It was Tuesday, 31st April 2015. We were in the classroom, and the course was “Islamic Penal Code” by Prof. Y. O. Imam. But then, we were only there physically; our minds were somewhere else. Our eyes and hands were under the desk, refreshing the news every second.

It was the final day of GEJ vs. GMB. Delta State had been counted, and Lagos was gone! Jega had silenced Orubebe, and we were all waiting for the K-sisters, especially the eldest one, Kano!

As the Kano vote was counted, Goodluck Jonathan called Buhari to congratulate him. Wikipedia had already updated Buhari’s profile as the President-elect of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. By then, it was obvious we weren’t learning the penal code; we were actually at the collation centre in Abuja.

Everyone was jubilant, except for one person: the oldest in the class, our lecturer, Prof. Imam. He was like, “Who told you anything will change?” But we were very sure! Buhari’s campaign mantra was “Change!” and everyone in the class believed it, except the lecturer, who I thought would soon be put to shame anyway.

It’s May 29, 2015, and now, PMB has declared: “I belong to everybody, and I belong to nobody.” That was exactly the dawn of change, no more godfatherism, no more cabals, nepotism, and corruption would now be history! Alhamdulillah, change is here! we thought.

To be fair, a lot indeed changed. For instance, I stopped believing in any politician. I changed. Now I believe that no one can change Nigeria except the Nigerians themselves. For me, that is what Buhari’s “change” taught me, especially after Lai Mohammed’s ministry told us back then, “the change begins with you.”

Let me flash back. I wasn’t an emergency Buhari supporter. The 2014/15 APC campaign, the wildest in modern Nigerian history, did not convince me to support Buhari. I had admired the general from my government lessons back in secondary school.

I believed that only strong-headed people like him could straighten Nigeria. Thus, I had followed the general’s news since his days in CPC. In case you don’t know, I have been actively following Nigerian politics since primary school 😎.

Back to 2015: Buhari was back in charge. Many things changed, but not the colonial-era leaders’ deep-seated awe for their old colonisers.

In 2017, Nigeria’s leader, Buhari, jetted off to the UK for treatment, after all, it was the country where he had trained to be a soldier. Buhari might have believed in the perfectionism and exceptionalism of the oyinbos, I don’t know.

But it is certain that Nigerian facilities, not doctors, were too bad to treat him. But to me, it felt like an emergency that needed Buhari to return, reflect, and order that whatever made the UK hospital special should be replicated in the heart of Africa’s greatest nation. But no, I was disappointed.

Two days ago, when I heard about Buhari’s death, I was shocked. I had never thought of his name and death in the same sentence. Of course, everyone will taste death, and Buhari, once the most powerful man in Nigeria, is now dead.

What pained me the most is that he died in “a UK clinic.” As if that was not shameful enough, his former spokesman, Femi Adesina, said, “Buhari could have long died if he had used Nigerian hospitals.”

Buhari didn’t have a choice about being born a British subject, but did he have the option of not dying as one? I wondered.

May Allah forgive the people’s general. He was an honest man, as even his foes testified. He definitely had his shortcomings. I pray Allah overlooks them. But then, his death in the UK, which should not be romanticised as it has been, reminds us that we have more to do for Nigeria.

It is said there are over 11,000 Nigerian-trained doctors in the UK. We can’t be supplying both the doctors and the patients, I think.

This should be a wake-up call to our President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR. May Allah grant you sound health. Nigerians want you, and other Nigerians, to be treated here in Nigeria by Nigerian health practitioners. This is possible. There is a need for change. For actual change, the change the nation owes Buhari!