Fellow Nigerians, I had planned to write
on a different topic today, but man proposes and God disposes. Nigeria
has become such a rollercoaster that it is very difficult to catch up
with news and events. Since President Muhammadu Buhari and his acolytes
took power six years ago, our country has known no respite from news of
gloom and doom. Where we had looked forward to the easing of our pain,
what we got was a dissipation and destruction of our gain. It has been
one day, one fight. Even a world heavyweight boxing or wrestling
champion who fight for fun and for finance will ordinarily get tired at
some point and decide to retire, but not these ones. HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE
Where there is no fight, they will find
it and create one, making sure it is bigger and more violent and
virulent than the last. There is a sense in which you are made to feel
that those in charge of this government thrive only in chaos and
confusion. They seem to get off on playing to the gallery and practising
dangerous brinksmanship. And so, the country lurches from one foreseen
disaster to another unforeseen problem and then back to another foreseen
calamity and the orgiastic cycle and circle of a litany of woes
continues and persists forever.
We had been warned, long before
President Buhari finally won the Presidential election at the fourth
attempt, that he was too rigid, pugilistic, dictatorial, vindictive,
divisive, venomous, fundamentalist, unbending, unyielding, and all that,
but we dismissed all those allegations as belonging in his past. I was
one of those who repackaged him as a People’s General, a veritable,
certified, dyed in the wool democratic who had become a true friend of
the lumpen proletariats, the most honest and frugal gentleman alive. We
had good reason for reaching what has now turned out to be a highly
fallacious conclusion. We had been led to believe that the President had
turned over a new leaf and had imbibed democratic principles and in the
process jettisoning everything regimental, military and authoritarian.
The General certainly spoke the language of politicians, he even
renounced his past toga of a high-ranking military officer and instead
embraced politics like one who had always been a politician of the
Nigerian hue. He probably had become better than them, playing them at
their own game, like the military strategist and tactician that he has
always been, when he stooped to conquer. Sometimes this President,
feigns ignorance, plays possum or fakes diverse maladies, merely to get
out of a tight situation.
Deniability and a willingness to
abdicate responsibility are the hallmarks of this regime. I am beginning
to think that it is no longer coincidence that the President is always
absent when urgent matters affecting the national discourse and the
nation’s future and destiny are at stake and being discussed. When it
comes to matters which he holds dear and are closest to his heart like
the issue of cattle and Fulani nomads from neighbouring countries, the
President is astute, engaging and articulate. I do not believe in
selective amnesia. It is a mere tool of manipulation and I am starting
to feel that the President has worked it out to a Tee. Indeed,, when one
critically examines the President’s posture and position on certain
matters, it becomes as clear as day that we are being had and taken for a
ride. Those matters which directly affect and concern the President and
his constituents are usually swiftly dealt with. Outside of this, the
President is characterised by snail-like speed, indecisiveness, bumbling
and failure to interact with colleagues, and others, with any degree of
process and precision.
It was not to say that we didn’t know
his major shortcomings, which would always include his taciturnity, bad
temper, reclusiveness, modest education, antiquated worldview, and so
on. But we were so sure that his deficiencies would be protected and
covered by a more cosmopolitan, cerebral, mild-mannered, affable, genial
Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. Sadly, we were dead wrong, and
the error was absolutely brutal and fatal. Not only were things worse
than imagined, as these vices held sway and appeared to hold the person
and his office with a vice like grip, but they were also beginning to
give rise to fatalism and morbidity. Under Buhari’s government, the
falcon can no longer hear the falconer and things have absolutely fallen
apart.
So here we are begging our leader to
have mercy upon us and get a few necessities of life right for the
general good of us all. I do not know why it has been impossible to
reduce the spate of highly violent insecurity in the land. When Buhari
came, insecurity was mainly volatile in the North East but today it has
spread, uncontrollably, rapidly, and sporadically, across the length and
breadth of Nigeria. What makes it so strange is the fact that Buhari
retired as a Major General in the Nigerian Army and he was expected to
be more competent than regular politicians in matters of insurgency. But
that has not been the case. Instead, insurgency, militancy,
insurrection, banditry and kidnapping have been on the rise. The
perpetrators have become bolder and more brazen. Their exploits seem to
be achieving greater superlative status by the day. Despite this fact,
the government appears tepid, even timid, in its response. It is
definitely afraid to engage these hoodlums, some say, for fear of
offending their beloved kinsmen. After all, the speed and rate at which
the Government tries to put down and supress innocent protests in the
South East will seem to suggest that the Government can be actively
proactive and decisive whenever it pleases the President to doo so.
Anyway, all that have become sorry
tales. They have merely given rise to a feeling of helplessness and
hopelessness in the people. Nowadays, Nigerians merely shrug their
shoulders and roll their eyes as if to say, “what’s new”.
