In December 1984 my late father made a remark that I could not understand at the time, he said, “the leaders of Nigeria will know no fear till the [oil] money runs out”. It was not until July 2000 that my father told me that the idea was proposed by his friend, the late Claude Ake. Since the oil boom of the early 1970s, no Nigerian head of state has been “afraid” of his watch or patch despite the coup d’états and the instances of serious political instability encountered. Now that the abundance of petrodollars earned from oil has suddenly become seriously scarce President Muhammadu Buhari has become in a pioneering approach, frank, open and expansive about his “fears” in power as presented in a recent missive. Continue reading →