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 evidence suggests that this is
one individual who remains convinced that he 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 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, 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…

http://www.opinions.ng/the-crimes-of-buhari/

Please take ur time to read and digest this.

I can't seem to place this Soyinka guy sha. He criticizes everything n everyone!

Now here's a big question mark on the candidacy of Lord Buhari!