 As the President's tenure comes to a close, tonight we appraise his leadership journey and his leadership style. And what next for the Sareki dynasty, as we discuss how the results of the last presidential and governorship elections inquire a state, delts another blow to the Sareki dynasty. This is Post-Politics. I am Mary Anna Cullen. The outgoing administration of President Mohammed al-Buhari has said his government recorded remarkable successes in agriculture, the economy, infrastructure, security, health and anti-corruption. He also claimed that more than 3,800 kilometers of new roads had been constructed across the country. Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission has declared Ahmad al-Fintiri as the winner of a demo of state governorship elections. We had to put that out there because that's breaking news. Now, the Returning Officer Mohammed Mele declared the incumbent Fintiri of the People's Democratic Party winner of the Tuesday elections after polling 430,861 votes to defeat his major counterpart Ayesha Binani of the All Progressive Congress, APC, who polled 398,788 votes. Well, joining us to discuss tonight on Mr. President's leadership style, we have Osir Umeini, he is a social commentator and also joining us is Sonny Madukah, he is a public affairs analyst. Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us and good evening. Thank you, Ann. Great. Let's start by, you know, taking ourselves back down memory lane to Mr. President's speech at his inauguration ceremony back in May of 2015. Now that particular, you know, speech reverberated all across the country and outside the country. Remember the very famous phrase where he said, I am for everyone and I am for nobody. Now the biggest question obviously is as we look back at, you know, that very interesting speech and the kind of confidence it boosted, you know, in Nigerians, can we say that Mr. President has lived up to the expectations of that speech that he made on May 2015. I'll start with you, Mr. Umeini. Thank you for having me. Mr. President, May 29th, we're making eight years of his leadership in Nigeria from 2015. And like you just said, yeah, we, the Nigerians came, had the hope when Hari came, became President in 2015. Lots of us were jubilating that, oh, things are going to change for the better, especially his fight against corruption. Also, at least that corruption path was like something that's sticked after everybody. Eight years down the lane, I would say President Bawari has not, I will just, if I want to score him, I will score him fair. It was not something that we really, we can say we're happy with. Majority of Nigerians, did he take, did he, did he, of course, did we fair, fair with him? I would say it's a mix, it's a mix, it's a mix reaction for people. I think we did not, we did not move an inch from where we are, 2015, at the position where we are now, I mean 2023, more of, more millions of Nigerians are falling to the poverty line. Our economy has been, has been backward and since I've not been working so well, the real security that we said will turn general like he is, that will help us to fight insecurity in Nigeria. That has not really worked well for us in Nigeria because the insecurity, yes, you will say the part of Boko Haram has been degraded technically to to our next steps, but we had bandits kidnapping, terrorists in different parts of the country have come up under him. So to me, it's a fair, if I want to score him the part, like writing a script or marking a script, I would just say it's fair to me. Let's talk about, quickly before I go to Mr Madoka, let's talk about the fact that when the president started his tenor, it took six months, I'm sure that you remember. We waited to see the people that he was going to, the people that were going to constitute his cabinet. We remember asking questions and people waiting and the president made a statement saying that he was looking for men that were upright and, you know, people who were fit for these roles. And then when the lease came out, of course, there was a lot of grumbling and mummering. Let's look at the executive and the people who Mr President have worked with over time. Let's also not forget that a lot of people had queried the fact that there was some sort of silence from Mr President as to how accessible he was to the people. What are your thoughts on that? The first, the first red flag for me was the six months I took him to, to set up a cabinet. Well, this was a man that has gone through, from 2003, has been a family fixtures in all the election, I mean election cycles. So 2003, 2007, 2011, 15, and finally 15 locked hand on him and he became a general president. So in my mind, I was thinking that this man will, and Mr President will, you know, as soon as he was sworn in, we quickly, you know, set to set to work. But for six months, we waited and waited and waited, and in those six months, the economy, the economics, I mean, having, having challenges because there was no, there was no clear economic policy. So we're looking at Mr President's body language. We're saying everything about him is the body language, you know, as soon as he came in corruption, we go, so there was no, so, oh and lo and behold, we had the cabinet formed and the cabinet was one of the, let me say one of the last cabinet that we ever had, we ever had in recent times. You cannot see any star performance there. You cannot see any, you cannot see the hope that you want to see, right? That you was filled up with politicians, was filled up with people that you wanted to do IOUs