103 days after the Nigerian President took off abruptly on his second medical trip of year 2017, he returned – with perhaps, a little too much pomp and flare for a convalescing 70-something year old who is yet to figure out how to deliver on the promise he made to change things for the better for Nigerians two rough years ago.

“We must ask ourselves these questions – how did we become like this? How did we get to this point? What kind of country have we become?” – General Muhammadu Buhari asked in one of his charged pre-election tweets in 2015, successfully getting millions of frustrated (and rightly so) Nigerians to believe this was a man who knew what our failing State needed and had all the answers. We just had to elect him first.

Two years on, we have got 106 of the girls held captive by the deadly Boko Haram back but we have lost just as many, if not more, Nigerians to a combination of escalated kidnappings, herdsmen killings, Southern Kaduna crisis and disease outbreaks that have occurred under the watch of this administration.

Many corrupt Nigerians have been publicly outed and outrageous sums “discovered” in the Buhari-led anti-corruption war but way too little of those sums have been recovered. Between the EFCC, ICPC, Code of Conduct Tribunal and other judicial/quasi judicial bodies charged with convicting alleged financial offenders, more cases have been lost than anyone in this administration will be proud to admit.

There has definitely been no marked improvement (from previous years) in the attitude of Ministers and other public office holders to those they were elected/appointed to serve. If anything, those who the younger generation ought to look up to for mentorship have only got more foul-mouthed since “Change began with them”. There is even an imminent clamp-down on freedom of  press and expression while the orchestrators hide under the veneer of curbing hate speech (a term that is now being used to describe everything from expressing frustration at having a sick leader to asking for self determination and everything in between those two).

Sure, after many drastic attempts at Buharinomics, Nigeria is finally finding her economic footing. Still, while Buhari, in the words of one of his too many media aides, has saved us trillions of Naira since his Presidency, he now has no qualms parking an immobile jet (as a matter of some protocol) on foreign soil at a (most likely daily) charge of £ 1000. It was the last piece of the puzzling question whether our leaders, under President Buhari, now finally understand the importance of responsible spending. They don’t.

Coincidentally, this brings us to another reason why we sai Baba’s return actually doesn’t mean much. Much of the economic pick-up in Nigeria – from the huge FG investment in the creative industries to VAIDS, N-Power and the gradual stabilisation of the naira – have happened under the watch of President Buhari’s deputy, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, who in spite of political and ethnic pressures, managed to hold the country together in the President’s absence.

Nothing about President Muhammadu Buhari’s return points to the resolution of the current educational crisis caused by the indefinite ASUU strike. Students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology were already close to a year at home before the President left without any meaningful contribution to the resolution of that crisis. Anyone who doesn’t look up to the newly returned President to fix ASUU’s current jam will surely be forgiven.

Even worse is the lack of confidence inspired by having a president who chose to seek his healing outside the shores of his home country ravaged in parts by meningitis and Lassa fever outbreaks. Again, no sick Nigerian unimpressed by his or her newly healed President’s return to a country with no interest in fixing it’s own health and medical needs will be unforgiven.

Do we even need to talk about insecurity? Like everything else, not much has changed for better or worse in the President’s absence in terms of insecurity around the country. But we must note that the approach of his deputy to dealing with insurgents and fire-breathers like Nnamdi Kanu is far different from Buhari’s who has had absolutely no problem letting volatile oil-producing regions know that he hasn’t forgotten how little their support was for him in his quest to becoming President.

The truth is that if anything, Nigerians are antsy about the coming days and the political shake-up they may usher in. If Buhari’s return turns out to bring better days ahead, we’ll all be pleasantly surprised. If the status quo remains, we can’t say anyone will be shocked.

The only thing Nigerians care for right now is that things do not get worse – whether or not as a result of their President’s return.

Having said all that, we say #BabaOyoyo – because we are truly happy that Muhammadu Buhari is healed.