By Paul Nwosu
Virtually everyone who has paid tribute to the late President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, has used two defining words – discipline and integrity. And if we must be honest, these are qualities no one can take away from him. From his early days as a young military head of state who launched the War Against Indiscipline (WAI) through his tenure as a democratically elected President, Buhari remained consistent in his desire to instill order and uprightness in Nigeria’s public and private life.
He wanted Nigerians to reflect the values they admire in the developed nations they frequently visit, buy houses and, in some cases, live there happily ever after. Nations built on a strong foundation of discipline, hard work, and integrity. But many fail to realize that these admirable societies didn’t just fall from the sky; they were forged through sacrifices, tough policies, and unwavering national ethics, principles Buhari hoped Nigerians would adopt.
Buhari understood that for Nigeria to transition from the so-called Third World to a prosperous, egalitarian society, discipline and integrity must form the bedrock of its national life. Without these, he warned, the nation would fall into a predatory system where “monkey go dey work, baboon go dey chop.” A system lacking in discipline inevitably breeds corruption from the top, right down to the grassroots, creating a survival-of-the-fittest jungle where the weak are crushed under the weight of greed and impunity by the strong and mighty.
He believed deeply that Nigeria was abundantly blessed with human, material, and natural resources. But for corruption, Nigerians could, and should have enjoyed a standard of living comparable to the best in the world. His frustration was clear. The problem was never in the lack of potentials, but in the moral decay within leadership and society.
Younger Nigerians, especially the Gen Zs, may struggle to understand why Buhari’s WAI is being extoled in this article, especially if they heard stories of its excesses from older family members. But the truth is that the absence of discipline and integrity in today’s leadership is precisely why so many young people graduate into joblessness, disillusionment, and frustration, often reacting with protests at the slightest provocation. The future appears stolen before their eyes by a privileged few who have captured the nation’s wealth and power, and whose protégés now walk the same corrupt path, unrepentantly.
WAI, in the short time it lasted, was Buhari’s attempt to knock Nigerians into shape, to restore some semblance of civility, accountability and public order. It took aim at public corruption, armed robbery, drug trafficking, and general misconduct. The campaign confronted not just criminal behavior, but also the societal indiscipline that had crept into everyday life from queue-jumping to littering, from lateness to work to reckless driving.
But WAI faced fierce resistance. Those who had fed fat on the commonwealth fought back. They sponsored campaigns of calumny, mocked the initiative, and eventually drove him from power. Ironically, these same critics would later call on Buhari whenever the nation needed someone with an untainted record to perform a sensitive national assignment. That alone speaks volumes.
The bitter truth is that ordinary Nigerians would have been the ultimate beneficiaries of WAI if it had been allowed to thrive. Most nations that succeeded, whether in Asia, Europe, or Africa, endured painful reforms and shock treatments before turning their fortunes around. Compared to what Ghana went through under the young Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings who cleared the Augean stable of his country’s rot, Buhari’s WAI was a mere slap on the wrist. Today Ghana works. Nigeria, by contrast, remains mired in dysfunction. Multinationals and even Nigerian entrepreneurs now relocate to Ghana, whose currency four decades ago was derided as worthless.
When Buhari returned to power as a civilian president after three previous attempts, he still sounded the same alarm: “If we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us.” But he was no longer the military commander whose word was law. He was now navigating the treacherous terrain of democracy, bogged down by bureaucracy, opposition politics, and even betrayal from his own party loyalists. Many of them might have quietly mocked him: “Does he think he’s still in the barracks?”
Sadly, successive politicians have continued the “chopping” tradition, and the corruption bug keeps biting deeper. Nigeria remains trapped in a cycle of lamentation. We complain daily that all is not well, yet refuse to make the hard choices or take the bold steps necessary to reset the system. As someone once said, Nigerians want to go to heaven, but they don’t want to die.
Buhari was far from perfect. But no one can question his intentions. His War Against Indiscipline was not a quest for power, it was a plea for national sanity. He saw what Nigeria could become, and he tried to set us on that path. Whether we listen now or remain stuck in our cyclical self-sabotage, is up to us.
Sir Paul Nwosu PhD, writes from Awka
