Next year, after 8 difficult years for Nigerians, Buhari will finally step down as president of Nigeria.
- Many will remember Buhari as the man, who under his watch, insecurity in Nigeria was at its highest. There were herdsmen and Boko haram terrorising the Country. Others will remember him for untold financial hardship, exchange rates rises and so forth, all negative things.
Somehow, I feel they are not going to speak the whole truth about Buhari. As one that lives in the Nigerian UK diaspora, I must add positively that Buhari also has to be remembered as the Nigerian president who stopped the lavishness of Nigeria’s money in the west by connected/big boy Nigerians at the expense of our Country. Let me begin.
If you have lived in the Diaspora for over 20 years, only now would you notice an absence of Nigerian Big boys, who either fly over from Nigeria or live here, who’s jobs are to spend lavishly on behalf of Nigerian politicians in Nigeria. Their jobs were to buy houses, bullet proof cars, huge aquariums, bullet proof vest, Tuck boats, find private schools for their Nigerian families, buy homes etc This is their job and their business, and it has been like this even before I moved to the UK.
From this job they will also be able to support their families in diaspora and be a big guy in Nigeria with flash houses and cars because they had good reputations for helping Nigerian politicians waste Nigeria’s stolen loot. We just call it “Baba God has blessed them”.
There used to be rampant Nigerians with £50 notes slipping out of their pockets and socks, expensive cars, closing shops, dinning in expensive restaurants, staying in expensive hotels etc in London. They disorientated the focus of the hard-working Nigerians in diaspora and had the effect of leading a lot of people down the wrong path.
Under Buhari If you live in the UK Diaspora, when was the last time you heard someone went to Nigeria to “Hammer”? Government money?
Prior to Buhari regime up to 50% of Nigerian men aged 35-65 in the diaspora were somehow in business in Nigeria in this type of trade; pillaging the nation. These are intelligent men blind-sided by greed. They are all mostly graduates in Nigeria and the UK but have not worked a day in their lives, some who were working gave up. They do business!
Today, these men are now trying to work with their international educational qualifications. They are finding the motivation for hard work or starting again because looting Nigeria was a way of life that has stopped.
The days when if your brother, sister, or family member was in Nigerian Govt especially in a Top position then you become a big guy in diaspora is over. Since Buhari came to power, this practice has almost come to a ground halt. Well almost, as everybody is on “fix Nigeria mode”.
The big boys in diaspora are all now applying themselves as dynamic working men, staying in England with their wives and families which can only be a good thing. There are too many broken Nigerian homes in the Diaspora because the man has gone to try his luck in Nigeria but that’s another story.
Not all the big boys are giving up though, because the Nigerian ways has robbed so many of them of too much, add age to it and they can’t start again in the diaspora. Many of them are waiting to see if the next Nigerian president will open the flood gates again. Please vote wisely.
We should not forget to remember Buhari as the man who helped set the Nigerian big boys on the right track in life. No more Hammerings! The Buhari effect.