LEGACIES FULFILLED OR FAILURES MAGNIFIED? — A Nation Queries Tinubu’s Oath to Buhari’s Foundation
During his 2023 presidential campaign, Bola Ahmed Tinubu boldly declared:
“I will build on President Buhari’s foundation if elected.”
Today, while paying a condolence visit to the Kaduna residence of the late President Muhammadu Buhari, President Tinubu reiterated:
“I will continue with Late PMB’s legacies.”
These pronouncements, though wrapped in political tradition and respect, trigger critical reflection—which of the legacies, one may ask? For history, record, and national accountability, these declarations must not pass unexamined.
As the old political saying goes:
“Promises made are kept and executed only by gentlemen whose words are their honour.”
So we ask again: Which legacies?
Is it the legacy of looking away as the nation was systematically stripped—its polity destabilized, its institutions hollowed out, its people neglected, and even its ecosystem left to rot?
Is it the legacy of impunity—where cronies looted public coffers without fear of investigation or consequence, where loyalty to the throne replaced loyalty to the constitution?
Is it the legacy of phantom projects—commissioned with pomp, but delivered in ruins, if delivered at all? Or the policies without direction, devoid of measurable impact on citizens’ daily suffering?
Is it the legacy of ethno-religious bias—where national appointments, resource allocations, and security responses were colored by sectional interest rather than fairness, merit, or national unity?
Is it the legacy of robbing Peter to pay Paul—diverting resources from essential services while inflating opaque subsidies and bloating the cost of governance?
Or is it that poetic but perilous duality: portraying the “Face of Moses” while harbouring the “Heart of Pharaoh”—projecting humility but governing with indifference?
Was it the legacy of emotional manipulation—crying in public while the nation’s economic lifeblood was drained in silence?
Or perhaps it’s the style of entering a democratic field with a dictatorial hockey stick, aiming not for governance, but for the total decimation of dissent and opposition?
Let us not forget the tangible markers of these legacies:
Air Nigeria – another national carrier that never took off but still managed to crash.
Kaduna-Abuja Road – left to the bandits and potholes, a national artery now a death trap.
Endless loans – contracted with fervor, but without prudence or visible results.
Foreign trips – plenty of passports stamped, little to nothing achieved.
Public spending – grandiose, opaque, and often misdirected.
Yet today, we’re told to separate Tinubu from the very soil he swore to cultivate. But if Tinubu promised to build on Buhari’s legacy, and now delivers hardship in jet speed, then surely he is not breaking his word—he is fulfilling it, only with unmatched speed and devastating precision.
Where Buhari moved with the slow burn of HIV/AIDS—a disease that erodes silently—Tinubu has arrived with the impact of COVID-19, Ebola, and a tsunami combined: sharp, fast, and unforgiving.
Buhari’s legacy was Diploma-level devastation—slow, methodical, hidden under silence.
Tinubu’s governance, as his critics bitterly acknowledge, is Professorial-level destruction—loud, rapid, and unapologetically transformational.
So yes, thank you Jagaban. Thank you Asiwaju. Thank you Tinubu, Bola, Baba Seyi. You promised to continue—and you are doing just that. You are not rewriting the script—you are amplifying it.
To the sceptics: perhaps now you will agree—he kept his word.
To the optimists: beware what you cheer for.
To the nation: may history never forget what promises were kept, and at what cost.
In memory of legacies made, legacies continued, and the price the people pay
