This
intervention has been provoked, not so much by the ambitions of General
Buhari to return to power at the head of a democratic Nigeria, as by
declarations of support from directions that leave one totally
dumbfounded. It would appear that some, myself among them, had been
overcomplacent about the magnitude of an ambition that seemed as
preposterous as the late effort of General Ibrahim Babangida to aspire
yet again to the honour of presiding over a society that truly seeks a
democratic future. What one had dismissed was a rash of
illusions, brought about by other political improbabilities that
surround us, however, is being given an air of plausibility by
individuals and groupings to which one had earlier attributed a sense of
relevance of historic actualities. Recently, I published an article in
the media, invoking the possible recourse to psychiatric explanation for
some of the incongruities in conduct within national leadership. Now,
to tell the truth, I have begun to seriously address the issue of which
section of society requires the services of a psychiatrist. The contest
for a seizure of rationality is now so polarized that I am quite
reconciled to the fact it could be those of us on this side, not the
opposing school of thought that ought to declare ourselves candidates
for a lunatic asylum. So be it. While that decision hangs in the balance
however, the forum is open. Let both sides continue to address our
cases to the electorate, but also prepare to submit ourselves for
psychiatric examination.
The
time being so close to electoral decision, we can understand the haste
of some to resort to shortcuts. In the process however, we should not
commit the error of opening the political space to any alternative whose
curative touch to national afflictions have proven more
deadly than the disease. In order to reduce the clutter in our options
towards the forthcoming elections, we urge a beginning from what we do
know, what we have undergone, what millions can verify, what can be
sustained by evidence accessible even to the school pupil, the street
hawker or a just-come visitor from outer space. Leaving Buhari aside for
now, I propose a commencing exercise that should guide us along the
path of elimination as we examine the existing register of would-be president.
That initial exercise can be summed up in the following speculation:
“If it were possible for Olusegun Obasanjo, the actual incumbent, to
stand again for election, would you vote for him?”
If
the answer is “yes”, then of course all discussion is at an end. If the
answer is ‘No’ however, then it follows that a choice of a successor
made by Obasanjo should be assessed as hovering between extremely
dangerous and an outright kiss of death. The degree of acceptability of
such a candidate should also be inversely proportionate to the passion
with which he or she is promoted by the would-be ‘godfather’. We do not
lack for open evidence about Obasanjo’s passion in this respect. From
Lagos to the USA, he has taken great pains to assure the nation and the
world that the anointed NPN presidential flag bearer is guaranteed, in
his judgment, to carry out his policies. Such an endorsement/anointment
is more than sufficient, in my view, for public acceptance or rejection.
Yar’Adua’s candidature amounts to a terminal kiss from a moribund
regime. Nothing against the person of this – I am informed - personable
governor, but let him understand that in addition to the direct source
of his emergence, the PDP, on whose platform he stands, represents the
most harrowing of this nation’s nightmares over and beyond even the
horrors of the Abacha regime. If he wishes to be considered on his own
merit, now is time for him, as well as others similarly enmeshed, to
exercise the moral courage that goes with his repudiation of that party,
a dissociation from its past, and a pledge to reverse its menacing
future. We shall find him an alternative platform on which to stand, and
then have him present his credentials along those of other candidates
engaged in forging a credible opposition alliance. Until then, let us
bury this particular proposition and move on to a far graver, looming
danger, personified in the history of General Buhari.
The grounds on which General Buhari is being promoted as the alternative choice are not only shaky, but pitifully naive. History
matters. Records are not kept simply to assist the weakness of memory,
but to operate as guides to the future. Of course, we know that human
beings change. What the claims of personality change or transformation
impose on us is a rigorous inspection of the evidence, not wishful
speculation or behind-the-scenes assurances. Public offence, crimes
against a polity, must be answered in the public space, not in caucuses
of bargaining. In Buhari, we have been offered no evidence of the
sheerest prospect of change. On the contrary, all evident suggests that
this is one individual who remains convinced that this is one ex-ruler
that the nation cannot call to order.
