and poorest households how that helped them to start small and petty trades. Similarly, there were various forms of small loans for petty traders under different intitiatives such as GEEP and other development financial institutions where people could access above 100,000 naira up to 500,000 naira without any form of security or collateral deposit, just having accounts with banks and BVN were sufficient, thus no doubt, this intervention additionally drove financial inclusion in a country with one of the highest informal sector of the economy.
AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
Buhari had upon winning his election met with the outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan and asked from him what happened to the country when Jonathan was so lucky in his time that he sold crude oil at $100 per barrel on average for the 6 years he was in power and Jonathan had informed Buhari that the country used that amount for mainly 2 things, buying of rice and fuel importation. Buhari narrating this to us as President-elect, said from that time, he became resolute to atleast fight these headson or atleast one of them, if he cannot stop fuel importation due to lack of functioning refineries in the country, then, he was going to tackle the issue of importing rice into the country. It was this resolve that gave birth to the rice revolution witnessed in the country. The Buhari government decided to pursue a protectionist policy for the Nigerian farmers, banning land importation of rice while imposing higher tariffs for sea importation of rice, this action no doubt occasioned some degree of hardship as prices of rice went up and for the border communities particularly in the north, including his Daura axis where a lot of people depended on cross border trade, however, it was a policy passed with the best of intentions for Nigeria to attain food security and for our farmers to be able to compete in the market with their produce. Consequently, there was an upscale in agriculture intervention that was never seen before in Nigeria, again despite the allegations of corruption characterized some of the schemes, nevertheless, a lot of people were benefited from that, from the rice anchor borrowers program by the CBN which targeted big farmers and cooperatives societies to NIRSAL that targeted small holder farmers. We saw the rise of rice mills in the country, we saw rice farms springing up everywhere from Kebbi to Kano and Jigawa, to Adamawa to far away Ebonyi states. However, despite Buhari’s efforts on agriculture intervention, some beneficiaries collected those money and misused it, some used that money for oil and gas business, some for real estate, others added wives, some travelled to foreign lands to perform some religious rituals with the money.
PETROLEUM SUBSIDY
Buhari could have stopped the payment of petroleum subsidy at any point in time during his 8 years tenure, in fact many of us advocated for that from the very beginning when he requested his campaign team to come up with what he could do in his first 100 days in the office, I wrote, remove fuel subsidy, he did not agree with me. Some 5 months later when he had his first sets of ministers in place, majority of them particularly the finance, budget and planning, and the NNPC all advocated the removal of subsidy alongside the Nigeria governors forum, they all wanted subsidy gone. Even when Buhari had his first fuel scarcity crises, there was some conspiracy from the major oil marketers in collaboration with some in the government to force Buhari’s hands to fully deregulate the oil industry, which was what made the scarcity to linger longer than necessary, because the marketers rallied together and refused to import fuel into the country even when they were being paid their differentials as profits. When Buhari ordered NNPC to become the sole importer of the fuel, the marketers refused to use their distribution outlets for the products to flow, as this was going on, Buhari started losing his huge goodwill amongst the masses of the country for the first time, yet Buhari refused to back down, for the sake of the same masses.
Even when he passed the PIB that languished in the National Assembly for over 2 decades and part of that law provided for the suspension of all forms of subsidy payment on petroleum products on the 6 months anniversary of its coming into force, which coincided with February 28th 2022.
Buhari considered the report from security agencies and economic experts on the negative impact on the economy, the hardship it will occasion the poor and attendant social unrest. He therefore, directed the suspension of that portion of the PIA by 18 months and informed the committee on subsidy removal headed by co-chairs in the persons of Ministers Timipre Silva and Zainab Ahmed Shamsuna, until we can have the refineries back on track and Dangote refinery up and running, he cannot agree to remove the petrol subsidy. However, he also did not sit by idly, he went to work, aggressively pursued the total overhaul of the 4 nation refineries and paid every dime needed to get them back to functioning, but timelines kept shifting. Thank God, he had a plan B, which was Dangote Refinery. At that time, Dangote Refinery was finding it difficult to keep the project going, due to lack of financing from both local and international financiers as his debt exposure to several banks poses risk of defaulting. It was the Buhari administration that came to his aid, for the sake of national interest, yet Buhari never asked for a single share from Dangote.
He did it all that for the same Nigerians, including those dancing and celebrating his passing today. He reasoned tat that when the 18 months window he gracefully extended elapsed in June 2023, the people could have some cushion.
NORTH
For the North, particularly for those that were dancing and happy Buhari died, I really do not blame them, for they do not know what they were doing. Buhari tried everything to bring strategic development to the North, from investing heavily on farming as earlier highlighted to directing NNPC investment on discovery of oil and gas in the north in places like Borno and Bauchi/Gombe axis resulting in the discovery of the Kolmani Oul field, a lot of investment went in there, he also ensured the new PIA law has a clause setting aside some significant percentage even more than what was due for host communities in the Niger Delta just to explore new frontiers of oil, thereby institutionalizing the NNPC investment to continue exploration of oil and gas in the North even beyond his time in office, such were some of the fights he fought on behalf of the North.
He also knew that energy is important to the development of the North, and understood that the hydroelectric source was drying up and not a viable long term solution due to can’t change impacts. Also, the alternative sources of solar is too expensive, and not a good fit for the power needed for a large scale industrialization of big region like the North. He therefore, embarked in record breaking time operation Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kaduna- Kano (AKK) gas pipeline, because he understood Kano to be commercial hub in the North, and needed gas to power their industry, anyone that passes the road from kaduna to Kano as far back as when he handed over power in 2023, would have seen those pipelines being laid in the ground. I have seen the work in progress.
