In the year 2005 when
the book, Nigeria: Buhari’s Boots, Babangida’s Boots ,
a 145-paged jeremiad of a book was published by PANZA Publishers in Owerri, not
many Nigerians believed that the predictions made in the book would come to
pass. Nobody took it seriously during its public presentation by
Chief Jerry Alagboso in 2009 at Imo State University Auditorium.
The author, Dr Sam
Iheanacho Madugba had predicted on 24th February, 1986 in his 86-line poem
titled ‘Truth pooh-poohed’, that Muhammadu Buhari would come back to become the
President of Nigeria and salvage the country from the forces of darkness and
falsehood, economic mismanagement and misrule, represented by those who
overthrew him on 27th August, 1985. This poem which appears on pages 26 – 28
says thus: This country ours/nothing good lasts/reality-facing
leaders/committed to the cause of revitalization/of falsehood-infested
secretariats/and economic-moribund state/bulldozed with ignominy/by agents of
felony/but in utter negation/sycophantic press exults…But the incarcerated
veracity/must, I trust, one day resurrect… like the First Fruit Himself.
In another 54-line poem
titled, ‘I Reminisce The Ten and Eight-Moons’ which appears on page 41 and
written on 2nd July,1986, and dedicated to Buhari and Idiagbon in detention
together with ‘ Rebellious Patriot’ so equally dedicated, Madugba asked that he
be taken back there/with the ones incarcerated on top/for the pampered
ship(Nigeria)/ now wrecked/with hands of inexperience. Lines 25 -34 of the
latter reads: I pledge to Nigeria/I pledge not to mischief/beclouding the faces
of her chiefs/for they all liars are/wanting honey mixed with sugar/But I with
those two-some lot/ behind closed door today/love a Nigeria of bitterness
today/preparing to pave for posterity/a sanguine tomorrow.
The book which was
copiously rejected at the 2009 launch just for the mentioning of the name,
Buhari, and the fact that Dr Madugba, then serving his 5th year
of forced retirement by the Achike Udenwa Administration in Imo State,
‘’chronicled Nigeria’s march in decadence for two decades, 1979 to 2003 and
compares Nigeria in the two military dictatorships of Generals Muhammadu Buhari
and Ibrahim Babangida and gives a pass mark to the short-lived Buhari regime
and wishes that the lanky soldier-statesman-disciplinarian returns to right
Nigeria destroyed by the ugly seeds sown by Babangida over eight years, the
fruits of which Nigerians are harvesting in tears today’’. Still on P.104 of
this unbelievably prophetic book, Madugba predicted Babangida’s ‘’ignominious
exit from power’’ in a 15-line poem titled ‘Bitter Laughter’.
Madugba, a 2005 winner
of the Association of Nigerian Authors’ award in poetry with his book,Nigeria: Buhari’s
Boots, Babangida’s Boots, had earlier in a medical fiction( novel) he
wrote in 1985 soon after the fall of Buhari titled, The Quick
Intervention, published by Pacific Publishers, Obosi in 1999,
described Major-General Muhammadu Buhari in the dedication page as ‘’ the first
Nigerian leader who understood the country’s problems and went about tackling
them before the kite struck …’’
 |
| Dr Sam Madugba |
Speaking during an
interview with the Mr Ebere Inyama recently, the Imo-State-born medical doctor
and human rights activist said that besides Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Buhari, no
other Nigerian leader has had the ideological philosophy for the survival and
growth of Nigeria. He said he counted ‘’18 fundamental ideological philosophies
in Buhari’s 18 months in power, all aimed at making Nigeria great’’
Said he, “I was 21 years
old when Buhari struck. I followed his first pronouncement till he was overthrown.
Then I realized that he is a messiah. The day he was overthrown, I wrote two
poems, Ambition and 27th August ”. Both poems, written in
his book, Apartheid: Chants of Liberation, published by Totan
Press, Owerri when the author was a House Officer at the Owerri General
Hospital in 1993, which equally appeared in the controversial Nigeria:
Buhari’s Boots, Babangida’s Boots, openly condemned the inordinate
ambition of those that overthrew his government when most Nigerians were
celebrating them.
Dr Madugba, a Public Health physician, who is, at present, a Director
in the Imo State Ministry of Health/Co-ordinator, School Health Services
Programme, said Nigeria was not an impossible task. All that President Buhari
needed to do was to carefully choose courageous, educated, disciplined and
patriotic Nigerians, irrespective of their political party affiliations,
religion and tribe ‘’ to help him recover the Nigeria of our dream from the
dust’’.
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