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………

All the same, GEJ is never his match at anything.

Let's say NO to HAWKISH GENERAL!!! GEJ till 2019!!!

GEJ till 2019!!

Records are not kept simply to assist the weakness of memory, but to operate as guides to the future.

Oppps Oppps too long to read na,
Scrolling down fast





Getting bored




Last paragraph joor,
In summary buhari is a tyrant ryt,? he has no respect for rule of law in his hrt.

Next topic...........

Thanks for the records my revered novelist. You are gift to our dear nation and you are living up to your calling.

I forbid to be ruled by Buhari, I forbid.