Today, as General Muhammadu Buhari will be laid to rest, a chapter in Nigeria’s long and complex political history closes. For many of us, especially in Benue State, it is a moment filled with deep reflection , not just on the life of the man, but on the dreams he awakened and the promises left unfulfilled.
Buhari’s name first rang loud in our ears not just as a military ruler between 1983 and 1985, but as a symbol of discipline, anti-corruption, and national integrity.
In 2003, when he returned to national consciousness to contest for the presidency under the ANPP platform, his emergence rekindled a flicker of hope across the North and indeed the entire country.
It was a moment of nostalgia and expectation. In Benue State, the excitement was doubled because Wantaregh Paul Iyorpuu Unongo, our own revered son and a long-standing political titan, was contesting for governor under the same party.
For many of us, it was a revival of the old spirit of 1983, when Unongo stood against Aper Aku in a contest that, though lost, won him a near-mythical following.
I was just three years old in 1983. But by 2003, I could see with clear eyes what Buhari and Unongo represented to the ordinary man: honesty, sacrifice, and a chance , however slim to return Nigeria to moral rectitude.
They looked unstoppable, the kind of leaders that could rebuild a fractured nation. For Buhari, that opportunity finally came in 2015, when he defeated President Goodluck Jonathan after years of trying.
And yet, today, as we bow our heads in solemn prayer, we must speak the truth the whole truth with the respect death deserves, but also with the candour that history demands.
In Benue State, we remember Buhari not just as a president, but as a silent witness to some of the darkest days in our history. Our people were murdered in their farms, in their homes, in their sleep.
Fulani herdsmen ravaged our villages with impunity. And in those desperate times, we waited and prayed for the kind of response that a Commander-in-Chief swore to give. But it never came.
He remained quiet. Too quiet. His silence became deafening, and that silence will always be a scar in the heart of Benue. We asked for justice; we got indifference. We asked for protection; we got excuses. Many buried their loved ones under the weight of betrayal, feeling abandoned by a leader they once believed in.
But even as we mourn what could have been, we must not deny what was. Buhari was a man of great conviction, a product of a different generation
He was see rigid, austere, and principled in his own way. He was not corrupt, and he did not steal. In a country starving for moral leadership, that is no small thing.
Still, leadership is more than clean hans. It is about listening ears, compassionate hearts, and decisive action in the face of crisis. In this, many believe Buhari fell short.
As he is lowered to the earth today, we remember him not with hatred, but with a complex blend of respect, sorrow, and reflection.
His legacy will be debated for decades, but for us in Benue, we carry both the memory of the hope he gave and the wounds of the silence he kept.
Rest in peace, General. May posterity be fair, and may Nigeria , somehow find the peace we all longed for in your time.
