by Isi Esene

Veteran journalist, Prince Tony Momoh has expressed surprise over the uncommon honesty exhibited by former Head of State and All Progressives Congress (APC) leader, General Muhammadu Buhari.

In a recent interview with the Tribune, the former Daily Times editor and member of the APC spoke about his relationship with former presidents, Ibrahim Babangida, Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari, who he described as a recluse.

Read excerpts from the interview below:

My working with General Muhammadu Buhari was not initiated by him. As I have explained earlier, my community, the Auchi community of Edo State, met and decided not to put all their eggs in one basket, politically. I was, as I have said, a foundation member of the PDP and had to quit for reasons I have given. At the meeting, someone said that General Buhari had joined politics and recalled how a proposal had been sent from the community when he was chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). The people did not know him, they had nobody who did and had not gone to Abuja to plead. He had approved the proposal to work on 23 roads in the community, provide water for Auchi, Uzairue and South Ibie clans and work on the erosion which was eating up Auchi. I was asked to reach out to him and work for him so that if he assumed office as president, he would look in our direction. I did not like Buhari.

In 1984, when his regime promulgated Decree 4 which provided for punishing the publication of truth if such publication embarrassed the government, I had written that the law be ignored and disobeyed by journalists. And much later when he was reported as having said that Muslims should vote only for Muslims in elections, I had taken him to the cleaners in my column, Point of Order, in the Sunday Vanguard. With the biases I harboured, I wanted to know the man I was supposed to work with. I took two journalists with me to Abuja to confront the man. We were shocked when we discovered he had no house in Abuja. We spoke to him for five hours in his bedroom in a two-room service apartment which he had rented for a week. The outcome was a publication, Many Questions and Buhari’s Answers. Published in there are answers to questions people still ask about 53 suitcases, alleged missing N2.8 billion, the toppling of a democratically-elected government, the jailing of journalists under Decree 4, the execution of drug convicts under a back-dated decree, et al.

I have come to like immensely a man I once disliked with passion. He is honest and straight-forward. He is a recluse, always looking upwards to God to be the judge of everyone in whatever they do. He does not believe he can be deceived. He once wondered why he should not believe what he was told. ‘Chairman, why would someone tell me a lie when he should know that he is never alone, that God is watching?’ he once asked me. A gentleman wanted to provide a dozen buses for Buhari’s electioneering but wanted a promise to be given and Buhari refused to give any undertaking, saying he could not promise to give what did not belong to him. Can you beat this? That is the man I now have the privilege to work with, to work for. One thing I can say for him is, if he gets there, Nigeria’s patrimony will be protected to grow Nigeria, to grow Nigerians.

You asked me to compare the two and express my preference. The question does not arise. I served under a president, IBB. I am working for and with someone who wants to be president; two different people. When next you meet Professor Tam David-West, you can put the question to him because he had the privilege of having worked with the two in their capacities as heads of state.

Isime Esene