President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday continued the blame game that has characterised his administration in blaming past leaders for Nigeria’s woes.
In his Independence Day speech marking Nigeria’s 60hth anniversary, Buhari applauded his administration but lampooned those who governed the country from 1999 to 2015, the year he became a civilian president.
As Buhari noted, out of the 60 years of Nigeria’s independence, the military ruled for a total of 29 years. Buhari was one of the military heads of state, ruling from December 31, 1983, when he overthrew the government of President Shehu Shagari, to August 1985, when he was overthrown by General Ibrahim Babangida
Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired general and former military head of state, became a civilian president in May 1999, as Nigeria returned to democratic rule after years of despotic military rule. He ruled for two terms of four years each, and handed over to Musa Yar’Adua.
Yar’Adua could not complete his first term before he died, and was succeeded by Goodluck Jonathan, his Vice President. Jonathan went on to win the presidential election in 2011, and was defeated in 2015 by Buhari.
Buhari said Nigeria’s leaders within this period drove the country near to the brink.
“Those in the previous Governments from 1999 – 2015 who presided over the near destruction of the country have now the impudence to attempt to criticize our efforts,” Buhari said.
He declared that “no government in the past did what we are doing with such scarce resources. We have managed to keep things going in spite of the disproportionate spending on security”.
Buhari’s speech was probably a last-minute arrangement. The Presidency had previously there would be Independence Day speech by the president. This changed on Wednesday, when the government affirmed there was going to a Presidential broadcast.
His comment was a reaction to strings of criticisms that have trained the government’s seeming inability to rein in the killer squads, bandits and terrorists that have made life unbearable for Nigerians in virtually all corners of the country.
Obasanjo has been one of the loudest voices criticizing Buhari’s administration and asking the leadership to take responsibility and salvage the nation. Recently ,he warned that Nigeria had become more divided under Buhari’s watch than at any other time in the history of the county.