Buhari – need one remind anyone - was one of the generals who treated a Commission of Enquiry, the Oputa Panel,
with unconcealed disdain. Like Babangida and Abdusalami, he refused to
put in appearance even though complaints that were tabled against him
involved a career of gross abuses of power and blatant assault on the
fundamental human rights of the Nigerian citizenry.
Prominent
against these charges was an act that amounted to nothing less than
judicial murder, the execution of a citizen under a retroactive decree.
Does Decree 20 ring a bell? If not, then, perhaps the names of three
youths - Lawal Ojuolape (30), Bernard
Ogedengbe (29) and Bartholomew Owoh (26) do. To put it quite plainly,
one of those three – Ogedengbe - was executed for a crime that did not
carry a capital forfeit at the time it was committed. This was an
unconscionable crime, carried out in defiance of the pleas and protests
of nearly every sector of the Nigerian and international community –
religious, civil rights, political, trade unions etc. Buhari and his
sidekick and his partner-in-crime, Tunde Idiagbon persisted in this
inhuman act for one reason and one reason only: to place Nigerians on
notice that they were now under an iron, inflexible rule, under
governance by fear.
The
execution of that youthful innocent – for so he was, since the
punishment did not exist at the time of commission - was nothing short
of premeditated murder, for which the perpetrators should normally stand
trial upon their loss of immunity. Are we truly expected to forget this
violation of our entitlement to security as provided under existing
laws? And even if our sensibilities have become blunted by succeeding
seasons of cruelty and brutality, if power itself had so coarsened the
sensibilities also of rulers and corrupted their judgment, what should
one rightly expect after they have been rescued from the snare of power”
At the very least, a revaluation, leading hopefully to remorse, and its
expression to a wronged society. At the very least, such a revaluation
should engender reticence, silence. In the case of Buhari,
it was the opposite. Since leaving office he has declared in the most
categorical terms that he had no regrets over this murder and would do
so again.
Human
life is inviolate. The right to life is the uniquely fundamental right
on which all other rights are based. The crime that General Buhari committed against the entire nation went further however, inconceivable as it might first appear. That crime is one of the most profound negations of civic being. Not
content with hammering down the freedom of expression in general terms,
Buhari specifically forbade all public discussion of a return to
civilian, democratic rule. Let us constantly applaud our media – those
battle scarred professionals did not completely knuckle down. They
resorted to cartoons and oblique, elliptical references to sustain the
people’s campaign for a time-table to democratic rule. Overt agitation
for a democratic time table however remained rigorously suppressed – military dictatorship, and a
specifically incorporated in Buhari and Idiagbon was here to stay. To
deprive a people of volition in their own political direction is to turn
a nation into a colony of slaves. Buhari enslaved the nation. He
gloated and gloried in a master-slave relation to the millions of its
inhabitants. It is astonishing to find that the same former slaves, now
free of their chains, should clamour to be ruled by one who not only
turned their nation into a slave plantation, but forbade them any
discussion of their condition.
So
Tai Solarin is already forgotten? Tai who stood at street corners,
fearlessly distributing leaflets that took up the gauntlet where the
media had dropped it. Tai who was incarcerated by that regime and denied
even the medication for his asthmatic condition? Tai did not ask to be
sent for treatment overseas; all he asked was his traditional medicine
that had proved so effective after years of struggle with asthma!
Nor
must we omit the manner of Buhari coming to power and the pattern of
his ‘corrective’ rule. Shagari’s NPN had already run out of steam and
was near universally detested – except of course by the handful that
still benefited from that regime of profligacy and rabid fascism.
Responsibility for the national condition lay squarely at the door of
the ruling party, obviously, but against whom was Buhari’s coup staged?
Judging by the conduct of that regime, it was not against Shagari’s
government but against the opposition. The head of government, on whom
primary responsibility lay, was Shehu Shagari. Yet that individual was
kept in cozy house detention in Ikoyi while his powerless
deputy, Alex Ekwueme, was locked up in Kiri-kiri prisons. Such was the
Buhari notion of equitable apportionment of guilt and/or responsibility.
And
then the cascade of escapes of the wanted, and culpable politicians.
