By Abdullahi O Haruna Haruspice
When the journey between former President Muhammadu Buhari and President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu began, Betta Edu, the ousted Minister of Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation, was barely in secondary school, if the provided information about her education is anything to go by. Typical of midday sojourners, she exhibited her strides when she became the first person in government to criticize the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. Her first salvo was to discredit the achievements of the ministry she had just inherited, stripping all honor and accolades garnered by her predecessor Sadiya Faruk. For a party desiring continuity, Betta’s hasty jab was a drawback. She opened a sore in that ministry even before having the time to scrutinize what she was coming to superintend. Like a farmer who planted maize by the roadside, Betta tragically attracted attention to the ministry and, by extension, herself – a hubris bookmaker now dubbed as her greatest undoing.
To her, President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is inheriting a battered administration, and this must be relayed to the world – so she became the pallbearer! But she was proven wholly wrong, even after her dismissal. The venue was Abuja, the nation’s capital, and the verdict ground was at the book launch written by ace journalist, columnist, and former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, titled ‘Working with Buhari.’ There, President Tinubu passed his judgment on the administration of his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.
Donning a blue flowing robe, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu mounted the rostrum and, like a judge, poured out his verdict: “It will be said glowingly of President Buhari that in his eight turbulent years, marked by acute shortage of revenue, the Covid-19 pandemic that shut down the global economy for almost two years, his administration embarked on the most ambitious infrastructural renewal for the country.
President Buhari gave us the second Niger Bridge. He revamped the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. He gave us the Lagos-Ibadan and Warri-Itakpe Rail lines. He completed the Abuja-Kaduna rail line and Lekki Seaport. He built brand new airports, among many other landmark economic projects. The Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Expressway, which he started, will be completed by my administration, by the Grace of God."
President Tinubu was unmistakable, frank, and nonpolitical; it was a candid submission by a man who understands the strait that comes with governance. Anyone who says President Buhari didn’t provide the needed leadership can be faulted and accused of deliberate malice; he did try his best, and the new man on the saddle can continue from where he stops. Governance is a continuum, and those who left and those who succeed must join hands to make things work.
With President Tinubu reaffirming his faith in Muhammadu Buhari and the former president pledging his commitment to the All Progressives Congress, the naysayers can quietly go to sleep in disappointment. For the two leaders, it is a ‘correct and cordial’ relationship.
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