President Muhammadu Buhari has described poverty and underdevelopment as a tragedy.
The Nigerian President who is a former military former Head of State stated this in a documentary titled ‘Essential Muhammadu Buhari’, which aired on Channels Television on Sunday.
Comparing what life was like in Katsina then, when he was in secondary school where people begged for food every Friday at the mosque, Buhari said when he visited Liverpool in the United Kingdom on holidays, what he saw was in contrast.
He said, “When I visited Liverpool, we went to Central Liverpool and when we went down the street, I saw people coming out, everybody well dressed up. They looked handsome, healthy and I then reflected on the streets back here in Katsina, from my school days when I was going to the mosque on Fridays, you would see blind men, cripples, and orphans lined up, begging for what to eat; I say, God, how can we understand.
“That impression is still here in me, looking at people coming out, how they made themselves, very well dressed; underdevelopment is terrible.”
Buhari who noted that he doesn’t know his father and lived like an orphan noted that when he was in school, he was well-behaved knowing that he had nobody to come to his rescue if there was any problem.
“I didn’t know my father; I grew up like an orphan which is like I didn’t enjoy the protection of a father. I didn’t know my father and I went to a boarding school for nine years – three for primary school and six for secondary school. Yes, I missed my daddy but I was lucky; we are a generation of lucky people.”
He added, “So when I was away from home, I think I was constrained to behave myself because there was nobody to rescue me. So, I was behaving myself as a said, I became a class monitor, I became a junior prefect, I became senior perfect, I became a head boy.”
Comparing education during his days with the situation now, Buhari said, “Our generation was very lucky because our teachers were absolutely committed and they treated us like their own children.
“If you do well, you are praised; you are brought before the classroom and your work will be shown but if you don’t perform, you also are brought before the classroom, stripped and flogged on the buttocks.
“There is no way I can forget whom we called Teacher IC, Mallam Abdul. He was a very strict person and he didn’t spare the rod — we called it ‘bulala’.
“We just didn’t like when the rainy season approached because we had to go to the school farm, you wouldn’t be in classrooms and if you were late, from 6 am to 2 pm, bulala on your buttocks and you had to remove your shorts so that you would get the message proper and he is among the teachers I could again remember.
“We were given a part of the Quran every week to recite and the only way through which you could avoid it was to report sick. So, if you hadn’t recited the part given to you, so you could report sick. But even if you reported sick, then you would be stopped from going to break until you recited the verse you were given in the class,” he revealed.
President Buhari further revealed that he was flogged a lot because he avoided going to the school farm.
“I got a lot of bulala (cane) because I tried to avoid going to school farm and if you miss it, you are not allowed to go for break. So, you have no break until you do it but what I do the past recent and the last one, I will go over the wall of the school, rush home and sometimes I will be eating up to the time I am going to the classroom. I will not forget those things,” he said.
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