Manhunts across the length and breadth of the nation, roadblocks
everywhere and borders tight as steel zip locks. Lo and behold, the chairman of the party, Chief Akinloye, strolled out coolly across the border. Richard Akinjide, Legal Protector
of the ruling party, slipped out with equal ease. The Rice Minister,
Umaru Dikko, who declared that Nigerians were yet to eat from dustbins -
escaped through the same airtight dragnet. The clumsy attempt to crate
him home was punishment for his ingratitude, since he went berserk when,
after waiting in vain, he concluded that the coup had not been staged,
after all, for the immediate consolidation of the party of extreme
right-wing vultures, but for the military hyenas.
The
case of the overbearing Secretary-General of the party, Uba Ahmed, was
even more noxious. Uba Ahmed was out of the country at the time. Despite
the closure of the Nigerian airspace, he compelled the pilot of his
plane to demand special landing permission, since his passenger load
included the almighty Uba Ahmed. Of course, he had not known of the
change in his status since he was airborne. The delighted
airport commandant, realizing that he had a much valued fish swimming
willingly into a waiting net, approved the request. Uba Ahmed disembarked into the arms of a military guard and was promptly clamped in detention. Incredibly,
he vanished a few days after and reappeared in safety overseas. Those
whose memories have become calcified should explore the media coverage
of that saga. Buhari was asked to explain the vanished act of this much
prized quarry and his response was one of the most arrogant levity.
Coming from one who had shot his way into power on the slogan of
‘dis’pline’, it was nothing short of impudent.
Shall we revisit the tragicomic series
of trials that landed several politicians several lifetimes in prison?
Recall, if you please, the ‘judicial’ processes undergone by the
septuagenarian Chief Adekunle Ajasin. He was arraigned and tried before Buhari’s punitive tribunal but acquitted. Dissatisfied,
Buhari ordered his re-trial. Again, the Tribunal could not find this
man guilty of a single crime, so once again he was returned for trial,
only to be acquitted of all charges of corruption or abuse of office.
Was Chief Ajasin thereby released? No! He was ordered detained
indefinitely, simply for the crime of winning an election and refusing
to knuckle under Shagari’s reign of terror.
The
conduct of the Buhari regime after his coup was not merely one of
double, triple, multiple standards but a cynical travesty of justice. Audu Ogbeh, currently
chairman of the Action Congress was one of the few figures of rectitude
within the NPN. Just as he has done in recent times with the PDP, he
played the role of an internal critic and reformer, warning, dissenting,
and setting an example of probity within his ministry. For that crime
he spent months in unjust incarceration. Guilty by association? Well, if
that was the motivating yardstick of the administration of the Buhari
justice, then it was most selectively applied. The utmost
severity of the Buhari-Idiagbon justice was especially reserved either
for the opposition in general, or for those within the ruling party who
had showed the sheerest sense of responsibility and patriotism.
Shall
I remind this nation of Buhari’s deliberate humiliating treatment of
the Emir of Kano and the Oni of Ife over their visit to the state of Israel? I hold no brief for traditional rulers and their relationship with governments, but insist on regarding them as entitled
to all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of any Nigerian
citizen. This royal duo went to Israel on their private steam and
private business. Simply because the Buhari regime was pursuing some
antagonistic foreign policy towards Israel, a policy of which these
traditional rulers were not a part, they were subjected on their return
to a treatment that could only be described as a head
masterly chastisement of errant pupils. Since when, may one ask, did a
free citizen of the Nigerian nation require the permission of a head of state to visit a foreign nation that was willing to offer that tourist a visa.?
One is only too aware that some Nigerians love to point to Buhari’s agenda of discipline as the shining jewel in his scrap-iron
crown. To inculcate discipline however, one must lead by example,
obeying laws set down as guides to public probity. Example speaks louder
than declarations, and rulers cannot exempt themselves from the
disciplinary strictures imposed on the overall polity, especially on any
issue that seeks to establish a policy for public well-being. The
story of the thirty something suitcases – it would appear that they
were even closer to fifty - found unavoidable mention in my recent
memoirs, YOU MUST SET FORTH AT DOWN, written long before Buhari became
spoken of as a credible candidate. For the exercise of a
changeover of the national currency, the Nigerian borders – air, sea and
land – had been shut tight. Nothing was supposed to move in or out, not
even cattle egrets.
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