Back to 1984

For several weeks in something that looked like a Nollywood movie, the Nigerian government flagrantly defied the courts, refusing to release political activist and publisher Omoyele Sowore.

There were people who thought this was strange or unusual or unprecedented. If you are one of them, you have not been paying attention: it is the Muhammadu Buhari way.

Buhari hates to be told what to do. Not by his wife. Not by a court. Not by a principle, such as the rule of law. Buhari does what Buhari wants to do.

In this case, Buhari remained offended by Sowore’s“insult.” Yes, Sowore had advocated revolution, but it is the “insult” component of that challenge that had really riled the Nigerian ruler.

Remember, among the charges against Sowore is that one about his insult. There was no insult, but who is reading? Where there’s a palace, there is a king, not a democrat.

As long as Buhari felt “insulted,” there was no way of making him understand that his oath of office involved the separation of powers. He must have slapped or spat at someone in the palace, as he can appoint a thousand judges each day if he wants. Why would someone whose salary he pays tell him what he cannot do?

And so, they refused to release a man who had simply mouthed the obvious: only a revolution—he didn’t say a violent one—can change Nigeria for the better.

That was all he said. They didn’t find a knife or a gun in his possession. He didn’t threaten to kill or overturn or incinerate. He stated the obvious: that as a country we are going in circles if we think that normal nods to a democracy might one day yield a functioning country. That was all he said. Now, about Sowore. The man is not perfect, and I say that as one who knows him well. He has flaws. But on this subject, he is right. He can see the future.

The perfect one is Muhammadu, son of Buhari. So perfect is this man that he hates to be insulted or contradicted. Aisha belongs in one of three rooms.

Buhari does give advance warning, though. In August 2018, he warned the entire nation that the fire was coming (if he was re-elected).

You probably didn’t hear him. That is because he spoke in whispers (he had not been re-elected).

He told the Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association that the rule of law must be subject to the supremacy of the nation’s security and national interest.

Translation: If you suggest rebellion or revolution; if you think that courts and lawyers are important; if you are inebriated and you sing and about war but sound like peace, I will arrest you and you can die behind bars…because no judge in the country can release you!

Soon after, he sent out one of his lackeys: Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Works and Housing to sing and dance. “The right to free speech must be subordinated and subjugated to the right to national security,” the former governor and former lawyer said, shamelessly.

He meant that if anyone dared suggest that Nigeria has been swindled by Buhari and their All Progressives Congress and that the nation is about to explode, such a person will be subordinated and subjugated by Aso Rock.

Responding in a subsequent article, I wondered if the four fingers Buhari was campaigning with suggested Decree 4.

Yes, because we had seen the precursor Buhari movie: in 1984, when he first ruled.

Within two months of his arrival—in an era when there were no questions asked or voices permitted—his Federal Military Government began by arrogating to itself the power to make laws that could not be challenged in court.

It was around the same time that Buhari sent out his “rule-of-law-must-be-subjectto-the-leader” signal,infamously warning an interviewer he didn’t think much of the nation’s constitutional guarantees of press freedom. “I am going to tamper with [press freedom],” were his very words.

Why? “…because I know Nigerians very well,” he said.

Two months later, in April 1984, his tampering arrived in the form of Decree 4:the Public Officers (Protection Against False Accusation) decree under which the government could close media houses and jail journalists for “reporting false information.”

And not only was the decree retroactive, it provided no recourse to appeal or review.

In other words, the “fake news” production that is currently in the process of being institutionalized is normal business when Buhari is in the garrison.

In 1984, his government immediately hurled the Nigerian Security Organization (now Department of State Security, or DSS) into full-time harassment of the media, with immediate but also long-term implications for employers and journals.

Thirty-five years later, with Buhari now better able to say, “I know Nigerians very, very well,” but finding himself somewhat shackled in anagbada, it is little surprise that DSS is puppeteering for him.

And so, last Thursday, after a spell in which the agency broke every rule not simply by refusing to comply with court orders but by offering the most infantile excuses, the agency released Sowore and Olawale Bakare to their lawyer, the esteemed human rights campaigner Femi Falana. DSS even paid a fine of N100,000 imposed by the judge.

But then, in the morning, it all fell apart as officials of the agency, in a bid to re-arrest Sowore, jettisoned everypretence to civility, invading a courtroom where he was appearing for his fundamental rights enforcement hearing.

Even after watching the video, it is difficult to believe that this happened in a society with any sense of self. By all means, arrest the suspect, who was clearly unarmed.

But in a courtroom? Violently? In front of the judge?

And then comes the answer: why not? Remember, this is the same agency that illegally took over the National Assembly in April 2018. In an unprecedented action, it sent hooded armed men to block access to lawmakers, workers and journalists.

With President Buhari out of the country on vacation, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo fired DSS boss Lawal Daura, describing the takeover as a gross violation of “constitutional order” and the “rule of law”.

But DSS is critical to Buhari’s spine, and it was clear to anyone who understood that that the palace would not accept the firing of Daura, particularly as Osinbajo replaced him with Matthew Seiyefa, the highest serving professional in the agency. But Seiyefa was a southerner, which to Buhari often seems to be a crime.

Predictably therefore, as soon as he returned he named Yusuf Magaji Bichi to take over the leadership from Seiyefa, professionalism and merit be damned.

In Bichi’s hands, asit had been in Daura’s, DSS is not conceived as a tool of right and wrong, or of law and order. It is a tool of power: Buhari’s.

That is why last Friday is a reminder that in the end, Nigeria is hanging by a thread. There is no democracy or rule law. And when we take off the agbada, we are in military fatigues.

As in 1984. As in George Orwell.