Aliyu Audu is former senior special adviser to president Bola Tinubu on Public Affairs. In this interview, he pays tribute to late President Muhammadu Buhari, speaks about his legacies, why the late president will be remembered even across Africa, among others. What can you say about President Muhammau Buhari who has just been called home? I was fortunate, blessed to have lived, to have been a member of the same political party, to even work for his election and his re-election and, now watching him leave office and still maintain his simplicity and you still see the humanity in him and the peace of mind. And I realise that for centuries to come, President Muhammad Buhari will be remembered in Africa. We saw a mix of reactions from Nigerians. The dignitaries spoke highly of the late president, just like you did, but one that also stood out was a Nigerian on the street, actually, during the reaction taking. And I think he said something to the effect of if he expressed how he chose to feel that he might be attacked, but I think he was recalling the pain that some of the policies might have had on him as an everyday Nigerian. How do we strike this balance for those that might feel a certain sense of, recalling what they passed through during his years as president? And also the dignitaries who are speaking very highly of him based on the close relationship that they had with him, like yourself.. Now, this other thing is even about a close relationship that I share with the late former president. I think it’s about the knowledge of his person. It’s okay that people have varying opinions about his death. But the fact that they have an opinion alone, it means he evokes something in their subconscious. That’s energy. Whatever direction the energy flows, any human whose death can evoke as much energy as he’s living, it’s a human who lives forever. But I mean, I can tell you that you have always said it. I mean, all the way up to 2020 and beyond, I have been on national television and I have always said that my greatest disappointment with my generation is how we are not taking responsibility to enlighten the generation after us, the Gen Z. They’re born very smart. I mean, if you are one of those who believe in spirituality, you know that they are smarter than our generations and those ones we met. They’re born that way. That’s because they are said to be returning ancestors with a lot of knowledge. But the one thing they don’t have the patience to do is to dig back into history and make a decision for themselves from facts and not carry on opinions of people who didn’t have access to information, let alone fact, most times. I’ll pick one instance in the late former President Mohammed Buhari’s lifetime, especially when he was in office. I’ll pick the incidents of October 2020. Then I’ll draw it backward into July, August, September and even October. It was everywhere that a lot of things were not right, just as it is today, just as it has always been. But a lot of young people wanted to act on emotions that were not theirs, emotions that were sold to them, unverified. And they acted on that. We were on national TV. We called for restraint. We asked the young people to take a different approach, especially after the request had been met. If that had been taken in, before we talk about consequences of, I mean, can we look at, even God himself asked us to respect the laws of the land. You can’t fight tradition, and you can’t fight your nation. You don’t have to like President Mohammed Buhari, but as the president of over 200 million souls he has the authority of God over them for that period. He doesn’t have to be right, but he can be guided right by his followers. So I think most of the emotions are misplaced. And like I’ve known, I mean, in the times of Jesus, peace be upon him, and Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, Moses, all of the prophets in the books. People didn’t believe in them in their time. A lot of Jews don’t even believe Jesus was a prophet. They saw him as just a very solid follower of Moses. And he said it himself, that he didn’t come to change the laws of his forefather, but he has only come to refine it. Let’s look at appreciating people we’ve met for keeping us. It’s the fact that we’re not living from the point of gratitude that concerns me. If you wake up any Nigerian 60 years ago and stand him on the street of Lagos and Abuja, and just don’t look at the cars, just look at human beings passing, you find out that the average human being has one or two telephones. These were people who were better than a lot of us in their time. They never had the opportunity of having a phone in their home, not even in their place of work, where they were so revered. We have everybody move around with a telephone so that we don’t appreciate life as it has evolved to our time, so that we can ask ourselves how we can make it better for ourselves and for people ahead. I think that’s where we missed the point. But on days like this, it’s not up to anybody. The energy will be evoked on earth because a good man has lived well, has been called by his creator, and nothing can change that. So, what do you think the former president, the former late president would want to be remembered for? What would you say was his most outstanding contribution to Nigeria? It is pretty hard to put it, but consistency of values. It is pretty difficult to live through the 1940s all the way to the 60s, to the 80s, to 2010, 2012, become president in 2015 and leave office in 2023. I mean, times, values have changed over the 80 years. Values in human beings, value of human beings for themselves and for God and for others have changed over the period. This man was a minister of petroleum. He was a governor of a region. Take away all the other positions he held internally in the military. I’m talking about public positions now. Then he was head of state. I mean, let’s remember that the two times he was called upon, it was on the ground that at least a sizable number of people who knew him, believed they knew him well enough that he was a solution to an existing problem. Two times he said that. Let’s appreciate that. The finest of our military, the most intelligent of our military set up, who shaped our national life for a longer period of time and a number of years to come, depended on this man’s reputation to justify whatever they felt they were doing to a collective stability. They needed a face to justify their position. Major General Muhammad Buhari was that face. When we look at what happened to our economy between 2006 to 2012, when you look at how much we earned between 2010 to 2012 as a nation and if you look at all of the wastage, despite the warning of the Minister of Finance, the CBN Governor, international communities up until 2013, 2014, when we collectively agreed as a nation that we needed to change direction, there was only one man that we felt could do that or a sizable number of us felt could do that. At least 15 million people went to the polls to say they believed he could be the one. It was the late former President Muhammad Buhari. You see, that alone, irrespective of what anybody says, that is a world record we remember centuries to come, not anybody’s emotion of today.