Submitted by David Danisa on March 21, 2011 - 22:14.
What idea is General Buhari?

General Muhammadu Buhari‘s arrest on August 25, 1985 terminated his reign as Nigeria’s seventh political leader. He was flown to Benin City, and placed in solitary confinement. No reason was given for his incarceration. A trial was not countenanced, nor questions asked. His, remains the only regime in Nigerian history, whose successor did not and could not justify its ouster on grounds of incompetence, corruption or unpatriotic disposition. Rather, his unwavering will and indefatigable commitment to stirring national spirit along directions that were viewed as revolutionary by certain domestic and external interest groups.

In a matter of weeks, his regime had demonstrated its ability and willingness to compel a paradigm shift in the attitude and mentality of Nigerians. The people were prepared for a novel era in which the ship of state would be driven toward bounds never contemplated.

Events that marked his era as Head of State and those that followed his ouster left not a few people convinced that the conspiracy that ousted General Buhari extinguished the flame he had inspired in the hearts of men and stifled the voice of a generation. General Buhari did not just tell Nigerians that they can be a great people. In more than mere words and within a time frame of twenty months, he convincingly demonstrated how Nigeria can be a proud and great nation. Yet, in the twentieth month of his reign, he was deposed, arrested and jailed. How did it happen? Why did we let it happen?

His twenty months reign as Nigeria’s seventh political leader and the phenomenon of General Buhari’s almost four year detention in house number 29, Aiguobasinmi Avenue, GRA Benin-City, were contradictory realities.

Dismissed from the Army, why was the deposed military Head of State detained without trial for over three years? The plan was to erase him from the collective consciousness of a nation, to rub away twenty months experience of General Buhari's rule, from the hearts and soul of Nigeria, to erase a legend from the memory of a people, To put a genie into a bottle, cock it and throw it into the deep Atlantic. Ask any sincere and courageous man who lived the age to speak his mind. The answer can almost be predicted. Something in the heart died on the 27th day of August, 1985. That day, the lie that has continued to keep Nigeria down was born and daylight was swallowed by darkness. A burning light was extinguished by a gale from hell, marking the triumph of evil over good. It was the day a serpentine creature slithered into the groove that held the Eagle's nest and swallowed a fledgling bird. Memories of the bird’s devotion to a people’s desire to be great, remains as perennial as
grassland that laps living water.

The serpentine creature took over the nest, and nested millions of its
kind, gobbling up much of everything. Dreams became nightmare… vanity, national order. Conscience were bought and sold, and oaths sworn for a lie to be lived fully.

At the threshold of atrophy, with the ship of state adrift in uncharted waters, surfaces a bottle, with the message that our Eagle is alive. From wilderness, he swoops, back to lead. The Eagle is back, stronger, spoiling for the final confrontation. Is the party of serpentine creatures drawing to a close? Will they slither out the way they came? Can a divided nation unify,energize itself and find the strength to violently smash an almost two decade old reign of serpents? Will the Falcon hear the Falconer's cry for it to soar, high through the eye of the storm and higher still?

What kind of idea is General Buhari? Is it one which ninety nine out of every hundred times is doomed to failure, but the one time it scores its mark, changes the destiny of a people forever? If it attains its mark, what must General Buhari do to the enemies? These questions cannot be left hanging in the air.

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