By Donu Kogbra
Nigerians are famed for suffering and smiling. We’re also pretty good at laughing while we are suffering; and I’m sure that many of you would have heard the following absolutely hilarious jokes by now. But for those who haven’t, let me repeat them.

Several friends, including quite a few Northern Muslims (just so you know that it is not only Southerners or Christians who are fed up with Mr President!), have recently told me that if you go to Northern purveyors of food and beverages – those guys who specialise in selling breakfasts outdoors – and ask them for “a Buhari”, they will give you an unappetising cup of black tea with no added extras.

Whereas, if you ask them for “a Jonathan”, they will give you tea containing plenty of milk and sugar…plus deliciously seasoned eggs and generously buttered bread!

I haven’t visited any roadside meal vendors in Abuja, Kano or Wherever, to check out this jokey story, so I cannot verify it and assure you that it is true. But even if it’s just an irreverent, humorous urban myth, it is symbolic and significant.

How times change!

A year ago, the very same people who are now angrily or wryly accusing Buhari of inflicting hardship on Nigerians were joyously celebrating Buhari’s election victory, looking forward to a brighter future and saying “good riddance to Jonathan”!

Muhammadu Buhari and Goodluck Jonathan

Today, many former Buhari fans are blaming him for the nation’s economic woes and their personal financial problems…and remembering Jonathan with fondness.

Are these disgruntled (and, some might say, fickle) critics being fair to Buhari? Not entirely. Buhari inherited a country that had not been properly managed; and it is not his fault that the oil price has plunged in the past few months. BUT his Administration has also made major mistakes that need to be urgently rectified.

Buhari has done well in terms of tackling the Boko Haram insurgency. But there are many other headaches that need to be effectively addressed.

It is obvious that a more robust planning/policy framework needs to be established. And, by the way, I am not convinced that all of the cronies and government officials who surround Mr President share his disdain for corruption.

Damning united nations report

Mr President left for New York this week, to attend the annual United Nations (UN) General Assembly meeting. Shortly before his departure, the UN released a report that didn’t mince words about Nigeria’s parlous socio-economic landscape.

The report, which was read out during a consultative meeting in Awka, Anambra State, correctly observed that Nigeria is in trouble…as in deeply divided along ethnic, religious and regional lines and full of citizens who feel marginalized.

The report also accurately pointed out that in Nigeria – the most populous nation in Africa and the seventh most populous nation in the world – over 80 million people (ie, 64% of the population) is living below the poverty line and struggling to survive.

What a shameful verdict for the “Giant Of Africa”!

Unfair complaint

Earlier on this week, this newspaper quoted President Buhari, who had said, while he was based in his Katsina home town, Daura, during the Eid-el-Kabir/Sallah break, that his predecessors – Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan (who were in power between 1999 and 2015) – had left him in the lurch with nothing to build on.

According to Mr President, the legacy he was saddled with after 16 years of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rule was a negative one that boiled down to “no savings, no infrastructure, no power, no rail, no road and no security.”

Unsurprisingly, PDP leaders like Senator Aniete Okon and Chief Femi Fani-Kayode (the pioneer National Publicity Secretary of PDP and former Minister of Aviation) immediately hit back.

They said that Mr President had reversed what they had achieved in l6 years in 15 months, blamed him for the current economic recession and challenged him to publish Dr Jonathan’s hand-over notes for Nigerians to read.

They said that before Buhari’s emergence, “Nigeria was the highest exporter of cement and the agriculture sector was already developing to a world standard [and that] today, the former Agriculture and Finance ministers work in international organisations, a clear testimony to the fact that PDP had top class administrators.”

And while I was so unimpressed by the PDP’s overall performance that I wound up voting for Buhari last year, I must say that I don’t think that Buhari is being fair.

As far as I am concerned, Obasanjo is probably the best President we have had so far, not least because of his sound economic management team and his contribution to the telecoms revolution. Meanwhile, Yar’Adua – with help from Jonathan – constructed a viable Amnesty deal with Niger Delta militants. And let’s not forget that Jonathan also started work on the rail projects that Buhari is completing.

Mtn wahala

A Vanguard reader, Dr Eji Etefia (<[email protected], 0803 578 4534), who runs a clinic in Delta State,  has asked me to highlight MTN’s refusal to honour his DO NOT DISTURB request and liberate him from unwanted texts and voice calls.

He has, as instructed, sent the word “STOP” to 2442, to no avail.

MTN should please get its act together and stop harassing this gentleman!