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 Buharis coup staged? Judging by the conduct of that
regime, it was not against Shagaris 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 f’rom 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 discipline, 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 structures 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.
Yet a prominent camel was allowed through that needles eye. Not only did
Buhari dispatch his aide-de-camp, Jokolo later to become an emir- to facilitate
the entry of those cases, he ordered the redeployment as I later discovered –
of the Customs Officer who stood firmly against the entry of the contravening
baggage. That officer, the incumbent Vice-president is now a rival candidate to
Buhari, but has somehow, in the meantime, earned a reputation that totally
contradicts his conduct at the time. Wherever the truth lies, it does not
redound to the credibility of the dictator of that time, General Buhari whose
word was law, but whose allegiances were clearly negotiable.
On the theme of double, triple, multiple standards in the enforcement of the
law, and indeed of the decrees passed by the Buhari regime at the time, let us
recall the notorious case of Triple Alhaji Alhaji Alhaji, then Permanent
Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. Who was caught, literally, with his pants
down in distant Austria. That was not the crime however, and private conduct
should always remain restricted to the domain of private censure.
There was no decree against civil servants proving just as hormone driven as
anyone else, especially outside the nation’s borders.
However, there was a clear decree against the keeping of foreign accounts,
and this was what emerged from the Austrian escapade. Alhaji Alhaji kept, not
one, but several undeclared foreign accounts, and he had no business being in
possession of the large amount of foreign currency of which he was robbed by
his overnight companion. The media screamed for an even application of the law,
but Buhari had turned suddenly deaf. By contrast, Fela Anikulapo languished in
goal for years, sentenced under that very draconian decree. His crime was being
in possession of foreign exchange that he had legitimately received for the
immediate upkeep of his band as they set off for an international engagement. A
vicious sentence was slapped down on Fela by a judge who later became so
remorse stricken at least after Buhari’s overthrow that he went to the King of
Afro-beat and apologized.
Lesser known was the traumatic experience of the director of an
international communication agency, an affiliate of UNESCO. Akin Fatoyinbo
arrived at the airport in complete ignorance of the new currency decree. He was
thrown in gaol in especially brutal condition, an experience from which he
never fully recovered. It took several months of high-level intervention before
that innocent man was eventually freed. These were not exceptional but mere
sample cases from among hundreds of others, victims of a decree that was
selectively applied, a decree that routinely penalized innocents and ruined the
careers and businesses of many.
What else? What does one choose to include or leave out? What precisely was
Ebenezer Babatope’s crime that he should have spent the entire tenure of
General Buhari in detention?
Nothing beyond the fact that he once warned in the media that Buhari was an
ambitious soldier who would bear watching through the lenses of a coup-detat.
Babatope’s father died while he was in Buhari’s custody, the dictator remained
deaf to every plea that he be at least released to attend his father’s funeral,
even under guard. I wrote an article at the time, denouncing this pointless
insensitivity. So little to demand by a man who was never accused of, nor tried
for any crime,much less found guilty. Such a load of vindictiveness that
smothered all traces of basic human compassion deserves no further comment in a
nation that values its traditions.
But then, speaking the truth was not what Buhari, as a self-imposed leader,
was especially enamoured of enquire of Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor both of
whom, faithful to their journalistic calling, published nothing but the truth,
yet ended up sentenced under Buhari’s decree. Mind you, no one can say that
Buhari was not true to his word. Shall tamper with the freedom of the press
swore the dictator immediately on grabbing office, and this was exactly what he
did. And so on, and on, and on……
Source; Osundefender
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