Nigeria's Unending Comedy.

In an expected twist to the to the comedies that characterize Nigeria's dire political contests, former president Shehu Shagari is being widely quoted as querying the achievements of incumbent President Buhari. The old man is almost ninety-four, carried some ineffective grace into his office and some of this elegance might hamper him from nursing such a torrid grudge against a man who removed him from power in a coup detat. In this age of fake news, anybody living or dead can be represented as having said this or that, but in case it is true, just true, should the old man succumb to the strange urge of past African leaders deriving satisfaction from delivering obstreperous lectures on the inadequacies of their successors (mostly to remind folks they weren't all that bad in office), a little listing of his own achievements while in office might help put things in perspective.
Shagari inherited a fairly-decent economy from the regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo in 1979. By the time he was bundled out in 1983, the industries had collapsed, infrastructure had decayed beyond salvage and corruption had brought a once prosperous nation down to its knees.
In order to feed his people, Shagari was to promote rice, practically an alien crop folks ate with chicken and goat only at Christmas, to bizarre national stage. So strange was his obsession with rice that he constituted a Presidential Task Force on Rice and appointed Dr Umaru Dikko as the overall rice Czar. Imagine Donald Trump constituting a Presidential  Task Force on Pizza! But that was where the mirth ended. Dikko and his acolytes were to steal 2.2 billionn naira rice money, a hefty sum in those days. When Buhari came to power, he had to risk his name, risk Nigeria's diplomatic standing, in order to smuggle Dikko in a crate from London to face trial for his grim misdeeds in Nigeria. The attempt failed and an Israeli Mossad agent enmeshed in the plot had to go to jail in London over it. The damage, however was little compared to the destruction this rice madness inflicted on agricultural production in the country. Traditional crops like yam, cassava, sorghum were promptly abandoned and by the end of 1983, Nigerians were grappling with unprecedented hunger. I will continue with this list but please do visit my blog at myfreshanglesaddresses.blogspot.com.ng. Thanks