for, people that have been loyal, who have been, I mean, let me say who have been with him in different parties during this political journey, there's that kind of people that we saw there in those places. So it was like IOUs giving out to, giving out to several, several politicians who have been in these businesses since over 20, 30 years now, so that's, that's kind of people that we saw there. So that was beginning for me. That was the beginning of, of, of, of, of, of the bad experience that they just had getting from, from this, from this, from this government. The ministers were not the kind of people, because they're sensitive key position. I know politicians worked hard for you. Politicians did all sorts of things for you to win. I agreed. But there are, there are sensitive positions, ministries or paracetas or MDAs that we needed to put in the rounds, square in the squarehood. But we didn't get that. What we had was to give, was to give it out to, to like, like a dash in the black patronage. We saw people who were not fit in some, some key areas of the economy, which we saw them being handed over strategic position of the economy. We saw super, we saw super ministers. We saw ministers, you know, about four or five, I've been three, three positions together as one. And we saw the outcome of it after four years. And it's, it's inability to, to appraise his, his, his, his calculate. I say, okay, after a year or two, who is, what, what are the, who is not doing well? What's the appraiser there and they, but he did not do it. So most of them followed him up to the, to after the first term. And after the second term, again, second journey. And same set of people again, with him again. They are with him now towards the end. So we can all see where Nigeria has, has, has gotten, gotten herself into, to me it was, we didn't have the clear court economic policy. There's no way you can pinpoint any clear court economy policy of this administration. Since, so everything was done at just a snap. Just, you know, something I just pick up and say, okay, I want to do it now and now and now. So that's how we got to the stage that we are now. Mr. Madukat, let me come to you now. For a president or for a man who pushed so hard to be president, he tried over and over again to, you know, run for this office years and years. And many would have said that you could have given up, you know, but then he finally got a shot at the office. I have had conversations with leaders of thought. I remember just before the elections, I spoke with the secretary of the Northern Elders Forum. And I asked what exactly he thought was the driving force of President Mohammed Buhari over the years for wanting to be president of this country. And I'm asking you to, could it be just for the, the fun of, you know, power grabbing? Could it have been that he wanted to, you know, re put his name again in the annals of history as not just one that was a military president, but of course, a democratic president, not a dictator. Or could it also be that he really wanted to lead a good Nigeria? And do we have anything close to a good Nigeria right now? Yeah, thank you, Anne, for the question. First of all, before you talk about leadership, you must have a blueprint. But what I discovered about APC or PMBs, I don't think they have any blueprint. And I don't even think that they believe they could come on board as of 2020, as of 2015. So what happens was just like, okay, an issue of suddenness. And just like you said, it took him six months to gather his cabinet. That shows you that there was no preparation prior to being a victor in that election. And let me go back to a little bit of what my brother just said. One of the best ways to appraise government is the security of lives and properties. And we are looking at it from that trajectory. What has APC done or what has PMB done in term of securing the lives of Nigerians? We're all aware now that even the bandits, the terrorists, the kidnappers, they've resumed their normal operation just like we had in South and Kaduna, some part of Klatu, Benwe, Kogi and other parts now being under siege. Now when you are reading your citation about him, you talked about how many kilometers of road that PMB has built. But it's only the living that will benefit from whatever infrastructure job that was executed. The two pivotal infrastructure, I could say that PMB did was first, train service to the road constructions. But my problem is how many people are using the train and how many people are using the road? People are not even using the road that you are proud in, that you constructed. So it means that something is wrong. If you build an infrastructure, people are not using it. It's of no use. It's a waste of money. Let us go into this one. Look at it from economic aspect. As of today, the inflationary rate is 22.4 percent. That is the highest ever experience in this country. As of today, Nigerians are buying Naira. With Naira, that is something that's absorbed in Nigeria. As of today, you can't buy fuel at any normal price. I buy fuel here, 300 per liter, some places 320. So there's nothing you can tangibly look at that and say, yes, this is the appraiser format you can use on PMB's scorecard. My brother talked about the super ministers. And that is a problem. Every serious organization must understand when to put a halt. And that halt is if you have people that are working with you and they are not going through the process or through the policy formulation, you can start them. But do you know that these eight years, I don't think that