Akeem Lasisi 
When Muhammadu Buhari first became the head of state in December 1983, it was through the help of a gun. As a result, it was not too surprising that barely a year after, it was through the barrel of the same gun that his exit was planned and executed.
Decades after, democracy has healed his wounds. What he lost to the barrel, he is gaining from the ballot. The irony further got crowned on Wednesday when he was declared winner of the presidential election held on Saturday. In other words, the man who could not last two years in Dodan Barracks, despite the thousands of guns in his command as a military head of state, has been guaranteed eight enviable years in Aso Rock, Abuja, the haven of governance where all that glitters is gold.
The Daura, Katsina deity of a man defeated his closest rival, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, in an election characterised by widespread anxiety and tinged with violence which was so bad that the poll has been described as the bloodiest in our democratic experience.
While the election has been observed to be considerably free and fair – Atiku has a contrary opinion – some people also said it presented the electorate with limited choices despite the fact that over 70 parties participated with many candidates. Such people see Buhari and his rival as duplicate copies of an old order, the two sides of a faded coin. In the past when veteran governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Jimi Agbaje, was in his charismatic elements, he would describe them as ‘same of the same’.
The thinking of the dissidents is that the two biggest candidates were not the best that Nigeria need at this moment in his turbulent socio-economic history. This could be part of the reasons many voters stayed away, including those who had permanent voter cards.
In spite of such sentiments, however, the Nigerian electorate have spoken. They have given Buhari the corruption fighter a fresh opportunity through the election that was keenly contested. Declaring him winner early Wednesday morning – four long days after the election held across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory – the Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said Buhari had satisfied all the conditions specified by the national and the electoral constitutions. He secured 15,191,847 votes to retain his job, while his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), scored 11,262,978. Buhari won in 19 states while Atiku triumphed in 17 and the FCT.
Buhari’s first tenure as a civilian President has been very eventful but many Nigerians see it as being a pot of mixed blessings. Critics – if not enemies – of his government say they cannot yet see the real change he promised burst forth like a huge sun that could dry up their entrenched and record-popular sufferings.
They expected an end to the economic upheavals that have been their lot for decades. They also expected a radical restructuring of governance, which has really not come forth, although the President’s die-hard fans do not agree to this position.
To them, saying such about their darling Sai Baba is just to fulfil the theme of a Yoruba proverb that says ‘Ota eni kii p’odu oya’. This means we never give our enemies the benefit of the doubt of being capable to kill a .. Even when they clearly kill one, we say the animal must have been suffering from a disease that must have prevented it from running fast. Those folks now largely called Buharists are convinced that he has done his best in the prevailing circumstance – taking the country out of recession, fighting corruption and making some marks in other sectors.
As the Daura General thus prepares for leading the country for another four years, his ability to reconcile the anxieties of his critics with the conviction of his friends may well determine how the near future will rate him. Interestingly, Buhari’s profile as a human being goes beyond the military and democratic experiences. His adventures, especially in the past few years, also make him look like a man-cat with many lives.
Here is a man who, at a point in the life of this presidency, was so sick that rumous of his death ran faster than light to all the cardinal points of the universe. But he survived the nasty experience. Yet, the understandable physical slowness that age has forced on him on the one hand, and the miraculous nature of his bouncing back, on the other, confounded many so much that they not only said he was ‘Jubrilled’, alleging a kind of cloning, but that he was also a ‘lifeless’ man.
When the time came for the election, and he competed actively with many candidates who bubbled with agility, democracy thought otherwise. It anointed Buhari and has now practically given him another life. Another enviable life indeed!
Whatever will he, however, do with this second chance? Time will tell, even if democracy itself cannot.
