In the wake of glowing tributes pouring in after the death of former President Muhammadu Buhari, one voice defiantly breaks the silence of false reverence.
Stripped of euphemisms and emotional pretensions, this perspective calls Buhari exactly what many lived to realize he was a tragedy. A national mistake. A burden. A lesson.
Many of the citizens who actively campaigned for Buhari’s rise to the presidency in 2015 were young, hopeful, and driven by a thirst for genuine leadership.
They remembered stories of his military-era discipline, and in the chaos of post-Obasanjo misrule, clung to the idea of a messiah in khaki-turned-democrat. But that hope would be betrayed. Blatantly.
In eight years of leadership, Buhari did not heal Nigeria — he deepened its wounds. From economic collapse to widespread insecurity, his presidency became synonymous with failure on nearly every measurable front.
The hardship was not abstract; it was real. People died. Families fled. Hunger deepened. Trust in government collapsed.
He presided over a nation teeming with corruption — not just in silence, but with endorsement. The rule of law was trampled when a sitting Chief Justice was removed through dubious processes.
Security agencies became politicized weapons. Bandits reigned. Blood soaked the soil of Benue, Kaduna, Jos, including Ebonyi one of the youngest states in Nigeria and beyond. When young, unarmed protesters in Lagos raised their voices for justice, they were answered with bullets under Buhari’s gaze.
What makes this tragedy even more cruel is the deception that came with it. He was marketed as a man of modesty, a leader with no wealth, yet lived in glaring contradiction — his own children schooled abroad while his administration implemented suffocating forex policies that crippled middle and lower-income families.
No single functioning hospital. No enduring legacy. No apology. No remorse. Even in death, the eulogies seek to whitewash the disaster. But memory is powerful. And millions remember the reality — the chaos, the hunger, the fear, the shame.
In more accountable societies, leaders who commit crimes against the people face consequences — sometimes even after death.
For many, the hope remains that one day Nigeria will evolve into such a nation, where truth is not buried with the dead and where justice is blind to power, status, or legacy.
Buhari, for them, was no hero. He was a lesson — a costly one. One that must never be forgotten. One that must be told with honesty to generations yet unborn.
Because history cannot heal what it refuses to acknowledge.
Muhammadu Buhari was not just a failed leader. He was a national tragedy. And Nigeria deserves better forever.