PMB ever started any minister. And when you talk about corruption, the same APC for my chairman came on board openly and said, whatever you've committed, whatever thing you've committed, once you cross over to APC, your sins are forgiven. The same regime is where we have a person collecting 109 billion Naira and return 33 billion. And that is it. So corruption index, as far as I'm at present, PMB is zero. Then let's go to another issue, petroleum. We see that NMPs is a disaster. None of the refineries work. What happened to the money that we spent for the rehabilitation of the refiners? So that boils down to what? Corruption. Then let's go to education. Over 44% of Nigerian youth are out of school. And when you talk about poverty rates, 133 million out of 200. So where do you come? And let me even talk about the health care. It's rumored today that even our president elect or select is outside the country or medic. What does that show? It shows that everything, every sector in this regime is almost collapsing. Like somebody will say, he said we are in ICUP. And it's unfortunate because if a regime will come up after struggling for four times to be the president, the person will come at four times to be a president. And out of that for that, there's nothing. We can point out, I say, this is what has happened. There's something's wrong. Let's now look at the politics. We have seen what happened this through 2023. Can we talk about the politics? Can we talk about the election? Is this the election that every individual expects from PMBs as a parting gift? No, this election was one of the worst election that I ever witnessed in my life. So these are the problem. We have a lot of things. Look at today, Adam Awai is talking about. And congratulations to him. Everything, as far as I'm concerned in this regime, is a make-believe. And probably because the policy formulation of PMB is based on trial and error. There's no concrete strategy. It's very difficult, it's very difficult. I'm so sorry to talk over you, but it's very difficult for the average person who's listening to you to believe that the president and this administration is trial and error. Like I said, it's not his first rodeo at being in leadership. He has been a military leader of this country. And so when you say trial and error, it's not his first time. So I don't know if that sits well, or I mean, there's a better way to put it, but it cannot be trial and error. Can it? Let me clarify that. So when I talk about trial and error method of economic or whatever formulation, it means that there's no strategy, there's no long-term planning process. As a leader, who is going to lead a country? One of the basis is to have a blueprint that will take care of your economic indices. As of today, let me tell you, let me use the MPC as an example. When you look at the policy of CBN, sometimes they miss it with physical and monetary policy together. They don't even know the dichotomy between both. So these are the words I said, there is some kind of trial and error. For instance, the Naira designing. Look at the impetus, look at what is happening. Today there's a call, okay, we are not going to take the money, old money, tomorrow there's a, so there's no strong will to obey even the policy being formulated by PMB. And this to me is a for, it's something that I can't even, I can't even explain, because the regime should be able to start strategically, obey their law, obey their policy, and then stay on it. Though I won't blame PMB, I will blame the Nigerian system. A country should have a blueprint of few years, probably five years, 10 years, 15 years to that. Any regime that comes in, buy into that blueprint and continue with it. Let me go back to Osa. It's very interesting when people, when analysts like you say, we should have this and we should have that. Oh yes, all fine and dandy. But Nigeria is not necessarily a system where things should be, I mean, we're talking about the reality versus what should be. Government they say is a continuum, Osa. I'm just picking up from where Mr. Madukah stopped. But we've not seen that necessarily happen. I mean, and this is not just about the presidency. We're talking about state governments across the board. We've seen governors come and go with white elephant projects, leaving some other projects halfway and just trying to make sure that it's their own project that, you know, makes some form of a scorecard before they leave office. And so we have so many abandoned projects across the country. But will we ever get to a point where there is actually a blueprint that everybody runs with? So wherever the other person stops, the other can continue with the mantle for want of a better way to describe it. Can we ever have a solution where you have a blueprint? Absolutely very difficult for us to do that in Nigeria. Because of the kind of country that we are. And the truth of the matter is that we are too divided. We're divided by our tribes. We're divided by our religion. Who's that in that divide source? And those things also affect us. And we're not going to have strong institutions. Institution in the sense that our judiciary, our security and judicial, we don't even have strong institutions. What we have are people who are subservient to the rulers of the day, both in the States and both in the federal government. Now for Buhari, I would say there are certain things that he did which definitely we have to give him kudos for him to continue so the project impact by his processors. For example, the railway started from the Obersedial and the