Editor’s note: Femi Fani-Kayode , the former aviation minister,
now a prolific commentator on the political landscape in
Nigeria, looks at the progress the Presdeint Muhammadu
Buhari-led government has made in the seven months of being
in power and points out what he considers the most glaring
flaws and inconsistencies that characterise the current
administration.
Buhari contradicts himself?
Mr President, as one of your most loyal and faithful subjects
who has nothing but the utmost respect for your person and
your office, I am constrained to write you this open letter. This
is because there are a number of issues that I believe it is
important for you to clarify and to come clean on. I say this
because some of your assertions of late are at best
contradictory and at worst patently dishonest.
Whichever side of the political divide we are on, I believe that
we can all agree on one thing: that the prosecution of the war
against terror is not something that any of us should play
politics with. This is especially so given the fact that human
lives are at stake and the very existence of our nation is under
threat. Like much of the rest of the world, our country is going
through hell at the hands of the jihadists and Islamist
terrorists.
There is no gainsaying that we must all come to terms with the
fact that the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL), al-Qaeda, the
Taliban, al-Shabab, Boko Haram, Hamas and another group
that the internationally-respected Global Terror Index has
described as “Fulani militants” (aka Fulani herdsmen) are
nothing but bloodthirsty murderers and the lowest form of life.
They are indeed the scum of the earth, the troublers of
humanity and the vermin of hell. It is with this in mind that I
urge you to take the war against terror far more seriously than
you are doing and plead with you to stop passing the buck.
Your penchant for blaming your failings in this regard on the
previous administration is simply nauseating and it does not
serve you well. You continuously contradict yourself when it
comes to this matter and frankly such flip-flops are unworthy
of the office that you presently occupy. We your subjects look
up to you for consistency, strength, unequivocal commitment,
a firm resolve and the “leadership from the front” that you
promised during your presidential campaign in this war. We do
not want and neither do we need doublespeak, lame excuses
and buck passing.
Permit me to point out a few examples of your contradictory
assertions and your buck-passing in this short intervention.
Deviations in the arms deal scandal
Initially, you claimed that your predecessor in office, President
Goodluck Jonathan, never bought any arms and that instead
he squandered and stole all the money that was appropriated
for the procurement of arms.
Yet. when the British minister ofdefense visited you in the
presidential villa the other day, the story changed. You did a
U-turn and gleefully told him and the wider world that
President Jonathan bought arms with raw cash.
One wonders which story you shall come up with next and
which one you will conjure up in the future. Kindly tell us what
the position is: is it that Jonathan did not buy arms at all and
stole all the money or is it that he used cash to buy arms? You
cannot have it both ways. It is either one or the other.
Quite apart from your glaring doublespeak on this matter there
was another issue which you ought to have raised with your
highly esteemed and respected British guest. You forgot to tell
him that his was one of the countries that not only refused to
sell weapons to us during the course of this bitter conflict but
that also helped to impose and enforce the international arms
embargo on our country even though we are at war.
This resulted in the unnecessary death of thousands of our
people because we found it difficult to procure the weapons to
protect them. Your guest’s country insisted on towing the
American line and doing this to us even though we were
fighting a war against a relentless, well-motivated, well-
funded and well-armed fighting force that Global Terror Index
has described as the “deadliest terrorist organization in the
world”. One is forced to ask: with friends like this, who needs
enemies?
Given the fact that the embargo was in place, one wonders how
we were supposed to procure arms unless we did so with raw
cash on the black market. The alternative was to buy none at
all, to do nothing and to allow Boko Haram to take Abuja, Port
Harcourt, Enugu and Lagos. Perhaps that is precisely what
your western friends and allies wanted but thankfully it never
came to pass.
Flaws in Boko Haram wipe-out strategies
Despite the challenges and constraints President Jonathan
faced, instead of losing any more ground, he rose to the
occasion and retook no less than 22 local government areas
and virtually pushed Boko Haram out of Nigeria. The only
place that they occupied by the time the election took place
was Sambisa forest.
Jonathan achieved all this with those arms that he bought with
raw cash. This is apparently what you are now complaining
about. Permit me to remind you that it is those same arms that
Jonathan bought with raw cash that your army is still using till
today. Yet sadly since you were sworn in as president seven
months ago you have lost some of those same local
government areas that were earlier recovered and they are now
back in the hands of the terrorists.
Despite this, you keep telling the international community and
the Nigerian people that we are “making progress” in the war
against terror. As a matter of fact you went as far as to say that
we had “won the war” against Boko Haram and your minister of
information, Mr. Lai Mohammed, echoed that grotesque
mendacity and reiterated that sentiment by adding the words
“technically won” (whatever that may mean) to the equation.
Sadly, two days later, on Christmas day, in what can only be
described as an eloquent response from the terrorists, scores
of innocent civilians were killed by Boko Haram in Borno state
and a whole community was burnt to the ground. Again on
Sunday 27th of December Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state,
came under heavy attack from the terrorists. So much for
having “won the war against Boko Haram,” whether technically
or otherwise.
Appealing to Boko Haram’s “good side”?
