Former presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, has said ex-President Muhammadu Buhari was a victim of the crisis of expectations.
The former Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Shehu, added that Nigerians also anticipate great things from their leaders, which have not historically boded well.
His topic for discussion at the 21st Trust Dialogue was “Tinubu’s Economic Reforms: Gainers and Losers.”
According to the former presidential media aide, some of Buhari’s issues stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, which had an impact on grain imports.
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“His government banned the importation of rice because we were growing as much as we needed for the country. In fact, Nigeria fed West Africa. You need to be in any of the border states, either Kano, Katsina or Jigawa to see how food, even as of today, is being moved massively out of the country. We are feeding West Africa.
“There were many challenges during the time he was in power. I don’t need to mention them. You all know about this. Was it Covid or the war in Ukraine? You know all of these things. In a nutshell, this is to say that he was a victim of a crisis of expectation.
“And I think that is the lesson for Nigerians with what I have seen with Buhari’s critics. And this for Tinubu, and any other president that will come thereafter is that Nigerians should begin to lower their expectations especially where those expectations are simply inhumane. Leaders can do a lot of things. But no one leader can do everything for one given nation.”
He also said the construction of the Second Niger Bridge was a big achievement by his former boss, as he said, “Before Buhari, it used to take Christians in the East or South West two to three days to go home for Christmas because the traffic clumped on the Niger Bridge.”