What has made matters worse is the
glaring nepotism that exists and the manner some people from certain
parts of Nigeria believe they are being treated like second class and
third-class citizens in their own country. Many sections of the country
have virtually given up on President Buhari ever changing his ways or
style. Time and time again, the President is presented with
opportunities for directing a new beginning, at least in the area of
appointments. At reach turn, the President has spurned the opportunity
and instead repeated that which makes it easy for his traducers and
detractors to remark that a leopard cannot change his spots.
The most recent is the opening, and
avenue, for the President to appoint a new Chief of Army Staff from the
South East, or the South generally, with the untimely and tragic demise
of the former Chief of Army Staff, the late Major General Attahiru
Ibrahim. Instead, President Buhari went back to his tested, tried and
trusted method of making such a high-profile appointment from the North.
When he appointed Major General Farouk Yahaya, many concluded all hope
for any salvation or redemption for President Buhari was lost. All
entreaties to change have fallen on deaf ears.
The President has not hidden his disdain for the people of the South
East in particular. Any time the Igbo people chose to protest the
injustices and marginalization meted to them; President Buhari has
always responded with brute force. He sent in the army and crushed any
act of rebellion mercilessly. In interviews and in general speeches,
Buhari left no one in doubt that he was never a fan of the Igbo people.
As if this was not bad enough, the
President made a major gaffe this week when he brazenly and defiantly
threatened to deal ruthlessly with the young people who must have been
too young during the last civil war. He promised, emphatically, to
handle them in the language they understand, thus invoking the sad
spirit of a genocidal war that claimed millions of lives. The
President’s media team compounded the problem by acting ignorantly,
about the social mores and rules of engagement of social media, when
they put such a direct act of threat and intimidation on social media:
“Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the
destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil
War.
“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.”
Unknown to them, the world has since
moved far away from the kind of maximum rulership that Major General
Buhari enjoyed as Head of State from 1984-85. Nigerians promptly
protested against this level of intolerance from their democratically
elected President. The terrible news, of ethnic bias and racial
intolerance and abuse, instantly attracted world attention. Social media
was on fire and there were many protest tweets to Twitter to delete
Buhari’s unfortunate tweet and suspend his account. Before one could say
Jack Robinson, Twitter had responded in kind by deleting the
odoriferous tweet and suspending the recalcitrant account. Of course,
President Buhari’s ego was critically bruised.
Of course, it was not in the character
of a pseudo-democratic government to let such a simple and
straightforward matter pass without rancour or much ado. Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, wasted no time in
coming out to offer a blistering criticism of the action of Twitter,
naming it as being “suspicious!” My very dear Alhaji must have forgotten
that Nigeria’s gra gra has its limitations, and that Twitter is an
institution far more powerful than gods with feet of clay. The same
Twitter that yanked off the most powerful President on earth, Donald
Trump, is the same one that the President of a country, in search of
loans from wherever it can get it, wants to take on by embarking on
reciprocal activity.
You must give something to us Nigerians.
We are good actors; the reason Nollywood is very successful. Vehemently
rebuking Twitter for disrespecting our President is folly when you have
absolutely nothing to back your sabre rattling. Nevertheless, Lai
Mohammed felt that this was the path to thread, in a bid to demonstrate
how farcical and unserious our leaders have become. Many people were
even surprised the Government did not accuse Twitter of being bribed by
some corrupt politicians to tarnish the wonderful image of a saintly
leader. I thought the inane press conference would have sufficed.
However, trust the Nigerian government to go for the jugular of Twitter,
it announced yesterday that it has suspended Twitter operations:
“The Federal Government has suspended
indefinitely the operations of the microblogging and social networking
service Twitter in Nigeria. The Minister of Information and Culture,
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, announced the suspension in a statement issued in
Abuja on Friday, citing the persistent use of the platform for
activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate
existence. It distresses me that a learned person like Lai Mohammed
would make such a feeble, woeful statement, knowing it is a futile one.
The Minister said the Federal Government
has also directed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to
immediately commence the process of licensing all OTT and social media
operations in Nigeria.
Ironically, the announcement of
Twitter’s retaliatory suspension was made on the Twitter page of the
Federal Ministry of Information which generated some comic relief for
millions of Twitter addicts globally.
This news was greeted with incredulity
across the civilized world, wondering why a President Buhari would feel
superior and untouchable if President Donald Trump could be sanctioned,
and all he could do was to sulk and whine in one corner of the White
House. And that was a President whose life was totally dependent on
Twitter and who could actually tweet directly without the assistance of
aides and did so.
With this draconian development, it is
obvious that Nigerians should brace up for full-blown dictatorship which
we thought had long been put behind us in 1999. The Buhari government
have now come full cycle and is no longer comfortable with criticism. It
has started a blistering war of attrition on its critics through the
unfortunate retaliation against Twitter. How this would be managed, let
alone achieved, would be seen in the days ahead!