session when it started, they tried to do some reforms. And Jonathan, who took it all and started with the Chinese and Guari came in and they continue on that same trajectory. So that I will have to give to him. I also have to give to him which is that he had gone from there with the second year of bridge. It's something that has been there. So he can say, okay, we don't have the finances to do that. Okay, let me use the force to do something else. He made sure that we get the course. I don't know if it's 100% complete but I know last time the minister showed us that people have traveled over there. Ali, we can see this is the best improvement of what was paid. So we have to give him some good news to that for embarking on some project impact by his processors. So the problem I have with people in leadership position is that if Mr. A does something, it is not his personal money that he was used to do. He was used to do that same project. It was the common word of the people. So it's your duty to call me and see how can we complex this thing, especially if this is gonna happen. But do our politicians see it as, because you see, every time I talk about issues like this, we talk about the common interests of Nigerians, the interests of Nigerians, the interests of Nigerians, but does the average politician in Nigeria understand the interest of Nigerians because you're making a very interesting point. It's not their name that's supposed to be on it. It is taxpayers' monies. Yes, of course, at some point, people will say, well done to this government. I mean, take for example, Lagos states, Mubamarua was a military administrator, but then people still remember him for his good works. But then he was not doing it because of himself. He was doing it because he wanted to move Lagos to a particular place. But how many of our politicians who were running for office see this particular opportunity to serve as opposed to getting a share of the national cake? And why is that even the narrative? I can sit down here and say that none, none, no one of our politicians has empathy for the people. Let me introduce our empathy. No one of them. No one of them can stand. I can be on debate with anyone of them. No one of them have empathy. Because if you have empathy for the people, for your people that you're serving, you're going to work for them. It's not about your personal pockets. It's not about what you want to put in your, it's not about the lifestyle of the community of now. Because if you have empathy, you will not be handpicking people to be your successors. You allow people to go there, let the people, let the party choose. Let the system choose. That's the situation. Let them choose. No, if you, if you, if you want to, you won't bring your friends and cronies to become members of your cabinet. You won't bring your people to come and be your bad men that we didn't choose to do or try to tell you what to do because you know what to do. You know that the people lack basic amenities. You know that Nigerians also don't even have water to drink. You have not, you have millions of children after school. You drive on your, on your convoy. You see, you see kids working in the streets aimlessly. There's no policy, clear court policy by the State House of Assembly. Education is under the state. You know, sometimes we blame, we blame the federal government. But let us also look at it in another angle. The states collect an average of over 50 or 60, over 50% of the total revenue of the country. They collect their own share. They collect the shared revenue share from what's the, from the local government. They add to their own and they are telling you that they have only a joint account. They now approach their cronies, their stuges in those local government places. Some women dissolve local government. They dissolve the local government but they have, they have, they have the, they have the assemblies as an appendage as people that they have picked the hoots. So you bring in law like a governor, a funny governor who are, who are a tamar, a former governor who are tamar as a joker took, took, took a budget of the states to the, to the assembly and put it on the table and tell, and told the, and told the speaker that they should also, they should approve his budget. You can't even go through this. And they now took the government and now start slamming the table. This is, this is kind of a joke that we have in Nigeria now these days now. So the problem is not even the president. The problem is even the other people who are holding onto different levels of government from the states to the local government to, to, to the federal. So while it can be isolated in, in, in the villa, it can, it can give an instruction. It can give, it can give, it can give order. It can say, well, this thing is for the betterment of Nigeria in its own, in its own, in its own building. Then the people that will take it to those places, what do they do? They do things for their own selves. So Buhari cannot be in everywhere to be fair to him. Cannot be everywhere in Nigeria where those policies, those constructions, those infrastructures are being built. It's not everywhere. It's not the one that we're handing over the contracts to. It's not the one that we'll go and do the bidding and say, okay, let me see through all those things. So it's not the only one. So sometimes we need to give them, we need to give our president some of the, some of the slack. I'm not saying, I'm not saying the, the, the half part of the play, the bend of our development, the bend of our bad leadership also lies with our state goblers. Great. They are our major problem. 