There is a popular saying that history never forgets, either for good or for bad. Political discussion was one of the conversations I grew up to see that it's common in this part of my world.
On transit following public transport, it's common to see guys discussing politics, and I am always interested to catch up with the happenings. At the market, people talk about it so commonly, and even in our little social gatherings, you see some persons bringing up our leaders at the table for discussion, either for good or bad. And so for this prompt, I am going to discuss one of the most memorable Nigerian presidents we have had in the past, which is Muhammadu Buhari.
Leaders kept coming and going, but there are ones that will leave memories that are hard to erase. That year, 2015, was the time this man came on board with his change mantra. Everywhere you go you will hear change! change! , the whole atmosphere was screaming APC change, and we kept hoping for the change, which later became a terrible change indeed, and ever since that year, Nigerians have never recovered from that terrible change that reshaped our country for the worse, which our current president is still standing on the existing protocol. Yea...it's that bad, even when we initially thought that he could be the positive change that Nigeria needed for a better reset.
During Muhammadu Buhari's tenure, my country experienced a terrible economic downfall. Our naira weakened so badly, inflation was on the high side, job scarcity became so rampant, the cost of food tripled, and the border was closed, and he claimed we should depend on our own agriculture. My God, everything started turning around for the worse. What a change indeed!
That was the year we started buying a bag of rice for five times what the cost was before. I missed those days of buying a bag of rice at #8,500. Buhari came in and changed the narrative to date, to the point that I bought a bag of rice at #105,000 last year . To survive in my country became a total struggle; like play, it became our reality. The masses will call Buhari's name millions of times in a day, crying for hunger. People started committing suicide out of starvation when they couldn't cope; evil prevailed. I mean, how can we forget in a hurry?
How about the insecurity we are facing today? The whole mess became worse during the Buhari regime and is very unforgettable. From insurgency in the Northeast to the reign of bandits and kidnapping activities across different regions in our country, to say that fear became part of our everyday conversations is an understatement. Parents of students in boarding school worried a lot; travelers are so scared and public transport suddenly became a prayer center during traveling, lol.
Lives were lost a lot, hardship started looking like a normal thing, families started restructuring their finances, and we began to see the need for multiple streams of income. Those days, once I check WhatsApp status of some people, I will see something like "even 5 streams of income are not enough for this strange economy". The tough life we are still facing today, Muhammadu Buhari started it all. My family outing became intentional, not so like we used to do it casually, because life was becoming so real, lol.
A lot changed; we saw the real change, and we are still seeing it to date because, obviously, what they do here is recycling of leadership. He just handed over to the man who will continue from where he stopped. Our votes never count, whereas I deliberately went out to vote out APC and every human being that looks like Buhari so that we can breathe from the suffering, but that wasn't the case. It is what it is.
In all, I learned from the Buhari regime never to rely on government stability but to make plans on how my family and I can survive even without the government doing the needful. If there is one thing I know about Buhari’s presidency, it is the financial awakening of the masses. Businessmen and women were raised overnight in the quest to survive the economic hardship, and that alone makes him unforgettable.
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