LAGOS, Nigeria — Throngs of cheering people lined a freeway in Abuja, Nigeria, over the weekend to welcome a countryman who has spent much ...
LAGOS, Nigeria — Throngs of cheering people lined a freeway in Abuja, Nigeria, over the weekend to welcome a countryman who has spent much of 2017 overseas: the president.
President
Muhammadu Buhari arrived in the capital on Saturday, and the nation
breathed a collective sigh of relief that its leader had returned from
London, where he had spent more than 100 days receiving treatment for a
mystery illness. It was his second medical leave this year.
With
the president abroad and little information available about his
condition, some old wounds in the country have begun to reopen.
“I am so glad to be home,” Mr. Buhari said in an address on Monday.
But he returned to a country whose Oil-Dependent economy is in turmoil and where the Islamist militant group Boko Haram has been escalating attacks on the military and civilians in the northeast. Millions are suffering from a humanitarian crisis set off by the war, which is in its eighth year.
Fights
between nomadic herdsmen and farmers in the middle of the country have
left hundreds dead. A spate of kidnappings for ransom has plagued some
parts of the country. Some of the president’s political opponents have
called for secession.
Much
of President Buhari’s short speech on Monday seemed directed at those rivals,
some of whom engaged in a bloody civil war decades ago to create an
independent republic of Biafra in the southeast. The president singled
out foes who “have crossed our national red lines by daring to question
our collective existence as a nation. This is a step too far.”
“Nigeria’s
unity is settled and not negotiable,” he said. “We shall not allow
irresponsible elements to start trouble, and when things get bad they
run away and saddle others with the responsibility of bringing back
order, if necessary with their blood.”
Mr. Buhari’s long absences
for an illness that officials have refused to identify have created
tensions in Nigeria, setting off protests not only from separatists in
the south but also from poor residents of oil communities who want a
better life and from ordinary citizens who wanted Mr. Buhari to either
come home or resign.
While the president was away, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo
was officially in charge. By most counts, he exercised steady and
effective leadership, presiding over important economic conferences,
visiting southern regions in economic turmoil and traveling to the
northeast to promote aid for war victims.
Over the weekend, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo sought to assure the public that the president was ready to tackle Nigeria’s pressing issues, saying Mr. Buhari was “roaring to go.”
“The
recovery and the recuperation of the president is in some sense
symbolic of the recovery of Nigeria,” Mr. Osinbajo said on Saturday.
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