Buhari also appreciated the importance of having intermodal transportation, particularly for the North to connect with the neighboring Niger republic to open up and expand trade routes and development with the Sahel countries and also provide alternative platform for a landlocked northern Nigeria to utilize the rail corridor through Niger and possibly other coastal states as alternative routes and access points for the North. The same northern youth that are dancing and celebrating his death today.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Buhari constructed many roads, bridges in both south and north, like no other civilian administration before him, only the military administrations of IBB and Abacha could perhaps match the level of construction of roads and bridges done by the Buhari government. He constructed Second River Niger Bridge when no other administration could do it before with the old Niger bridge suffering since aftermath of the civil war, that was one of the most expensive project that Buhari undertook in his time and mostly for the benefit of the southeastern part of the country, yet this was never appreciated as many from that region had made up their minds about Buhari, and there was no changing their perception of him.
Buhari also constructed the most vital economic road in Nigeria, Lagos to Ibadan expressway that was neglected for 16 years, only about 10km left when he handed over to the current government. He also started the East-West road that past administrations couldn’t do. He also worked substantially on the Port Harcourt to Enugu Expressway, with many sections done.
RAIL NETWORK
Buhari completed the almost 80% rail work Jonathan did from Abuja to Kaduna, he completed about 20% and procured the trains heads and wagons. He built brand new standard modern gauge rail from Lagos to Ibadan via Abeokuta, the then Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo laid the foundation in 2017. Buhari also completed the Itakpe to Warri railway, as well as commenced the rail construction from kaduna to Kano before handing over, and other sections towards Maradi part. He also commenced the reworking of the existing narrow gauge rails networks from Lagos to Kano, and from Port Harcourt to Maiduguri before handing over.
AIRPORT
Buhari remodeled and refurbished all our international airports from Lagos MMIA to Abuja Nnamdi Azikwe airport and its second runway, to Port Harcourt International Airport, I can remember from 2015 to 2016, whenever I flew to port harcourt, we used to land in a makeshift facility. There was also the Enugu International cargo airport and it’s runaway that was done by Buhari, and MAKIA in Kano, most of us travel out of the country, we use those airports, we know how they were before and how they are after Buhari left office in 2023.
SECURITY
Now to the big elephant in the room, we knew how the Northeast was for the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, with about 17 local government areas fully under the control of Boko Haram terrorists as at when Buhari took over in 2015. We were also witnesses to attempts by Boko Haram expansion drive to Kano, kaduna, and even Abuja. I am very sure many of us have already forgotten how in 2015, we can not even attend both church and mosque services in the capital territory Abuja without being scanned or made to park at great distance with checkpoints everywhere along those flashpoints, including our military and security agencies offices, the many checkpoints on virtually all the roads in the entire north like we were in Afghanistan or present day Gaza.
Driving to Abuja from kaduna was a nightmare, even inside Kano at some points, I could recall on one of my visits to Kano at a particular checkpoint inside the city, noticing a heavily pregnant woman inside a Keke Napep forced to drop and walked the almost distance of a kilometer while the riders of the keke and okadas were to switch up their bikes and tricycles and push it over the distance of the checkpoints. There were bombs going off in Kano metropolis, with daring attacks on DSS office and Kano central mosque. Similarly, in kaduna, the Thisday newspaper office was bombed by the boko haram, while in Abuja there were several attacks by the Boko Haram, including the bombing of the United Nations office, a church in Madalla, and two successful bombings of the Nyanya car pack by the terrorist group.
Did all these escalated attacks by the Boko Haram magically disappeared? Were there no work done to achieve some sanity from those heightened activities of Boko haram then?
Yes, another frontier of security challenge opened up in the Northwest through the activities of bandits and kidnappers, which Buhari was also dealing before he left office. Yes, people criticized his allowing military service chiefs to stay longer than their effectiveness and results could justify.
But what about arms procurement and defence spending to achieve the level of security we did, a lot of people do not know how many functional fighter jets Nigeria had before Buhari came, we couldn’t boast of more than 5 of them.
Under Buhari, he procured both fighter jets and airforce helicopters more than 57 of them, some are still being delivered under the current administration. What about rifles and other arms, we forgot how our military used to run to neighboring Cameroon to hide under the much touted tactical maneuver when in fact they didn’t have arms to confront the non state actors, the highest combat weapons our infantry used to hold were AK47 then, some even use the obsolete FN rifles, but under Buhari, sophisticated weapons such as tavo rifles and other sophisticated weapons were procured along many armed platforms, could we say in all honesty, Buhari did not fight insecurity to a larger extent? could we really say he really failed on the question of leadership of this country as is being alluded in some quarters?
Let us answer these questions by ourselves, each of us knows the answer to these questions in the quietness of our minds.
As a leader, you are expected to face continuous threats and challenges, you solve some , others emerges, the best effective assessment of your leadership abilities should be based on your responses to the challenges you confront.
One cannot solve all the problems, you can only do the ones you could, and leave the rest to others that will come after you, if there were no challenges requiring solutions, there would have been no need for leaders.
In the end, just as Franklin Charles noted, none of us is getting out of this life, alive. Muhammadu Buhari’s watch is now over, and he did his best, we are very proud of his legacy and accomplishments.
He surely will be judged by what he did when he was alive just as we all will be judged by our actions. May the soul of the former President Muhammadu Buhari rest in perfect peace, and may Aljannatul Firdaus be his final abode as he’s laid to rest, Ameen.
Aliyu Abdullahi is a former Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari and Spokesperson of the First Lady (Aisha Muhammadu Buhari)
14th July 2025
