EDITORIAL OPINION BY TOKUNBO PETERS

Mahammadu Buhari

Buhari did enormous damage to the country by handling terrorism with kid gloves and allowing sectarian killings to fester. Under his watch, over 63,000 Nigerians were killed, most of them Christians. At the height of the killings, his spokesman, Femi Adeshina, even had the effrontery to tell Christian farmers to give up their ancestral land to Fulani herders in order to stay alive. And to think that he professes to be a Pastor.

The last straw was the recruitment of "repentant terrorists" into the Nigerian Army. This singular action destroyed the morale of our soldiers. Equally troubling was his failure to ensure the prosecution of those who roasted Deborah Samuel alive in broad day light in Sokoto. He didn't even bother condemning the gory incident publicly. It shows the kind of value he places on Christian lives. Compare Buhari's indifference to Deborah's murder and Donald Trump's reaction to Charlie Kirk's assassination. When sectarian killings are left unprosecuted, it embolden other extremists to commit similar atrocities.

Buhari's aloofness could perhaps be attributed to his complicity in the murderous activities of the Fulani militias. It is on record that the Fulani militias were imported into the country and armed by APC in their desperate attempt to wrestle power away from Jonathan, thinking that he wasn't going to concede defeat to Buhari. Kawu Baraje, an APC Chieftain, has long revealed how the militias were brought in from Mali, Senegal and Sierra Leone at different fora.

Bola Tinubu

Sadly, it's Tinubu's regime that is taking the heat for Buhari's bigotry and aloofness. I wish the threat of a potential US military invasion of Nigeria to protect Christians was made during Buhari's regime. Perhaps it would have prevented the two days unmitigated massacre of defenceless people in Mangu Local Government of Plateau state in 2023, in which over 100 people were slaughtered.