On August 3rd 1857, in what can
only be described as one of the most profound, moving, passionate and inspiring
speeches in human history, Frederick Douglas, the former black slave and the
great freedom fighter and philosopher said, inter alia, the following:
“Let me give you a word of the
philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows
that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest
struggle.
The conflict has been exciting,
agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to
silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is
no progress.
Those who profess to favor
freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up
the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean
without the awful roar of its many waters.
This struggle may be a moral one,
or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must
be a struggle.
Power concedes nothing without a
demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will
quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and
wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are
resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
The limits of tyrants are
prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these
ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so
long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either
moral or physical.
Men may not get all they pay for
in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get
free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their
removal.
We must do this by labor, by
suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of
others”.
These powerful and insightful
words are as true and as relevant today as they were 150 years ago when they
were first spoken.
They are words that have
universal application to humanity and that have been recited and repeatedly
chanted like a haunting and inspiring mantra by virtually every notable
prisoner of conscience, freedom fighter and agitator for equity, liberty and
human rights over the last one hundred and fifty years.
They are particularly relevant in
the Nigeria of today where tyranny and injustice runs deep, where any form of
resistance or opposition is regarded as subversion and is met with brutality
and lethal force and where any telling criticism of the ruling APC party,
government officials or the President is regarded as “hate speech” that must be
supressed.
Permit me to give just one
example of the latter in this contribution which, in my view, clearly reflects
the nervous and obsessive disposition, the sheer madness and the sociopathic
narcissism of the Buhari administration.
.
.
A few days ago I had a revealing,
probing and in-depth interview with a leading television station about
President Muhammadu Buhari, his record in office over the last two years, his
health and his government.
Lai Mohammed, our notoriously
excitable and mendatious Minister of Information, was so upset and disturbed by
the contents of that discussion that he personally called the television
station that recorded it and told them that the government would close them
down if they dared to air it.
His call was followed by an
equally threatening one from the chief executive of the Nigerian Broadcasting
Corporation who issued the same threat.
Yet it did not stop there. Femi
Adesina, the President’s spokesman, almost defecated in his pants when he got a
whisper of some of the things that I had revealed and he wondered out loud how
I managed to get all the facts and information that I shared during the
interview.
He begged the station not to air
it as well and also threatened them with dire consequences if they did so.
Sadly the station in question got cold feet, succumbed to the threats and fell
for the blackmail.
I am not surprised by this and
neither do I blame them for doing so. I say this because they, more than any
other, have been subjected to all manner of harassment over the years yet
despite that they remain one of the most balanced, professional, forthright and
courageous media outfits in the country till today.
They are indeed the first amongst
equals but they also know the monsters that they are dealing with when it comes
to the Buhari administration and they appreciate the fact that they have to be
extremely careful even when it comes to reporting what are essentially
notorious facts.
They have to be even more careful
when it comes to allowing strong opposition figures like yours truly and other
non-conformists and perceived enemies of the government to use their powerful
platform to air their personal opinions and strong dissenting views.
The truth is that this government
is vicious and dangerous and, in my view, they are only one step away from
“disappearing” (Argentinian style) media practitioners, publishers, essayists,
columnists and writers that are not prepared to bow down to their unholy will
and lick their filthy, unclean and unwashed posterior.
Simply put they are a
chicken-hearted government that are terrified of their own shadow.
They are a government of
uncircumcised Philistines who were put in power by heathans and unbelievers and
who attract and enjoy the support of every low-life and apostate from the south
side of hell.
Nothing terrifies them more than
public scrutiny and the glorious light of accountability and truth.
From the top to the bottom they
are all the same: gangsterish and paranoid charlatans who flourish in darkness
and who thrive in division, conflict, lies, deceit, suppression, threats,
murder, violence and intimidation.
Femi Adesina’s cowardice and
perfidy particularly is nothing new. This is the same man that threatened the
publisher of two leading national newspapers to close my weekly column and that
has been begging and offering inducements to virtually every online magazine
that I write for to stop publishing my essays.
That is how fearful, feeble,
powerless, shameless, cowardly and paranoid the Buhari government has become.
That is the level of their depravity and that is the level that they have
degenerated to.
They cannot take criticism and
they cannot bear any form of factual and in-depth analysis of their abysmal and
woeful performance.
They do not have the stomach or
intellectual stamina for a strong and lively challenge, for what I would
describe as “hardtalk” or indeed for any form of virile debate and contentious
public discourse.
Simply put they behave like a
congress of baboons and a colony of monkeys. They always run away from a real
fight and a real debate and they are terrified of those that are ready to take
them on.
Instead of attempting to defend
themselves in the court of public opinion they seek to silence the opposition
by the power of their might and they seek to supress dissent, muscle the media
and bury the truth.
Despite their sheer desperation
to hold on to power at any cost and to cower the people and in spite of their
despicable, tyrannical and inglorious mindset I have the following to say to
them: like satan, your time is short.
You oppress the people and whip
them into line, not by good works or inspiring leadership, but through the
usage of nothing but intimidation, lies, threats, blackmail, disinformation,
witchunts, fear, hate, division and terror. Your tactics are as despicable as
they are deplorable.
Yet despite your subjugation and
tyranny it will soon be over for you. The earth and the heavens have rejected
you, the elemental forces oppose you and the Nigerian people secretly despise
you. This is the doing of the Lord and it is marvelous in our sight.
You cannot wash away the blood
that you have shed. You cannot erase the memory of your failures and your
atrocities and those that you have humiliated, destroyed, insulted, tortured,
incarcerated and subjected to persecution and the most vicious and callous
media trials.
You cannot silence the voice of
the voiceless, you cannot intimidate the servant of truth and you cannot
supress the champion of the oppressed.
The finger of the Lord has marked
you down for shame, torment and destruction and the sword of the Lord has
wounded you beyond redemption. The rats were just the beginning. More miracles
and wonders will soon come.
The truth is that no matter how
hard you try to put out the raging fire and the crisis of confidence that has
afflicted you it will not stop.
Your days are numbered and your
end is nigh. The Ancient of Days has spoken and He shall perfect it.
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Please you can not be pouring insult on the government and say is opposition, also the media has code and ethics that regulate their affairs and for that if you grant an interview abusing and insulting the government, nobody will publish it so don't think somebody is threatening you or anyone, everybody knows that very well in case you have forgotten remember the case of Bola Tinubu vs Ait, Buhari vs Ait so please moderate your comments they will gladly publish it because we need good and quality opposition.
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