51 Comments
User's avatar
David I. Adeleke's avatar

This is brilliant and apt. You've put into words some things I've thought but didn't quite know how to articulate.

Expand full comment
Feyi Fawehinmi's avatar

Thank you!

Expand full comment
Cheyni's avatar

I really don’t understand how this man could be seen as disciplined. A false perception, and it’s that perception that elevated him to the status enjoyed. What exactly were the principles that supposedly defined his discipline? I recently found out that he only joined the military to avoid being married off early, not out of any deep values or strong sense of purpose. He was a simple-minded man. As you've said, he lacked intellectual depth and very likely fits what we now understand as someone on the autism spectrum - narrow interests, rigid thinking, and poor social awareness,….. - not some kind of fake enigma. That an entire nation couldn’t see through him is perhaps the clearest sign of how lost we are -especially in Northern Nigeria. Well, I say Northern Nigeria but then there’s the Ronu posse.

Expand full comment
Mark Amaza's avatar

Everything minus the autism bit cos folks on the spectrum are often exceptional in one thing intellectually speaking.

Expand full comment
Cheyni's avatar

You're absolutely right, Mark. I guess I'm just trying to find an explanation for him - because without neurodiversity to account for his lack of awareness, inflexibility, and complete absence of social understanding or empathy, the only alternative is that he was simply a deeply wicked and unintelligent man. I listened to a journalist describe how he divorced his first wife for accepting gifts from his supposed tormentors - and spoke of it as something admirable. I was honestly shocked. Or was it his initial refusal to even meet with the released Chibok girls?

Let’s just leave his legacy and memory with this very well-written piece by Feyi - at least for now.

Expand full comment
Mark Amaza's avatar

He was just inflexible, and was never really bright. There are many folks like that, unfortunately.

Expand full comment
Choko's avatar

This makes alot at of sense

Expand full comment
ChiAmaka's avatar

I wish I wrote this. It’s a fantastic obituary

Expand full comment
Abdulnasir Imam's avatar

This was a very fair assessment of Baba, also revealing a few things I didn't know. Also, is that an error where you said May 1998, but the link to the article is dated 1999?

Expand full comment
Feyi Fawehinmi's avatar

Thanks for reading. And yes, it's correct. The interview was given in May 1998. The internet in Nigeria in the 1990s is very badly organised so you have to make use of any links you can find. For some reason this one was dated 1999 but it was definitely given in 1998

Expand full comment
Abdulnasir Imam's avatar

Right, thanks for the clarification.

Expand full comment
Brown's avatar

This is brilliant. Thank you for capturing history while putting out this brilliant piece.

Expand full comment
Feyi Fawehinmi's avatar

Thank you!

Expand full comment
Odunoluwa's avatar

The most befitting obituary for the most wicked person whose actions have directly impacted my life and choices. Facts only

My afterlife wish for him is wishing him the same afterlife he bestowed on Nigerians and that does not count as talking ill of the dead , simply reciprocity. 😶

Expand full comment
Feyi Fawehinmi's avatar

😞

Expand full comment
Henri Siloni's avatar

This is a beautifully written piece.

The man Buhari; Impervious to mental economic rigour, venerating loyalty above competence, and his servitude to inflexibility above economic development

Expand full comment
Bolarinwa Oniwura's avatar

Well written.

Expand full comment
DL's avatar

A very well written piece on a nations tragedy...

Expand full comment
Kelechi's avatar

Mixed emotions reading this. I should say I hate him more, but what good would that do me?

Sadly, as you rightly said, he is perhaps the biggest beneficiary in this poorly assembled country.

Thank you for writing this, I hope more Nigerians get to read it.

Expand full comment
Mohammed's avatar

Such a brilliant article. You were very kind to him. Only negative is no mention of the Shiite massacre and End SARS killings. The last paragraph is a succinct summary.

Expand full comment
Ogunsiji Samuel's avatar

Well said Feyi, learnt quite a handful of untold stories about the ex-president. Thank you.

You were vocal about his insularity and how it influenced the trajectory of things but all I see and still believe all these democratic heads are “emissaries” of the west 😂😂

Expand full comment
aadeniran's avatar

A profoundly exceptional piece.

And I must confess to professional jealousy as I wish I had written this.

In relocated from London in September 2013, at the peak of buoyant oil prices, and knew first hand how things were back then.

It was Obasanjo who broke Jonathan when he tore his party membership in the run up to the 2015 elections and that in my view, was the impetus for large scale defections which took place back then.

While I was indifferent to PMB, given his antecedents, I was blown away by his staggering incompetence and the degree to which the Nigerian economy unravelled in 2016.

Professor Doyin Salami came to give a lecture and pointed out to my Ogas at Sahara that they were misaligned with Buhari's government and that his second term was inevitable, did it start to dawn on me, how much of a mess, we were in.

Everything else which followed, end sars and old Naira notes, were simply proof of the grotesque error of 2015.

I don't think that we will ever get to the 2013 levels of economic prosperity for a very long time; I might be deluded, but this is my view...

Expand full comment
Idiareno's avatar

A very honest obituary. I rue the days i campaigned to invite a pestilence on my nation. I recall that i once undertook an unscientific poll that suggested the rate of ‘Japa’ grew astronomically following his speech after the Lekki Toll gate massacre. That sheer callousness n his words shocked a generation and killed their hope that we could turn a corner. May he rest in peace after trying his best and leaving us famished and broken.

Expand full comment
Feyi Fawehinmi's avatar

Amen.

Expand full comment
Felix Omokaro's avatar

How did I forget to check if Feyi wrote about this!

And you never disappoint.

Expand full comment
Nicky's avatar

Beautifully written. A brilliant capture of the man and a complex chapter in Nigerian history 👌🏾

Expand full comment
Feyi Fawehinmi's avatar

Thanks Nicky :)

Expand full comment