You Have No Right To Complain Of Hunger – Buhari Blasts Nigerians

President Muhammadu Buhari says Nigerians have no right to complain of hunger under his regime, adding that those complaining of hunger should return to their farm. President Buhari said one of the policies he undertook upon assuming office in 2015 was to block the Nigerian borders from food importation and force people back to the farm.

According to his words; “I took that decision to stop rice importation and said we should farm what we eat or die of hunger, I said that since we have farm and land, and God has blessed us with rain, what reason does a Nigerian have to say he is hungry?” President Buhari stated. “If you are hungry, go to the farm,” he added.

President Buhari, in an interview with Tambari Hausa TV stated that despite the flood ravaging farming communities, Nigeria can still feed itself.

According to his words; “I am aware that floods have ravaged some farmlands this season but we are still selling rice made in Nigeria, and we can feed ourselves. Is that not an achievement?” “We have workers who left their air-conditioned offices and went into farming, and they had bounty harvests. So, we are grateful,” President Buhari stated.

Under President Buhari leadership, banditry, insurgency and other criminal activities have sacked thousands of farmers from their fields as insecurity intensified under his leadership. Farmers can no longer go their farms due to the fear of Fulani herdsmen and bandits.

In November 2020, now fewer than 110 farmers were slain by Boko Haram terrorists in Borno state, according to the United Nations. In Benue state and Enugu state, more than 60 people have been killed in their farmlands by Fulani herdsmen

Recently, reports have indicated that many villagers in northern states such as Niger, Kaduna and Katsina, pay taxes to bandits and insurgents to be able to work on their farms peacefully.

However, due to the insecurity, poverty, unemployment and high inflation ravaging the country, the first lady of Nigeria Aisha Buhari has beg Nigerians to forgive her husband for his inability to govern the country very well.

The First Lady of Nigeria, Her Excellency Aisha Buhari during the Awards Gala Dinner at the African Ambassadors & Diaspora Interactive Forum in London, United Kingdom urge Nigerians to forgive her husband for his inability to protect the country from insecurity.

Aisha Buhari who has strong political and social consciousness, criticized her husband administration stating that truly they have failed Nigerians. However, as President Buhari’s administration winds down, Mrs. Aisha Buhari is now apologizing for its pathetic performance, begging Nigerians to forgive her husband. But why would Nigerians heed to her plea when her husband Buhari is an unrepentant sinner?

Recently, at the 62nd Independence Day Special Juma’at prayer and Public Lecture held at the National Mosque Conference Hall in Abuja, Mrs. Aisha Buhari stated saying; “The regime might not have been a perfect one, but I want to seize this opportunity to seek forgiveness from Nigerians in general.”

She referred to the economic conditions, which is causing a lot of hardship and difficulties, and the effects of banditry, kidnapping and many other atrocities ravaging the society.” She repeated the apology in an exclusive interview with BBC Pidgin on October 21, 2022.

Family honour wouldn’t allow Mrs. Aisha Buhari to say publicly that her husband’s government has been a big failure, instead, she resorted to euphemism: “The regime might not have been a perfect one.” What an understatement! Yet, her past criticisms of her husband’s government shows that she believes he has performed very poor below the expectations of Nigerians, that his administration has failed to live up to the promises of “change”, which brought Buhari to power in 2015 and 2019.

In an interview with the BBC in October 2016, Mrs. Aisha Buhari talks about her husband’s government. According to her things are not going the way they should, adding that nobody thought it’s going to be like this. She further stated that when one is doing something wrong and people talk to them, they should listen.”

Three years later, in 2019, near the end of her husband’s first term, Mrs. Aisha Buhari said his administration’s flagship Social Investment Programme, (SIP) has failed woefully,” revealing that the N500bn programme made no impact. And shortly after her husband started his second term in 2019, she stated that the people his husband put in the cabinet should just sit up and do the needful, so that the First Lady would stop talking.”

Indeed, Buhari is Nigeria’s most arrogant leader. He is certainly the worst president since the return to civil rule in 1999. If you think that is outlandish, consider how he is compared with other presidents since 1999. Take for instance President Olusegun Obasanjo, President Musa Yara’dua and President Goodluck Jonathan. Buhari lacks competence and vision.

Obasanjo secured a reduction of Nigeria’s external debt from $38bn to $13bn, and created state institutions, such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. By contrast, Buhari has plunged Nigeria into unprecedented levels of debt, with the total external debt at about $40.06 billion (N16.61 trillion) as at June 30, 2022, while total public debt, representing domestic and external debt, was $103.31 billion as at June 30, 2022, according to the Debt Management Office, DMO.

Great leaders build institutions, but instead of building institutions, Buhari undermines the existing ones. For instance, he has eroded the autonomy and independence of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, which he treats as an appendage of the presidency.

Buhari lacks the ability to recognize and manage Nigeria’s diversity. Yar’Adua doused the tension in the Niger Delta through a political solution. But IPOB and Oduwa Nation agitations reached a crescendo under Buhari because he mismanaged Nigeria’s diversity and rejected political solution. Think about it. Buhari is the only president since 1999 who refuses to convene a national political dialogue. He rejected reports of previous political conferences. Buhari is not a nation builder.

President Goodluck Jonathan had the good sense to assemble a talented team even though he himself lacked outstanding leadership qualities. But Buhari lacks leadership qualities and surrounds himself with mediocre whom he called ministers. In 2015, as he assumed office, Buhari described ministers as “noise makers”. Of course, because he regarded ministers as noise makers, he didn’t care about ministerial qualities. As a result, his cabinets, both in his first and second terms, are the worst in Nigeria; utterly devoid of technocracy.

This is all ironic. Buhari tried desperately for 12 years, from 2003 to 2015, to govern Nigeria but failed. He ran unsuccessfully for president three times, only succeeding at the fourth attempt. For someone who sought power so desperately, he should have hit the ground running when he became president.

But as Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, put it in one of his article, once in office, Buhari was “dangerously looking as if power was an end in itself.” Indeed, that’s how Buhari has run Nigeria over the past seven-and-a-half years, enjoying the trappings of power, while watching Nigeria sink deeper into the vortex of decline.

Buhari is in London for two weeks for “medical check-up”, after just returning from Japan. Yet, floods are ravaging Nigeria and Western countries are asking their diplomatic staffs to leave Nigeria due to security threats. Last week, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, said President Buhari should be on seat and not to be traveling all over the world like a pilot.

He should stay in Nigeria and face the same problems that everyone is facing. So many people have argued that the man in the seat of power is not President Buhari, but an imposter named Jubril from Saudi Arabia. Only time will tell if this abomination is true or false.