Amina Mohammed, deputy secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), says the late former President Muhammadu Buhari was uncomfortable with politics but swept his feelings aside for governance.
Buhari died on Sunday in London and was buried in Daura,
Katsina state, on Tuesday. He was president from 2015 to 2023.
Mohammed, who served as minister of environment under Buhari
from 2015 to 2016, eulogised her former boss in an interview with Channels TV.
She recounted how the late former president played an
advisory role in encouraging her to take up the UN appointment as its deputy
secretary-general.
“We were sitting in a meeting in Marrakesh at a climate
meeting, and Ban Ki-moon came over and said, ‘We think that the new
secretary-general is going to ask you to come and be his deputy,’ and I said,
‘No, it’s not possible; I’ve come home, and I’m serving’,” she recalled.
“And then, I had a discussion with him (Buhari) to say that
I really needed his support and if they came to ask him, he shouldn’t say yes.
He said, ‘Of course not. We need all our people back here in the team to serve
Nigeria; we need the best’.
“So, I felt very confident and left Marrakesh for India,
which was my next trip. And in India, I got a call from the current secretary-general
to ask if I could be his deputy secretary-general.
“So, I said with a lot of confidence, ‘I can’t. I can’t
leave the service that I have, and I’m committed to President Muhamad Buhari.’
“So, he said, “will you allow me to speak to him? I said,
‘Of course, you can speak to him’.
“I have to tell you, I was very confident that my president
would say no. So, I left India, I went home, and they said the president was
looking for me.
“I went and sat in front of him, and he talked to me for a
long time about service, and I just thought, ‘My God, I know where he’s going’.
“And at the end of it, after explaining why these things
mattered in terms of representing the country. He said, ‘But of course, the
decision is yours’. And in my head, I just thought, ‘My goodness me, of course,
the decision is not mine’.
“In our culture, when a man of that status, one that you
look to as a father, speaks to you, know that he wants the best, and so the
only thing you can say is ‘Yes, sir’.”
‘BUHARI WAS UNCOMFORTABLE WITH POLITICS’
When asked about the legacy Buhari’s administration bequeathed
to Nigerians, Mohammed noted that Buhari was convinced about sacrificing for
the good of the nation.
“I think first and foremost is that this is an officer and a
gentleman who went through from a military role to a democracy. He dropped his
uniform, and he embraced democracy,” she said.
“I don’t think he was always comfortable with politics, but
what he did was try and try and try again.
“He believed in the rule of law, and he believed in a system
that even if it was imperfect, he would keep trying until he got to where he
needed to get to. And it was God’s will that he would be the president at the
time he was.”
Mohammed said she wanted Nigerians to note that, like Buhari
recognised, progress does not happen overnight.
“The struggle of Nigeria is what I think he leaves—is that
you don’t give up on this country; it’s the only one you have, and it is not
perfect, but it’s up to us to do that nation building,” she said.
“And he was sometimes very excited and looked to see the
potential and pushed us, but he was also at times disappointed in our responses
in terms of what we were going to do and whether we were ready to go that last
mile.
“And I think that what we have to think about is that he
gave it his all. Whenever he was asked to serve, he served, and we have to
think about that.
“To serve is not an easy thing to do. It is a
sacrifice—enormous sacrifice to his wife, to his children, to his family, and
to his lifestyle, because remember, he was also not a person who was always out
there.
“He was very much one that kept his own council and a very
small gathering of trusted friends and family.”
Mohammed said Buhari stood for the courage of his
conviction, adding that the late former president never wavered in the time she
worked with him and encouraged Nigerians to embody the same morals.
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