The visceral hatred for former President Muhammadu Buhari by a so-called Northern Think Tank, led by one Mohammed Yakubu, is making many observers of politics lose interest in a group that initially set out to promote the interests of the Northern region in the context of a united Nigeria.

In their desperation to ingratiate themselves to the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, they find themselves laying the blame for everything that is wrong in the country, from poverty to disease; corruption and crime and, ridiculously, blaming Buhari for matters arising from fuel subsidy withdrawal and the naira devaluation.

Reading their frequently issued press statements, you see and feel the burning desire to please Tinubu that is clearly clouding their sense of judgement as a civil society group pretending to be pro-North.

They use perfunctory Buhari bashing to stay relevant. It is almost as if they are saying things just for the heck of it, pointing at themselves and shouting: ‘’Look, I have said things against Buhari, now somebody in the Tinubu administration should look in my direction.”

Get me right: I’m not at all saying that the previous dispensation does not need to be called out on promises that have turned out to be hollow. But it is also not true to suggest that roads in Nigeria are paved with gold and milk flows through its rivers from 2023 when Tinubu took over the presidency.

There is nothing wrong in being pro-Tinubu, but this can be done realistically without spelling a constant sense of doom and without conveying this impression that Buhari personally supervised an imagined Armageddon.

Let me repeat that it is okay to be pro-Tinubu but that should not be only because there is a food on the table that Yakubu’s “think tank” wants to be invited to come and eat.

I think it is time the president himself called this hate Buhari industry to order, even for the sake of party unity.

Musa Ilallah,
Abuja
[email protected]