By Jude Ndukwe
President Muhammadu Buhari’s 103
days absence from Nigeria based on medical reasons, left Nigeria drifting
further apart away from what a nation should look like. There were palpable
tensions everywhere, sharp divisions among the people, rise in police brutality
against the citizens as epitomized by the treatment meted out to the Resume or
Resign protesters, increase in the general feeling of insecurity with Boko
Haram terrorists becoming even more daring than ever before etc.
All these agitated the minds of
Nigerians leading to very strong suspicions that the Vice President, Prof Yemi
Osinbajo, was being limited in the exercise of his powers as Acting President
by the infamous cabal touted to call the shot at the Villa no matter who is
Head of Government.
It is strongly believed that most
of these grave afflictions currently affecting Nigeria were seeds sown by the
president himself and some members of his government through their speeches and
actions before and since the APC administration came to power in May 2015. One
would therefore have expected that the period of his illness would have served
as a third opportunity divinely provided him to deeply reflect on ways to weed
out every seed of discord and division he and his government have sown among
the people and reverse his anti-democratic credential baggage with which he
moved into Aso Rock.
But Buhari does not seem to be a
man ready to learn and make amends for his shortcomings and excesses even if
given a hundredth opportunity.
Having returned from London after
so much time in near-solitary confinement, Buhari seemed to have come back with
no ointment but more venom that neither does his health any good nor the nation
any better. He still carries on in a fashion that typically depicts him as a
dictator that he was in his first coming as a military ruler.
For example, in his 6-minute post
London speech to the nation, what should have been used as nerve-soothing
opportunity to turn the negative vibes in the polity into positive ones,
bandage every wounded citizen, nurse the country with words of hope, courage
and vision of a bright future, Buhari addressed the nation like a man hungry to
avenge whatever wrong he perceives the citizens have done him simply because
they criticize his government, and rightly so, and demand good governance from
him. He sees the citizens as conquered fellows who should not dare question his
authority or actions. To Buhari and his managers, Nigeria is a conquered State
and the citizens are nothing but sub-humans that must be threatened, cowed,
commanded, ordered and “destroyed”.
Yes, Buhari said criminals should
be destroyed relentlessly. Such a statement emboldens security agents to act
with impunity just like most of them have continued to do under this
administration. Buhari should know that we have processes of dealing with
criminals. There are laws for such elements in our society. In destroying
criminals relentlessly as Buhari ordered, it is possible to also destroy
innocent Nigerians in the process. Nigeria is not a jungle!
Buhari set the tone for a speech
that immediately tells the citizens their place in the eyes of the president
right from the opening statement, “My dear citizens”. Truth is that we are not
Buhari’s citizens. We are citizens of Nigeria, and Buhari is not Nigeria and
can never be Nigeria. By that opening statement, it is obvious what Buhari
thinks of us as Nigerians: his citizens.
Are we then surprised that almost
every of his words and actions are directed at us like a conquered people, a
people who belong to no country but to him. Not even the late General Sani
Abacha, as dictatorial as he was in one of the darkest eras of our history
addressed us as ‘My dear citizens”. Even he was courteous enough to start his
addresses with a more polite line like “Fellow Nigerians” or “Compatriots”. But
to Buhari, we are his citizens, his property!
It was at that point I knew the
speech was not only going to be drab and uninspiring but that it would also be
a disaster!
And what was that about him
hosting the late Dim Emeka Ojukwu in his Daura home where they both discussed
“in great depth till late into the night and analyzed the problems of Nigeria”
and “came to the conclusion that the country must remain one and united”?
The import of this in the speech
is lost on Nigerians because one would wonder if Buhari had taken to heart his
discussion with Ojukwu on those two nights, he would not have made such a
calamitous mistake of dividing the nation along “97% vs 5%” lines in one of his
latter pronouncements. He would have brought to justice those trigger happy
military officers who mowed down harmless Igbo in the name of a crackdown on
IPOB members. He would have brought to justice those army officers and
personnel who wantonly massacred members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria
(Shiites) over a period of two days in Zaria and he would have taken firm
actions against Fulani herdsmen terrorists who murdered fellow Nigerians in
Agatu, Enugu, Nasarawa, Taraba, Abia, Ondo etc.
Surely Ojukwu being a man who
would not stand injustice would not have told Buhari in that their now famous
discussion that his actions of today encourage oneness and unity of the
country.
To say that Nigerians who ask one
form of question or the other concerning our collective existence as a nation
“have crossed our national red lines by daring to question our collective
existence as a nation” is a step too far is another pointer to the president’s
unrepentant brashness. Everywhere in the world, in UK, Spain, etc, people are
raising questions about their collective existence. As it is in those other
places, it is not the questioning that is the issue but the handling of such
questioning.
While the UK, Spain and other
places are subjecting such questionings to democratic processes, in Nigeria,
those who dare ask similar pertinent questions are criminalized and issued with
official threats.
The truth is that we are not
deterred! Buhari and his team can go ahead and threaten us with whatever is at
their disposal, we will continue to speak and ask questions. That is within our
rights. Whatever is Buhari’s reactions to them is entirely his own decision. If
we could preserve our rights under Abacha and overcame his excesses, we would
not give up our rights for Buhari no matter how hard he tries for us to do so.
Rather than empathise with
Nigerians for the failed promises and untold hardship visited on them by his
administration, Buhari squandered the golden opportunity presented by his
illness to court the support and cooperation of Nigerians and decided to
further alienate himself from the masses.
“Every group has a grievance. But
the beauty and attraction of a federation is that it allows different groups to
air their grievances and work out a mode of co-existence” but that is not when
you criminalise and threaten such groups who have expressed their grievances
without taking up arms against the State.
That speech was a bad dream. To
save us from its misfortune, let us all just pretend it did not happen and that
Buhari would address us in a nationwide broadcast tomorrow!
jtndukwe@yahoo.co.uk; Twitter:
Stjudendukwe
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You can take it as it did not happen. These groups are sponsored groups by corrupt politicians known as looters who wants to divert the attention of the government from their prosecution.
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