4 Reasons Arewa Will Regret Buhari’s Rule

Muhammadu Buhari

It has been over 4 years of a disappointment-ladened Buhari presidency. 

The government claims progress is being achieved but, studies, surveys and the voices of the masses tell otherwise. 

In June 2018, Nigeria was declared the poverty capital of the world by World Data Lab, taking over from India. 

Unemployment has been on the rise with the government forecasting that by next year (2020) 33.5% of Nigerians will have no jobs.

On 8th October 2019, Oxfam International revealed that over 94 million Nigerian are living in abject poverty, aid groups have also stated that 41 million Nigerians go to bed hungry everyday. A bulk of these victims of deprivation are northern Nigerian Muslims. 

According to the 2019 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), "The worst food crises in 2018, in order of severity, were: Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Sudan, South Sudan and northern Nigeria. These eight countries accounted for two thirds of the total number of people facing acute food insecurity - amounting to nearly 72 million people."

A survey by Macrotrends has shown that from 2000, there was a record rise in hunger prevalence (2.5%) in Nigeria in 2016 (one year into Buhari's rule). 

Muhammadu Buhari derives the greater portion of his fan base from the northern Muslim community, initially because he earned the love and trust of the people through his antecedents but now, it is out of fear of excommunication by northern clerics who have painted for Buhari the image of a caliph. 

With Muhammadu Buhari currently in his second term and likely to go for a third, here are reasons why his rule could turn out to be the worst thing to happen to northern Nigerian Muslims in the 21st century.

No Economic Plan

Poverty has always been more deeply rooted in the Muslim north of Nigeria. The region has the least literacy rate, the lowest internally generated revenue by states, the most inefficient and corrupt government, and the highest unemployment rate in the country. No deliberate effort is being made by the Buhari-led government to change this sorry story. 

In the regime of Goodluck Jonathan, there were calls every now and then by the oil producing regions of Nigeria for the splitting of the country citing parasitism of particularly northern states. It was the belief of the average intellectual northern Muslim that the coming of Buhari will facilitate the development of northern Nigeria to self-sustenance level, we were wrong. 

The diversification of the economy Buhari promised has not happened, northern states continue to depend on southern oil sales to epileptically pay workers salaries. If Nigeria were to split today, northerner Muslims will be doomed to starve. 

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, of the ten poorest states in Nigeria, 9 are northern states. 

On 23rd October 2019, BudgIT releases a report stating that of the 36 states of the Nigerian federation, 33 could not finance their operations without federal allocation (Oil money from the south). This included all northern states.

It was believed that Buhari and his friends would learn from what happened in Sudan in 2011. 

Northern Sudanese Muslims ruled Sudan for decades with wealth gotten from southern oil fields. Even when a secession by the south was imminent, the northern Muslim rulers never thought it wise to strive for economic strength and independence for their region. The south seceded with virtually all the oil wells, unemployment and poverty skyrocketed in the Muslim north, and the country was brought to the think of civil war over the price of bread. 

Northern Nigeria, in the shadow of Buhari, is threading that path.

Insecurity

All the terror groups that existed before Buhari are extent and some other nameless groups have began to emerge, all of these, in northern Nigeria. On whether these groups are driven artificially or not, a region with a preponderance of codeless armed groups will always be a flash point. 

Kidnapping used to be a crime heard of only in southern Nigeria, under Buhari, the south is fast paling into insignificance when compared to the north on the subject matter. 

The government has also continued to arm vigilante groups in its so-called right against terror in order to cut cost. This is despite several reports linking these vigilante groups to gross human rights violations against civilians. 

As it is with nameless armed groups across the world, they could also serve as secret hit-squads that target political foes. A slight disruption of power will set northern Nigeria a blaze. With the massive population of northern Nigeria, we should expect a carnage more egregious than any witnessed in the history of Africa. 

No Islamic Progress

The decline in Islam – adherence that started in the twilight of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration has continued under the Buhari administration. Islamic clerics have retrained from moving for a rejuvenation of the Islamic system in northern Nigeria, according to them, doing so will make Buhari appear as an extremist. 

Buhari has through the years been portrayed as the ultimate northern Muslim ruler, his total silence on Islam practice in Nigeria (particularly in the north) has become the precedent for identifying 'prodigious' leadership among the northern Nigerian elites. 

On 28th August, the Buhari government, in its continued effort to silence the Islamic movement of Nigeria (IMN), alleged that the group’s sole intention was to turn Nigeria into an Islamic republic. 

In order words, the Buhari government declared that making attempts, whether by speech or deeds to make Nigeria an Islamic country is an act of terrorism. If the Buhari government is using this charge to silence its foes, it only means one thing, Buhari has no Islamic ambition for northern Nigeria. 

Bad Blood for Nigerian Muslims

Buhari's government has also made several moves capable of turning the world's Muslims against Nigerian Muslims.

On 12th July, a group of 37 countries signed a letter addressed to the United Nations defending the persecution of Uighur Muslims. Nigeria, under Buhari, was one of those countries. Will Uighur Muslims and other Muslims standing by them in the face of the persecution ever have any form of empathy towards the Muslims of northern Nigeria knowing that the ‘best’ person among them is a friend of their enemy? 

Mohamed Beji Caid Essebsi, the Tunisian president who instigated several anti-Islam legislations  in Tunisia died on 25th July 2019. At a period when devout Tunisian Muslims were celebrating his death, Buhari sent his condolences saying, “His death marks the end of an era in the politics of Tunisia. The country has lost a father figure. The Nigerian government and people extend heartfelt condolences to his family, and the government and people of Tunisia."

To date, the Buhari government has never made a single statement on the plight of the Palestinians yet, on 23rd May, the Israeli ambassador to Nigeria, Shimon Ben-Shosan, was invited to Aso Villa by Muhammadu Buhari. There it was revealed that Buhari actually invited the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to attend the June 12 Democracy Day celebration in Nigeria. For some reason, Netanyahu did not honour the invitation.

Ben-Shosan is quoted to have said at the gathering, "Next year will be 60 years of diplomatic relations between Nigeria and Israel, and the last time a prime minister of Israel visited Nigeria was in 1958. My dream is to bring my prime minister and president to visit Nigeria and for President Buhari to visit Israel. That will be historic for us."

Northern Nigeria is treading the path of most Arab nations that hardly ever mention the suffering of their Palestinian Muslim brothers and sisters but are always on the lookout for opportunities to fraternize with the Israelis. This indulgence is capable bringing the hatred of the world’s Muslims upon northern Nigerian Muslims such that we would have no serious Muslim nation coming to our aid should things go bad for us.

Like a fellow northern agitator said, we cannot continue to be silent on the bleak nature of our future under Buhari out of fear that we will be laughed at by those who never gave him a chance. We must save our children from the consequences of mistakes we have made.

For how long will Nigeria Muslims continue to live the lie that they are all in support of the backwardness Nigeria has witnessed since 2015? 

For how long will Nigerian Muslims continue to remain silent on the persecution of their brothers and sisters across the globe assisted by the government they voted for?

The earlier we come to terms with the fact that the Buhari rule is blowing ill wind to our brethren locally and internationally, the better for us both in this life and in the Hereafter.

I end with this beautiful quote from the Glorious Qur'an

"O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives. Whether one is rich or poor, Allah is more worthy of both. So follow not personal inclination, lest you not be just. And if you distort your testimony or refuse to give it, then indeed Allah is ever, with what you do, Acquainted." 
Suratul Nisa (4:135)

Allah knows best.