Buhari, in the end, turned out to be a man who looked after one man: Muhammadu Buhari.
Prominent journalist Sam Omatseye has published a searing retrospective on the late former President Muhammadu Buhari, describing his presidency as an anticlimax defined by economic failure and squandered trust. Writing in The Nation, Omatseye said Buhari “loved himself too much to love Nigeria enough” and accused him of surrounding himself with a “cabal of antediluvian ideas.”
“We have never had a leader like Muhammadu Buhari, and we may never have one like him again,” Omatseye wrote. He claimed Buhari left the economy worse than he met it, ran up huge debts, and failed to back President Tinubu during the 2023 election, instead supporting Ahmad Lawan.
“He promised with an air of pious devotion. He did not deliver,” he added.
Yet, Omatseye conceded Buhari’s charisma and minor achievements, especially in rail infrastructure, noting, “He lived a phenom and died a phenom. Goodbye to a man among men.”