36 of them. They should rule the state like an entity, like a business that is profitable. No, they rule the state as, as, as, as a social club. Okay. Where, where, where, where the taxpayers' money is in their boots. Where they can dish it out, at will. Okay. Let me, let me just, let me just put in something quickly before I go because we're almost out of town. The, the issue of state governors. Yes, we, that is also, I mean, a whole kettle of fish on its own. It's a conversation we have to have another day. But let's talk about the lead because we're always very quick to put the politicians on the chopping board. And it seems like we somewhat absorb ourselves of certain responsibilities when it comes to leadership. And we leave it to the politicians, those people versus us. What is the duty of the lead in terms of these leaderships because they keep, keep coming and going. And we're almost at the end of this era, we're going to be handing over, or they're going to be handing over to another government. What is our role, aside from, you know, getting our PVCs and going to the polling units to cast our votes. What should, should be our other role? I mean, do we even have interest in these, you know, leadership? Well, the problem is that, to me, Nigerians are, are a socially fantastic human beings. They have, they have the spirit of perseverance they can endure. So people keep saying the lead has issues. What, what do, what, how can you blame them? They go out, people come to compare to them and they look at it and they go out on election day to go and vote for the same set of people, different people. And they are, they have votes, they are, they are, they have votes, the votes that they give to, the money that gives those people, at what time, at what time, or are stolen. So what do you want them to do? To take sample, to take laws into their hands and they will not get it into crisis. The problem is not the people. Nigerians are the most easiest people to rule. All you need to do, provide the basic amenities for them. We, it's only the Nigerian that will be, we, we, the communities do their own rules. It's only the Nigerian that communities build schools. It's only the Nigerian that you, in your estates, you, you put your own security. It's not done anywhere in the world. It's not done anywhere. So to me, Nigerians are one of the best people to do. All government needs to do is to encourage them and to provide the right, right in the city. See, in an organization, when the leader does the right thing, you know, everybody for the life, because there's law and order. Let me quickly talk to Maduka. Can you hear me, Osir? Sorry, I have to break up. Yes, let me talk to Maduka because we're almost out of time. Mr. Maduka, what will posterity remember President Mahmoud Buhari for going forward and looking at who he's handing over to and of course, the future of Nigeria? Should we, should we hold our breath? Well, a lot, but if I could digress from what my brother said, I think the problem is when you are a leader, you should be a father. Empathy must be there. We are, people are dying in this country. A lot of people are being killed and our leader don't care. That is not why we shouldn't blame Buhari. He's in Saudi Arabia. A lot of people just, last night, some villagers were, you know, adopted and killed. So, empathy must be first thing that we could see from a leader which is not coming from PMB. You can give anybody anything, but when you don't have empathy, it doesn't make you a good leader. Leadership is all about the people. When you see the people as citizens, when you see the people as human beings, you should be able to know when to stop as to doing certain things. For all that is happening today, we've not had even our president talk to the people and say, oh, sorry for what happened. So that is to me a very bad issue that we can take away with. Secondly, the Nigerians we are talking about, we are the problem, let me put it that way. Election is coming up. We vote people, nobody force us. So we are reaping the harvest of what we sow. So if we sow bad leadership, well, people have to reap bad leadership. Well, yes they know what to look at our leaders, track them, see the antecedents and see what we do in order to ensure that whoever we're voting in to not look at us as others where they are there. So Nigerians are part of the problem. So we all have one thing or the other to do, but my problem is that when you have a father who is pretending the famine, he's able to know that the function of their home rests clearly on him, and he's able to take that responsibility and account in the family in whatever means. But when you really get it, when you don't care, when nothing is happening, when your family is mourning and people are dying, you don't care. To me, that's the worst opinion that I can ascribe to. That is what's happening in Nigeria right now. Well, I want to say thank you gentlemen for being part of the conversation. I want to say thank you, Osa, for being here. He's a social commentator. Osa Oweni, thank you for joining us. Sunny Obimadukah is a public affairs analyst. Thank you so much gentlemen. This is a conversation we'll have until May 29. Hopefully there'll be something good to remember this government for maybe infrastructure. But thank you gentlemen. Thank you. All right. Well, we'll take a short break when we return. We'll be going to Quaristay to look at a dynasty that some people are saying might just be facing its end. Stay with us.