With the glitter of fool’s gold, Nigeria ’s recently elected
President Muhammadu Buhari arrived in the United States
in July uttering time-worn democracy vows to President
Barack Obama and his administration. Among other things,
he pledged at the United States Institute for Peace to
combat graft with procedures that would be “fair, just, and
scrupulously follow due process and the rule of law, as
enshrined in our constitution.”
Skepticism is in order—a conclusion reinforced by the
ongoing persecution of of former National Security Advisor
Sambo Dasuki for alleged money laundering and illegal
possession of firearms.
But first some background.
Mr. Buhari initially tasted power as a military dictator
following a coup de tat in 1983. His dictatorship was
earmarked by chilling human rights abuses. Take the word
of Nigerian Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka.
Among other things, Mr. Soyinka highlights Mr. Buhari’s
draconian edicts, exemplified by Decree 20 under which the
judicial murders of Nigerian citizens Lawal Ojuolape,
Bernard Ogedengbe, and Bartholomew Owoh were
authorized. Mr. Obedengbe was executed for a crime that
did not carry the death penalty at the time it was committed
in violation of the universal revulsion of ex post facto laws.
Soyinka adds that these crimes were executed in defiance
of pleas from virtually every sector of Nigeria and the
international community—a grisly precedent for subsequent
dictator Sani Abasha’s hanging of Ogoni activist Ken Sara-
Wiwi in contempt of international opinion.
Mr. Buhari turned the nation into a slave plantation, and
forbade the slaves from any discussion of their
enslavement—especially a return to democracy. He favored
the north over the south, dividing rather than unifying
Nigeria after the convulsions of the 1967-70 Biafran War.
He lent support to the introduction of Sharia law in the North
—a major source of strife and disharmony.
Mr. Buhari ’s brutal military dictatorship was overthrown in
1985. Mr. Dasuki played a key role. Dictators do not forget.
Fast forward to today.
After celebrating fairness, due process, and the rule of law
last July to win the good will of the United States, Mr. Buhari
returned to Nigeria to mock all three in a vendetta against
the Dasuki, the immediate past National Security Adviser.
He placed Mr. Dasuki under house arrest. He confiscated
his passport. He charged him with firearms and money
laundering violations. He sought a secret trial to prevent
independent scrutiny.
He opposed Mr. Dasuki ’s pretrial application to the Federal
High Court sitting in Abuja for permission to receive urgent
medical treatment for cancer in London, but it was
nonetheless granted.
Justice Adeniyi Ademola explained that an accused is
presumed innocent before trial, and that a citizen’s health is
paramount before the law. Mr. Buhari was ordered to
release Mr. Dasuki ’s international passport.
Mr. Buhari defied the order. He put Mr. Dasuki ’s house
under siege, a microcosm of the Bosnian Serb siege of
Sarajevo. Mr. Dasuki returned to court. Justice Ademola
reaffirmed his order, asserting “My own orders will not be
flouted.”
Mr. Buhari has not yet budged. As a military dictator in
1985, he similarly seized the international passport of Chief
Obafemi Awolowo to thwart his travel for medical treatment,
which caused his death in 1987. The more things change,
the more they stay the same.
Much is riding on Mr. Dasuki’s case. If Mr. Buhari flouts
Justice Ademola’s order with impunity, judicial
independence will be fatally compromised and Nigeria ’s
embryonic democratic dispensation will be stillborn. The
judiciary is the only branch capable of checking limitless
executive power—the bane of Africa.
Members of Nigeria’s National Assembly and Senate have
been reduced to playing the roles of extras in cinematic
extravaganzas.
Further, President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration
accepted a peaceful transfer of power to President Buhari , a
laudable landmark in African politics. If Mr. Buhari is
permitted with impunity to destroy his political opponents
like Mr. Dasuki with tyrannical methods, peaceful transfers
of power everywhere on the Continent will become
problematic. The incumbents’ risk of political and personal
impalement at the hands of their would-be successors will
be too high.
The United States should be insisting on independent human
rights observers to monitor Mr. Dasuki ’s prosecution and
trial, and demanding that Mr. Buhari honor his vow to follow
due process and the rule of law. The stakes are too high to
remain silent.

Source: www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/18/bruce-fein-nigerian-president-buhari-dupes-us/

Most people here don't know that the dying Washington times a conservative and a republican party leaning paper in the USA has called Obama even worst. Ill be concern the day the Washington post call PMB a dictator.