In Power for the Wrong Reasons by Omoruyi Uwuigiaren

President Muhammadu Buhari has been sworn in for a second four year term on Wednesday May 29, 2019. Under normal circumstances, there should be proof that you have done enough to earn or merit such privilege. A man should not be given any mandate to rule because of his political affiliation, tribe, ethnic or religion. For a president that has done little or nothing in the last four years, the reactions from the people should be loud enough to retire him.

With what is on ground or the current situation of Nigeria, Buhari does not deserve a second term. One wonders why he still has the mandate to lead majority of Nigerians who are sad, demoralized and depressed from his years of misrule. There have been more cases of mediocrity than excellence since 2015. Except he makes the right decisions and see Nigeria from a broader perspective, we are only going to reinforce failure.

Under Buhari’s rule, crime rate has increased. Kidnapping, banditry and killings of innocent Nigerians have reached the high heavens. Terrorist group, Boko Haram, not only roam free in the north eastern part of Nigeria, they have also claimed territories where they easily launch attack on military base and soft targets in the north east. Ironically, Buhari is a northerner. All the service chiefs appointed by him are all from the north, and majority of the security challenges in Nigeria are from the north. A man who lacks the will to protect himself will likely not protect anybody. If Buhari and his northern security chiefs cannot protect the north that is their home, why do you think they can protect what is not their own? Today whether you believe it or not, the northern part of Nigeria is a burden to the entire country. The north brings so little to the table and takes a very large chunk of the country’s resources through security challenges that could have been easily dealt with if the right appointments are made. A leader is as good or as bad as those around him.

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The economy doesn’t look like it is progressing. There are no indication that Nigeria is headed the right direction. Youth unemployment is very high, factories are closing down, job losses are recorded on a daily basis, and one must be a superman to successfully run a business in Nigeria. All these and more have left many Nigerians disillusioned. Some have taken to vices and others who feel they could no longer carry on have resulted to taking their lives. Rather than resign and go home and rest, Buhari has been handed another four years that could break Nigeria! Buhari is not suited for a very demanding secular state. You don’t rule a secular state on the wings of integrity. His policies and ideas are outdated. They are no longer useful. Nigeria can no longer depend on a politician that does not understand economics, finance or educationally sound.

President Buhari will do well as a monarch or ceremonial head. Nigeria doesn’t need him. He’s not right to lead. Leadership is not all about honesty and integrity. It is a complex subject that requires a sound mind. It is simply doing what is right irrespective of who you are and what will happen. As a leader, you are not permitted to do what you like. You do what is right. There is hardly any improvement in any sector in Nigeria since he first took over power in 2015 and I doubt if the next four years will be any better. Except Buhari shuns nepotism and appoint credible people as ministers, I do not see how Nigeria will move forward.

The Boy Abducted to Guide Blind Beggars in Nigeria

Picture of the boy and his mother at a tender age

Samuel has no recollection of the day he was abducted, aged seven, from his family home in the northern Nigerian city of Kano. Although he came from a large family - his father had 17 children by four wives - Samuel was on his own with a nanny that day. His family was told he had gone outside to ride his bicycle. They would not see him again for another six years.

The Search

"There is nothing we didn't do to try to find him," his older sister Firdausi Okezie recalls. Then aged 21, she was not made aware of his disappearance at first. Her brother had always enjoyed rushing to answer the phone and speak with her when she called home from university. But when other members of the household began answering it when she rang, she suspected something was wrong. After her classes one afternoon, Firdausi travelled home unexpectedly and her father, an architect and hotelier, was forced to reveal the heart-breaking truth: Her favourite sibling had been missing for more than a month. At first, my father had the nanny arrested, but after investigations, they let her go," Firdausi says.

They also tried to hide the news from Samuel's mother, who was divorced from his father, for as long as possible. Every time she called from her new home in a different city, they would conjure different excuses. Eventually, an uncle was assigned the unenviable task of telling her. In addition to extensive police investigations, the family placed adverts in newspapers and sent out search parties to comb the streets. 

They checked ditches in case he had been the victim of a hit and run, and even consulted Muslim spiritual priests, known as “malams”.

