A Ranking Of Nigeria’s Presidents
People may find this strange, but pound for pound, by my own reckoning, the greatest Nigerian President of all time was the late Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, (UMYA), a Fulani. His Achilles heel was his failing health which allowed the Fulani clique around him to seize power for selfish reasons.
His greatest achievement? Without making noise about fighting corruption, he implemented almost to the letter the Obasanjo Administration's blueprint for public procurement, which Obasanjo the Formulator could not implement for reasons of lack of time or search for a third term or lack of political will.
One might ask, why is fighting corruption so important as to secure for UMYA the number one ranking among all of Nigeria’s past and present presidents? In my own reckoning, the number one problem of Nigeria which has kept it from developing or truly progressing, is an abject disdain for merit in all facets of national life.
This manifests itself in cheating to win elections, cheating to secure appointments and positions, cheating in service delivery, cheating to defraud others. Cheating to advance personal interests or the interests of your tribe, village, family, or friends. Everywhere you go in Nigeria, left or right, front or back, one is surrounded by stupendous cheating.
If merit had been allowed to thrive, Nigeria would have become an economic powerhouse by now. I know this at first hand, because a civil engineering consultancy company that I owned and directly managed, was a beneficiary on pure merit alone, assessed competitively on both technical and commercial basis, and with absolutely zero connections, of UMYA's quiet revolution.
Greedy politicians and covetous civil servants incrementally subverted this merit revolution probably because UMYA took ill. It was completely dismantled by the Goodluck Jonathan's Administration, under who corruption was very rife and festering.
Olusegun Obasanjo, easily the most gifted of Nigeria's Presidents, missed the mark of best President because of his personal shortcomings. He comes second in my reckoning. A man of incredible stamina, strategic and management vision, only matched in long-term vision by Ibrahim Babangida, Obasanjo's Achilles heel was his stupendous ego and love of power. He pared down or paid back Nigeria’s debt to manageable levels. He also knew how to surround himself with talent as much and perhaps even more than Ibrahim Babangida and Goodluck Jonathan did.
The latter also knew how to surround himself with talent, but Goodluck Jonathan who seemed to suffer from some sort of inferiority complex, pandered too much to the elites, especially northern elites, and lacked the will power to curb corruption in his immediate and extended circles. Almost all the gains of his first-class management team was frittered away through frivolous, mind-boggling expenditures. Despite all, however Goodluck Jonathan’s Administration grew Nigeria’s economy at an incredible pace making it the largest economy in Africa. To his credit and as a fierce critic of him back in his days, I always took notice, and never failed to mention in my criticisms, that he was a man of peace who did not spill innocent blood. This makes him the third greatest Nigerian President in my reckoning. He cemented his position by handing over power peacefully after he lost an election, something hitherto unheard of in Nigeria.
The fourth ranking Nigerian President is a straight tossup between Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha. The former was the most strategic and cunning of Nigeria's leaders, initiating bold moves some of which worked while many others did not. But corruption festered under him. The latter who ties with the worst Nigerian President for brutality, was however a very shrewd manager of resources. He allegedly stole public money. A lot of it in fact, but he made sure no one else had the temerity to steal public funds. He spilled blood, but it was the blood of the elites who dared to challenge him. An extremely stingy man to every other person but himself and immediate family, Abacha was very frugal in his management of Nigeria’s economy. He may not have grown it like Goodluck Jonathan, Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida did, but he closed all loopholes for leakages other than those to himself and immediate family, making the Nigerian economy stable, even if not growing by much.
