Sir: As a political contributor on major Nigerian issues, for some time I’d been in a hibernation – not triggered or inspired to write or comment on anything significantly. I’d rather traced such dispassion instructively on two things: first it was high time I turned over to my other passion, namely computational linguistics; secondly, perhaps far more importantly, there’s really nothing worthwhile to comment upon. Simply nothing!

The insecurity insurgency is, as yet, one major problem Buhari’s Nigeria is seriously embattled with; that seems to be the deficient hallmark of his administration; in other words, that’s what he’s perhaps going to be most remembered for.

The Buhari administration, to be sure, has failed enormously in dealing with the epidemic of insecurity the country has never had before in a democratic dispensation. Moreover, the manifold manifestation of “bloodshed, lies, tyranny and injustice” is to be expected as “the result of even the greatest upheaval” – all in the name of “change.” Being a former military head of state, Buhari at least should have been schooled in the sine-qua-non and modus operandi of militarily mitigating and mediating every form of threats of ‘accumulation through dispossession,’ without wreaking harm or havoc on human lives, that catastrophically could ensue in an exemplary dictatorial gerontocracy or institutional autocracy.

I do appreciate the strategic quotient of Buhari in circumnavigating the country with linguistically peculiar zonal nomenclatures: first, it was Amotekun; second, it was Shege Ka Fasa; and then it was Ebubeagu – respectively, in the South West; North; and South East. (I’m kind of keen to see the South South’s version, except, though, if Ebubeagu sorts that out.) Even though Buhari would not admit that he’s already operating on a secessionist tenant, in letting contested zones have their cakes and eat them, practically and technically he’s already militarised the bombastic elements eventuated by democratic diehards.

The fact that Buhari is suffering from a military-and-democratic crisis of consciousness is abundantly clear. In a military regime, typically, actions are hardly weighed against their consequences; ideas are barely thought-out and mapped-out before any actionable planned-out decision; and then of course the citizenry are scarcely carried along in the minutest direction that’s going to have a gigantic impact on them. And as such, we see how Buhari could not consistently create a democratic uniformity among his ‘civilian’ subordinates. Even though he did try in one way or another – i.e. the futile armageddon against corruption – his military forthrightness is often thwarted away by progressophobics of similar persuasion.

I think what the Buhari administration need do, now, is to make sure that the Groundhog Day doesn’t give birth to an ascendency of catastrophes for next presidency by actualising a free, fair, full, and credible transfer of power, come 2023.

• Segun Ige a freelance journalist, wrote from Lagos.