In time, her father asked the family to accept that their brother was dead - they had done the best they could.

The Scream

Firdausi refused to give up. She dedicated her university thesis to her missing brother and a year after graduating, she moved south to Lagos in search of work. She converted to Christianity and started attending Winners Chapel - one of Nigeria's mega churches based in Ogun state just outside the city. Every December, the church holds a five-day gathering of its members from all over the world. During the event, known as Shiloh, interested members of the congregation are allocated free stands to display their goods and services within the church premises. Still without a job in December 2000, Firdausi applied for a stand to sell some tie-dye fabrics her mother had made.

While waiting for a carpenter to help set up the display, she sat on a chair and placed her head in her lap for some rest. That was when she heard a beggar appealing, in the name of Allah, for spare change. Firdausi looked up. This beggar had his hand firmly planted on the left shoulder of a boy who was dressed in a tattered brown tunic and undersized trousers. Firdausi screamed—the haggard boy guiding the beggar was her lost brother.

The kidnap

Samuel, now aged 13, cannot recall exactly how he was stolen from his family: "All I remember is the train journey."

He was taken to a one-armed woman who lived on the outskirts of Lagos in an area mostly occupied by disabled beggars. The woman hired him out to blind beggars for 500 naira (approximately $5 or £2.50 at the time) per day. The sight of blind men and women being led around by boys and girls is common on many streets in Nigeria - especially in dense traffic where they usually tap on car windows, or around churches and mosques. Only Samuel lived with the woman, sleeping on a mat in her shack. Over the years, he says about five others boys turned up to live with other women in the same yard, each hired out to blind beggars.

Samuel suspects that something must have been done or given to him during that time because he does not recall ever thinking of his family during that period, or wondering what had become of them.

"I am not sure I had emotions then," he says. "Just a zombie that knew he had to wake up and lead a beggar out. Make money; eat food and sleep, and the same routine the next day.”

He lived like a slave. Different beggars hired him for a period of anything from a week to a month. At the end of each day, Samuel and the beggar slept alongside others in various public spaces. If a beggar enjoyed working with him, they hired him again for another period.

"I was like a slave," he says. "I couldn't say I wanted to go and do anything. I had to be around always." As he was always on the move, Samuel made few friends, only occasionally playing with the children of other beggars he bumped into in the evenings. Sometimes people gave them food while they were out begging. At other times they hung around restaurants and ate the leftovers or scavenged in dustbins.

"I was always hungry. During the daytime when you work, you hardly sit down to eat," he recalls.
"I didn't feel the beggars were bad. They wake up, beg, the way people wake up and go to work."

Day after day, Samuel walked from one end of Lagos to the other with a beggar's right hand gripping his shoulder. Sometimes, they trekked to neighboring states or across the border to Benin. If the beggars received news of potential benefactors gathered somewhere, they told Samuel and he took them there by bus.

"There were times when you get so tired and you start bypassing people, but blind people are very sensitive - their hearing - so they pick up sound. Sometimes they would twist your shoulder and say: 'There is someone there. Why are you moving away?'
"They try to make as much money as they can.

The Miracle

In December 2000, a beggar he was guiding heard news of the programme at Winners Chapel where they ran into his sister. At first, Firdausi was too shocked to reach out and touch her brother - who can still recall her scream. "I fell down on the floor," she says.
Samuel looked gaunt, his right shoulder was significantly tilted and he appeared dumb, not speaking a word. The sight caused Firdausi to burst into tears.

"It took a while but I knew that she was someone I knew - that this person was someone related to me," Samuel says.

Soon a crowd gathered and drawn by the commotion, church officials also arrived. They managed to make sense of Firdausi's barely coherent joy and decreed that it was a "miracle" worth sharing with the entire congregation. They ferried Samuel to a corner and gave him a quick wash. They found him fresh clothes to wear and rushed them both to the stage of the 50,000-seat auditorium where Firdausi was given a microphone. In tears, she narrated how she had just found her brother who had been missing for six years. Firdausi recalls how the entire congregation leapt out of their chairs in shouts of praise and thanksgiving.

--BBC Africa. Written by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

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