The recently deceased Ernest Shonekan ties for joint sixth with the late Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, the late General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi, General Yakubu Gowon, late General Murtala Muhammed, late Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar. The honest and modest Tafawa Balewa was too weak, pandering to Ahmadu Bello, Premier of the Northern Region and completely oblivious of corrupt elements in his cabinet. The short tenured late General Ironsi and long tenured General Gowon were too naïve, to manage a complex entity like Nigeria. General Murtala Muhammed’s tenure was too short but long enough to destroy Nigeria’s Civil Service through the purging of its brightest and best by its worst elements. Corruption festered under late Shehu Shagari. The late Ernest Shonekan’s tenure was too short for any critical assessment. General Abubakar's short tenure was uneventful but nevertheless inflicted a flawed Constitution on the nation.
The least ranking and very easily the worst of all Nigerian Presidents and Heads of State, dead or alive, is the current incumbent Muhammadu Buhari. A primitive man of two eyes for an eye, all teeth for a tooth and tons of blood for a pint of blood, his sole mission in power was and remains to loot the ancestral lands of Indigenous Nigerians for the permanent benefit of his immigrant Fulani ethnicity. Under the direct watch of his expansionist policy, tons of innocent blood of the least powerful in society have been spilled needlessly, mostly by Fulani criminal terrorists inspired by and some would say instigated by him. Let us not even venture to discuss his disastrous nepotistic inclinations or accumulation of gargantuan debt. Under his legendary and unparalleled misrule, Nigeria has become the world capital of poverty and kidnapping for ransom. As well as an emerging world capital of Islamic and criminal terrorism. That alone says it all.
Some ignorant persons would say he built so and so kilometers of roads, bridges, and railways, but fall silent when asked at what cost and for whose benefit are those roads and bridges? If the intended beneficiaries cannot safely ply the roads and bridges for fear of kidnapping and murder by Federal Government instigated and supported Fulani criminal- and herdsmen-terrorists, of what use are they? Meanwhile the interest charges incurred for their construction is mounting daily.
Some of his supporters would say Muhammadu Buhari is not personally corrupt. That naïve retort conceals the fact that a President who surrounds himself with a corrupt inner circle must be equally corrupt. Only a fool would expect a man who has survived to rise to the position of President of Nigeria to be ignorant of how to protect himself from exposure to charges of corruption by perfecting the art of corruption-by-proxy.
Indeed, not one single former Nigerian President has ever been officially indicted for corruption, yet everyone suspects with tremendous collateral empirical evidence that many of them were indeed corrupt. Going by the joint actions of the Heads of State and Presidents with their inner circles and cabinet, I and I can only declare the short-tenured Presidents like late General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi, late General Murtala Muhammed and late Ernest Shonekan of not being corrupt. Others without question, would have eyebrows of voluntary or involuntary corruption-by-proxy raised against them, going by the activities of their close associates.
If all long-serving Nigerian Presidents or Heads of State are guilty of voluntary or involuntary treasury looting-by-proxy, only one Nigerian President is guilty of voluntary land looting-by-policy. That dubious honor goes to Nigeria’s current President Muhammadu Buhari’s Maladministration. It has earned him a place of dishonor in the ranking of Nigeria’s Presidents.
But he simply does not care provided he has his way in seizing and nationalizing the ancestral lands of Indigenous Nigerians for the benefit of his immigrant Fulani ethnicity, under the dubious policy of ‘One Nigeria.’ So, we have the strange and curious situation where the prime beneficiaries of all the best things and choice assets ‘One Nigeria’ has to offer are immigrants, while Indigenous Nigerians bear the violence and the brunt.
President Muhammadu Buhari will not give a single hoot about his ranking in the list of Nigerian Presidents, provided he is able to seize and nationalize the ancestral lands of Indigenous Nigerians for the benefit of his immigrant, Fulani ethnicity. Nigerians owe it a sacred duty to themselves, their descendants, and the dead souls they have lost to Muhammadu Buhari’s deadly Fulani expansionism policy, to deny Muhammadu Buhari that singular satisfaction, even if doing so marks the end of the one-time British contraption, now commonly known and addressed as ‘One Nigeria.’
We are watching…….
Anthony Chuka Konwea, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, MNSE, FNIStructE, MNICE.