₦airaland Forum

• Buhari shows signs of plausible transformation’
• Jonathan ’ s six years characterised by near total collapse
of society
Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka yesterday reviewed the polity ahead
of the coming elections and adjudged the All Progressives Congress
( APC ) presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari , a better
choice than President Goodluck Jonathan .
Prof . Soyinka in a statement entitled ‘The challenge of change – A
burden of choice ’ said that while the contest is not one between
blacks and whites , saints and demons , salvation and damnation,
Buhari seems to have gone through “ a plausible transformation
that comes close to that of another ex -military dictator , Mathew
Kerekou of the Benin Republic .”
Conversely , he said that Nigeria under President Jonathan has been
subjected to “ acts of outright fascism in a dispensation that is
supposedly democratic . We have endured a season of stagnation in
development and a drastic deterioration in the quality of existence .
We are force-fed the burgeoning culture of impunity, blatantly
manifested in massive corruption . We feel insulted by the courtship
and indulgence of common criminals by the machinery of power .”
On the choice before the electorate, Prof . Soyinka said : “ Someone in
the media has called it a choice between the devil and the deep blue
sea , another between Apocalypse and Salvation . The reasons are not
far- fetched. They are firmly lodged in the trauma of memory and
the rawness of current realities . “ Well , at least one can dialogue
with the devil , even dine with that creature with the proverbial
long spoon . With the deep blue sea however , deceptively placid ,
even the best swimmers drown . The problem for some is deciding
which is the devil , which is the deep blue sea . For most ,
instructively , the difference is clear . There are no ambiguities , no
qualifications , no pause for reflection – they are simply raring to
go ! I envy them.
“ Through participation , direct or vicarious , we find ourselves landed
within a system that has thrown up two choices – realistically
speaking , that is . Formally , we dare not ignore the claims of other
contestants . Of the two however , one is representative of the
immediate past , still present with us , and with an accumulation of
negative baggage .
“ The other is a remote past , justly resented , centrally implicated in
grievous assaults against Nigerian humanity, with a landscape of
broken lives that continues to lacerate collective memory. ”
It is largely around this question that a choice will probably be
made . It is pointlessly , and dangerously provocative to present
General Buhari as something that he probably was not. It is
however just as purblind to insist that he has not demonstrably
striven to become what he most glaringly was not , to insist that
he has not been chastened by intervening experience and – most
critically – by a vastly transformed environment – both the
localised and the global.
“ Of course we have been deceived before . A former ruler whom , one
presumed , had been purged and transformed by a close encounter
with death, and imprisonment , has turned out to be an embodiment
of incorrigibility on several fronts , including a contempt for law and
constitution . Would it be different this time round ? Has subjection
to police tear -gas and other forms of violence , like the rest of us
mortals , and a spell in close detention , truly ‘civilianized ’ this
contender ? I have studied him from a distance, questioned those
who have closely interacted with him , including his former running -
mate, Pastor Bakare , and dissected his key utterances past and
current.
“ And my findings ? A plausible transformation that comes close to
that of another ex - military dictator , Mathew Kerekou of the Benin
Republic .
He expressed disgust at some of the tactics deployed in the process
of this political campaign which , according to him , “ remain some of
the most vulgar and sickening that the nation has experienced on
its democratic journey .”
“ Has the campaign in itself thrown up any portents for the future ?
Let all beware . The predator walks stealthily on padded feet , but
we all know now with what lightning speed the claws flash into
action . We have learnt to expect , deplore and confront certain acts
in military dictatorship , but to find them manifested under a
supposedly democratic governance ? Of course the tendency did not
begin with this regime , but how eagerly the seeming meek have
aspired to surpass their mentors!”

madridguy:
Barka Lahu fihi

LILYCHERISH:
ur brain needs 2 b checked

watered:
U still dey learn for politics. I can bet my girlfriend that Buhari will lose to Jonathan

nelson212:
Where una d carry all this plenty likes from