We want Nigeria to be safe and secure again. We want to return to Nigeria of the 1970s and 1980s when you could travel to any part of the country without fear of being kidnapped for ransom or ritual or human trafficking. During that time, there were no Boko Haram terrorists. The brief moments violent Islamists reared their ugly head in Yola, Maiduguri and Bauchi, they were summarily crushed.

We want to return to our farms without fear of bandits, armed Fulani herdsmen and their livestock being wickedly let loose on our crops while we are killed and raped. We want to sleep peacefully in our homes in our communities without fear of these marauders made up of Nigerians and their foreign ethnic kinsmen descending on us, massacring, burning down our communities and even occupying our ancestral villages unchallenged.

We want to go home to the South-East without fear of Unknown Gunmen and self-styled Biafra activists forcing us to stay indoors every Monday while the military and other law-enforcement agencies occupy checkpoints on our highways extorting motorists as if the South- East is an occupied foreign colony. We want criminals, pirates and oil thieves to be flushed out of our oil-bearing creeks to enable Nigeria to once again enjoy the full benefits of being the sixth largest oil producer in the world. We want safe waterways to allow our people engage in legitimate economic activities to reduce poverty and unemployment.

Muhammadu Buhari contested for president three times and failed. But when he got the opportunity in 2015, he ran the country aground and left us in 2023 far worse than he met us. He met only Boko Haram terrorism but left behind Boko Haram, Bandits, Herdsmen “Janjaweed” militias, Biafra separatism, Yoruba Nation separatism and the Niger Delta as a free-for all oil thieves’ den.

Buhari failed because his security architecture and doctrine were disastrous. He almost totally excluded the South-East from the security structure of the country in flagrant contravention of the 1999 Constitution which directed that every section of the country must be equitably carried along. He handed over the commanding heights of the nation’s security and the juiciest Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, to his kinsmen.

In terms of doctrine, Buhari conditioned the Armed Forces, Security Agencies and Police to condone and protect armed and violent Fulani herdsmen who killed and destroyed communities and farmlands at will. States like Benue and its Governor, Samuel Ortom, who offered resistance became the personal enemies of Buhari, his Presidency and his cabal. The world called the herdsmen terrorists one of the most murderous in the world, but Buhari refused to see them even as part of the nation’s security threat.

He not only condoned their crimes against humanity, he even made several efforts to forcefully deprive Nigerian local communities of their ancestral lands and water resources for reallocation to Fulani nomads who were invited from their grassland and desert abodes all over Africa. He wanted to forcefully indigenise foreign Fulani among Nigerian communities. It was a recipe for endless bloodshed, but Buhari did not care. Fortunately, he failed. But our forests and ungoverned spaces are filled with strange, illegal and violent occupants, most of whom are not Nigerians.

One thing that consoled me when Bola Ahmed Tinubu was pronounced president-elect by Professor Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was that at least, he had a better quality mind and mindset than Buhari. Governance success or failure starts in the mind of the leader. It also owes a lot to the first moves he makes.

Surely (so far), Tinubu has improved on Buhari’s fundamental first steps. There is inclusion. A leader who excludes any part of his country’s national constituency in his government is harming himself and country more than he is doing to those being excluded. The number one reason for Buhari’s failure was his extreme nepotism and policy of South-East exclusion. The centre could not hold because every hand was not on deck.

Tinubu has somewhat corrected this anomaly by giving the South-East a place in his government. Forget (for now) about the fact that Tinubu’s presidency is a usurpation of the South-East’s turn to produce the President. Let’s also put aside for now what might come out of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT. Tinubu, unlike Buhari, ensured that the South-East which gave him the least votes in the election, has the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives (Benjamin Kalu). Under Buhari, the highest legislative post the South East got was Senate Chief Whip (Orji Kalu).

In terms of the Armed Forces, Police and other security agencies, the South-East was nowhere to be found throughout Buhari’s eight years. Again, Tinubu has corrected that by appointing a South-East Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Ikechukwu Ogala. Some Northerners are grumbling that the South- West has been given “too much”, with the Chief of Army Staff, Major General Taoreed Lagbaja; Comptroller General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi and Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun given strategic commands.

Well, every Nigerian president tries to take a strong hold of the military, security and economic sectors by giving them over to his ethnic kinsmen. It is an indication of which ethnic group is in power. That was what a Northerner saw when he twitted recently: Yan Yariba sun karpa karfi, or something like that, meaning that the Yoruba have seized power. There is no doubt about that. One should not be overly worried about this if the president uses his kinsmen to move Nigeria forward. Why we worry about it is because a president and his kinsmen in high plum positions usually ends in deep-seated corruption, unless the president is a strong character like Olusegun Obasanjo.

We will continue this topic next week.