Instead of conceding that you had told the Nigerian people a
pernicious lie, curiously the next thing that you did was to tell
them that you would persuade Boko Haram to drop their arms.
One is compelled to ask: why would you have to persuade
them to drop their arms if you had already defeated them and
won the war against them?
In any case this would be the first time in the history of modern
warfare that a sitting president has sought to destroy and
defeat a vicious and relentless terrorist organization and win
the war against terror simply with the awesome and
devastating weapon of persuasion. Perhaps you should
recommend that same tactic to the Americans and the rest of
the international community as an effective and credible
weapon to adopt in their war against ISIL, al-Qaeda, al-
Shabaab, Hamas and all the other jihadist groups that plague
the world.
Whilst you are at it perhaps you could also persuade Boko
Haram to free the Chibok girls. It is disturbing to note that
despite all your campaign promises and assurances that once
you are elected president the girls would be rescued or
returned, nothing has been done or heard about any of them
ever since you were sworn in. Worse still, the Bring Back Our
Girls Group, which was essentially an appendage of your
election organization, together with its distinguished leaders
and conveners, appear to have gone very quiet. I guess they
are busy trying to persuade Boko Haram to drop their arms
too.
The truth is that it is time for you to free yourself from your
monumental delusions and to get real. Sadly, you appear to be
detached from reality. Instead of fighting the war against terror
you are making it worse by slaughtering one thousand Shia
Muslims in Zaria on December 12th, locking up their leader
Sheik Ibrahim el-Zakzaky and opening yet another war front in
our country. The last thing that we need is for Hezbollah or the
Iranian Republican Guard to rise to the occasion, take up the
challenge, jump into the fray and decide to protect and avenge
their Shia Muslim brothers and sisters in northern Nigeria.
Yet despite the reprehensible and indefensible actions of your
military commanders in Zaria, you have refused to show any
remorse for what was undoubtedly a war crime against fellow
Nigerians and you have not prosecuted the officers and military
personnel that were involved in the butchery. Instead the
homes of the victims and those that share their Shia faith have
been burnt to the ground in Zaria and their graves and burial
sites have been dug up and desecrated.
Instead of fighting Boko Haram, you are fighting and killing
your own people. Worse still, you have refused to defend our
country. I say this because a few days ago the Cameroonian
military invaded our country, violated our territorial integrity
and savagely murdered over 70 innocent Nigerians in their
village before burning it down.
Your government refused to acknowledge that this event even
took place, despite the media reports. You did not console or
express condolences to the families of the victims or retaliate
against the Cameroonians.
You did not even warn them or demand an apology or
reparations from them. This is heartless and shameful. It could
not have happened under Jonathan, Obasanjo, Babangida,
Shagari, Abacha, Abubakar, Shonekan, Mohammed, Balewa, or
indeed any other former Nigerian president or head of state. If
any of them had been in power and the Cameroonians
cultivated the effrontery to do such a thing, there would have
been consequences.
Yet you did nothing to avenge this affront or to defend our
honor. What happened to the gallant and brave General Buhari
that courageously led our troops into victory in Chad in the
early 1980s? What happened to the honest and forthright man
that we all admired and looked up to because of his military
exploits in Chad? What happened to the war hero that gave the
Chadians a “bloody nose” for daring to attack a Nigerian
village and that almost took Ndjamena, the Chadian capital?
What happened to the man that proved to the Libyans and their
Chadian proxies that Nigerians knew how to fight? It appears
that you have changed and that you are no longer the man that
you used to be.
Instead of being honest with our people you have insisted on
selling them a dummy and telling them a lie. You refuse to tell
the world that our military is terribly demoralized, our soldiers
are suffering heavy casualties and are not being paid their
salaries regularly and, worst of all, that you have failed to
procure a single bullet or weapon for them to use in the last
seven months since you came to power.
Instead of deploying all the power of the state against Boko
Haram, you have spent all your energy and resources trying to
teach the former national security advisor, Colonel Sambo
Dasuki, and all your other perceived enemies the lesson of
their lives by misrepresenting them before the world,
subjecting them to state-sponsored tyranny and the most
insidious form of persecution, violating their human rights and
lying to the world that they stole and shared money that was
meant for the purchase of arms.
You have also misled and misinformed the Nigerian people
about the rules and conventions that are applied when it
comes to the administration of security funds, and about the
fact that it is the National Assembly alone that has the right to
probe the use of such funds as part of their oversight functions.
To cap it all, you have claimed you did not receive any benefit
from the NSA’s office whilst Jonathan was in power. This is an
assertion which we all know is, at best, questionable.
You must be mindful of the fact that God hates liars and He
despises those that abuse power. You must remember that the
more you scorn God’s counsel and mock His admonitions, the
more your errors will be made manifest and the more your
people will suffer.
You must understand that any leader or government that is
motivated by bitterness, fear, hate, vengeance and malice will
eventually hit the rocks and crash like a pack of cards. You
must appreciate the fact that God is watching and that He sees
and knows all.
May the Lord have mercy on you and may He forgive you for
your many sins and wicked ways. God bless Nigeria.

source
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FFK