According to Josef Onoh, a leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), former President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight-year administration was marked by extreme insecurity and corruption.
In a statement released on Friday, Onoh made this claim in response to Buhari‘s assertion that Nigeria’s economy and security have improved during his leadership.
The former president claimed that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which ruled for 16 years, left him with a weak economy and security issues.
However, Buhari maintained that his government’s policies effectively addressed these issues, reducing economic suffering and terrorism.
In response to Buhari’s remarks, Onoh stated that throughout his tenure, the nation saw massive corruption, economic collapse, and insecurity.
Credit: The Guardian Nigeria News
Onoh claimed that Buhari’s poor economic management throughout his eight years in government is having a negative impact on President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
According to the statement, “Nigerians today claim that Tinubu’s administration is the worst they have ever encountered, despite the fact that the President opted to remain silent and bear his cross by himself without yelling or hurling epithets.
“After the Buhari administration failed to stop him from becoming president, he still has to negotiate the economic minefields they left behind.
“Buhari’s rule prevented the North East, North Central, South East, and South West from sleeping peacefully. According to the NST, the total number of fatalities in Nigeria as of your taking office on May 29, 2015, was 34,972. However, the death toll increased to 98,083 as of May 16, 2023, from the day you took office.As President, you oversaw the deaths of 98,083 people in 12 years, 27,311 during your first term, and 35,800 between 2019 and May 2023.
“I want to remind General Buhari that, not even during the Civil War, Nigeria has never experienced the degree of insecurity that is currently being experienced under his leadership. Let me remind you of the numbers of Nigerians who were slaughtered while you were in charge: 5556 in 2015; 5763l in 2016; 4618 in 2017; 6565 in 2018; and 8340 in 2019. 9694 in 2020, 10575 in 2021, 9079 in 2022, and 2921 in 2023, for a total of 63,111.
“Your constant self-evaluation raises some doubts, such as if this position is a political ploy or the result of the real insensitivity that has been your hallmark.
“You rode on the mantra of change but ended up changing Nigeria for the worse, and after you failed, you turned around to blame PDP.”
Onoh claimed that during the Buhari government, Nigeria had a low Global Peace Index ranking and a high Global Terrorism Index ranking.
He continued by saying, “Under your leadership, Nigeria was rated third out of 138 nations in the Global Terrorism Index in 2019—below Afghanistan and Iraq—and was ranked ninth in Africa and the fourteenth most fragile in the world by the Fragile States Index. It should come as no surprise that our nation placed 148th out of 163 in the Global Peace Index the same year, significantly lower than recently war-torn nations like Sierra Leone (52), Liberia (59), and Rwanda (79).
“Under your direction, attacks and retaliatory attacks with charges of ethnic cleansing and poor handling of religious and cultural diversity persisted in states such as Kaduna today. Southern Kaduna is now peaceful under Tinubu’s rule.
“As you demonstrated the failure or unwillingness while in authority to address these and other non-state actors and to secure ungoverned spaces, which cumulatively allowed the violence to mutate, the insecurity that allowed these groups to operate with impunity was partly caused by the insensitivity and inefficiency of your security chiefs.”
