Compare Buhari and Obasanjo economically and otherwise

Sir: Many Nigerians are still at loss why the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, is politicising a criminal case that emanated in his Kwara State. But the issue here is how the President, General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB), is trying to block his defeat in the coming 2019 presidential election. He has a dream to rule Nigeria until he is 81. The former President, General Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) was said to want to do third term presidency. The former President, Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, promised to spend a single term of presidency, but upon attaining power, behold it became too sweet.

After his election in 2015, GMB disclosed that age was not on his side, and he immediately made London his own second home, squandering hard currencies over there. As part of his efforts to get reelection in 2019, GMB has just accused OBJ, an opponent, of squandering or stealing whopping $16 billion which he said OBJ was supposed to have spent on electricity without any result. In response, OBJ asked GMB to probe him.

In my view, electricity has improved slightly in some places because of its privatisation done by GMB’s immediate predecessor, Jonathan. Nevertheless, let GMB probe OBJ on $16 billion. But before doing that, let GMB explain the skyrocketing debts under his own presidency, flying in trillions; and to explain why inflation is higher than under any previous government, 1999 till date. Let GMB explain how he was buying sophisticated weapons before hearing last year (2017) that Nigeria had $3 billion in excess crude oil account, and why he decided to take a billion off it for sophisticated weapons. Let GMB explain the benefits of annual budgets, 2015 to 2018, and why Nigeria is economically worse than he met it; why Nigerians are much poorer than he met them.

Electricity was privatised under Jonathan. GMB should explain how his annual budgets have improved electricity compared to his predecessors. I put it to GMB that his government is more brutal than those of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Jonathan who started the senseless catastrophic war against Boko Haram. Fulani herdsmen brutality became terrorism under GMB. Moreover, which government of Nigeria was (and is) not corrupt? But how can you compare sickness with death? OBJ, proverbially speaking, committed sickness in Nigeria, while Yar’Adua, Jonathan, and GMB caused deaths, and the worst of them is GMB. And so, OBJ is well placed in his 80s to contribute to how sickness and death can be minimised in Nigeria, proverbially speaking, so that she can overcome carnage, genocide, and economic annihilation.

Daily bloodshed; yet GMB is befriending developed nations so as to buy warplanes from them in 2018! The Igbo supported Jonathan presidency, so that he might be “gateway for Igbo presidency.” Some Igbo leaders are now canvassing reelection of GMB so that he might be “gateway for Igbo presidency.” If people are deceiving you, fine. If you are deceiving yourself, sorry!
Professor Oyeniran Abioje wrote from University of Ilorin.