Why Buhari lost Nigeria and why nobody may ever regain it

This week, I went back to watch an April 12, 2015 interview that I had with the then President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari. After watching the interview, I arrived at a clear conclusion.

It is all Olusegun Obasanjo’s fault.

Nigeria’s final chance to revive itself, to be a fair, decent, and just nation, came in 1999. Posterity called on Olusegun Obasanjo, who came out of prison with a new lease on life, to do Nigeria the honor. But Obasanjo failed.

On January 29, 2004, as Obasanjo was entering his fifth year in office, still pursuing shadows, I wrote an article on Nigeriaworld.com titled, Why Obasanjo Failed (https://nigeriaworld.com/columnist/okonkwo/012904.html)

At that point, I had determined that Obasanjo was more interested in building a castle in the sand. There was Obasanjo, a president who had a rare chance to transform Nigeria permanently. But Obasanjo lived in Eldorado, interested in turning Nigeria into South Korea when Nigeria’s foundation is worse than Sudan’s. It wasn’t that Obasanjo was oblivious of the issues. Being a major actor in Nigeria since independence and coming from the South West, he knew what the vexing matters were. But Obasanjo allowed his ego, massaged by budding oligarchs like Tony Elumelu, Cecelia Ibru, Aliko Dangote, Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, Femi…