The uninformed may be wondering why Senator Ibikunle Amosun stayed put participating in the very last funeral rites that took General Muhammadu Buhari to the unknown world of the dead. Friendship without inhibitions played out.
Of all the people who shouted Sai Buhari between 2015 and 2023, you could count the true friends of the former president. And they were quite few. Forget the noise makers and politicians who rode on the name to become emergency billionaires.
Amosun stayed with Buhari all through the years of presidential election failure. We know those who began making pilgrimage to Daura and Kaduna in 2014, in the build up and gang up against Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. Buhari had retired to his home after a futile third attempt, signing out with tears.
In 2009, I realised how close Amosun was to Buhari. Prof. Tam David West was presenting a book at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) Lagos. A quality crowd gathered to celebrate the Rivers man who earned most of his living teaching at the University of Ibadan.
David West was one of the civilian ministers picked to work in the Buhari government in 1984, alongside men like Chike Offodile, Emmanuel Nsan, Rilwanu Lukman, Onaolapo Soleye, Ibrahim Gambari and Mahmud Tukur.Curiously, that Federal Executive Council, had no female member.
I remember the photo session. The professor was at the rear, first from the left on the back row, behind Commodore Patrick Koshoni and to the right of Brig. Solomon Omojokun. What struck me was that Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, Brig. Tunde Idiagbon was closer to the centre than the Head of State. Buhari was on the left of Idiagbon while Mamman Vatsa stood on the right.
It was because of that ministerial appointment that David West invited Buhari. Also invited was another benefactor, Maj. Gen. Zamani Lekwot. As military governor of Rivers State in 1975, he appointed the professor commissioner.
There was another Big Masquerade. Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar was present. Before the event commenced, I was in one of the waiting rooms with Eric Osagie, Media Adviser to Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole. Then the VIPS joined. No noise, no overzealous security men.
Oshiomhole later arrived wearing very simple native dress. I was expecting to see Comrade governor in Khaki. I guess someone must have informed him that there was no point wearing okrika khaki in the midst of retired Khaki Boys. Amosun was not yet governor at the time. It was Amosun’s vehicle that conveyed Buhari to the NIIA. The duo came together and also departed the venue at the same time. It is also possible that the trip was sponsored by Amosun, in his individual capacity as a member of the All Nigeria Peoples Party ( ANPP).
The Alafin of Oyo was there. Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu arrived too, as immediate past governor of Abia State. Rivers State governor Rotimi Amechi was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Magnus Abe. Behind the microphone as compere, was Femi Adesina, Editor of the Daily Sun newspaper.
I watched Buhari and Abdusalami closely. Both of them wore white and chatted freely. I was almost tempted to show Buhari the street named after his course mate, Gen. Shehu Yar’adua’s father, right opposite the NIIA. Kalu lived off Shehu Musa Yar’adua, on Adeleke Adedoyin Street.
Little did I know that six years after that event, Buhari once occupied Dodan Barracks, would move to Aso Villa. I remember Osagie connecting me to David West, on phone, as the All Progressives Congress (APC) campaigned loudly and vigorously for the Buhari presidency in 2015.
And when Buhari became president, he did not need to look far for a Minister of Finance. Kemi Adeosun was readily available. She was commissioner for Finance in Ogun State. Guess who was the governor? Amosun, the Chartered Accountant.
The role Amosun played at Buhari’s burial showed not just loyalty but true friendship. I like it when friends don’t break up. At the David West book launch in 2009, I walked up to Magnus Abe and pleaded with him to ask Amechi to take it easy with his predecessor, Dr. Peter Odili. What Amechi did to Odili, he received, in equal measure, from Nyesom Wike.
I am not sure Abe would remember my face now or even what I asked him to do, for peace to reign in Port Harcourt Pitakwa. The Garden City is a bad example. Wike and Fubara were engaged in guerilla warfare,Wike and Amechi fought a Civil War, Amechi declared cold war on Odili and Celestine Omehia was sacrificed twice as elephants fought.
Buhari who did not consider any woman for ministerial appointment in 1984, chose Kemi, thanks to the true friendship displayed by the Ogun State governor. In other words, the president trusted someone from his ally, with Federal financial accountability.
Those who did not like the idea that the Ogun State governor could wield so much power as to influence the appointment of the Finance Minister went to work. Everything was done to bring down the young woman. And they hit her above the belt. She was accused of not going through the mandatory National Youth Service Corps scheme.
Buhari would have been a true national hero if he did not divide his own country into Five Percenters and The Favoured. He was a grandfather who should have worked towards uniting the people. I wonder why he idolised his Dot friends like Col. Chris Ugokwe and Honourable Juventus Ojukwu but showed no love to their people.
That does not make me hate him. I pitied the general because during his presidency, some little minds took undue advantage of his health and age, to turn Africa’s erstwhile giants to a Pygmy Economy. If Yusuf was old enough, many of those hangers on around Baba, would have been hanged politically.
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