Opinion
“The fear of Buhari” whips Nigeria into shape – and Africa just might be carried along with it
By Dan Aceda
“If Nigeria moves, then Africa moves. If not, then we must wait.”
I do not remember where I first came across the quote above, but as a Kenyan I could never find a good reason to agree with it. That was until I begun to interact closely with Nigeria.
Over the past 2 years I have been a part of the Vecna Cares team that is working on designing and implementing an electronic health records tech tool for low resource settings in several states in Nigeria.
I am just concluding my second trip to Nigeria in 2 years. The first time out, I spent all my time in the capital Abuja and its’ outskirts – the Federal Capital Territory. This second time, I swam in the ‘belly of the monster’, venturing to some of the smaller rural towns of Ondo State, and then wound up my trip in the Lekki area of Lagos.
I have since changed my stance. There is no doubt in my mind that Nigeria moves Africa.
This is a huge country. The number that I was operating on when I first arrived was 140 million people strong. But having spoken to a few people here and seen it for myself, I dare say that we should be pegging that number at about 190 million if not 200 million.
One of the most mind-boggling statistics that I heard is that Nigeria now has 120 million active cell phone users.
I am here shortly after an election that saw a former military dictator win by a landslide.
Think about that for a minute. Where else in the world would such a sentence be written, read out aloud and make sense?
It is said that before President Buhari’s first stint as leader of Nigeria, back in the 1980s, Lagos was a hub for drug trafficking. Upon his assumption of office, he decreed that drug trafficking would, from then on, be a capital offence. He then back-dated the law and declared that all those that were in prison, having been convicted for it, would be executed. Needless to say, the drug trade ground to a halt – or so the story goes.
