Why Did He Come Back?
Nigerians wanted a messiah. They got one, or so they thought. His coronation was loud and boisterous. In faraway countries, people danced in joyous rhythm and celebratory backslapping. It was supposed to be a new dawn premised on change. The emotion was infectious, as people lost in momentary covetousness suspended their reasoning. Some trekked long distances in celebration of Muhammadu Buhari’s victory. Where are the trekkers now? Many even called him god. It was as much a celebration of the people’s power to change a leader they were fed up with and an occasion befitting the hopes and expectations that heralded the new dawn. He had adopted an amenable persona of a reformed democrat that lured many to believe he had truly come to save the people, but a darker side not discernable to many was shielded with an odious incorrigibility mien. The former was magnified by desperate power buccaneers to hoodwink a gullible nation with the sweet promise of change and restructuring of the country when they had no intention of actually doing so. It is obvious praises on fellow suspected thieves even calling they merely used it as a vote-catching gimmick. them patriots, nationalists, etc. explaining why
As I have stated time and again, restructuring there shouldn’t be a rigorous interrogation of is the only pathway for Nigeria if it will not the ministerial nominees and that they should remain a forever-potentially great country. There be asked to “just take a bow and go”. It was a is simply no alternative to restructuring this shameful spectacle beamed live on television. country. Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and his It was one of those moments you would want fellow travellers can continue to delude themselves to punch the television in a desperate bid to for as long as they wish on this issue. reach those jokers for insulting our collective
It did not take long after President Buhari intelligence, honour and dignity. Our country assumed power for the real menacing man to has been captured. “Which Way Nigeria?” bare his teeth; their hero started trampling on After clearing the 43 nominees in a record six our diversity, the rights and freedoms we all days, it is now another waiting game to assign once knew. And enchantment gradually gave them portfolio. A committee had to be set up by way to disillusionment. Even more worrying is the president or his cabal to assign portfolios? the incompetence oozing from him has moved to Buhari’s nauseating managerial inertia speaks the “next level”. To insult us further and to the volumes. Everything is at snail pace. utter consternation of many, the man who was The country is dying in slow motion and the advertised as the champion of anti-corruption has person responsible for its gradual demise is the since shown a remarkable lack of transparency in president and his supporters. Nigeria is choking the running of the country’s affairs, appointing as the noose is tightening around its neck. But people with serious corruption allegations hanging the ruthless hangmen aren’t about to end the over their heads to the cabinet. pain and agony. They are watching, laughing,
His new cabinet nominees with the exception grinning and patting themselves on their backs. of a few, which took him five months after his The atmosphere is saturated with fear and purported re-election and two months after anger. People feel so vulnerable and insecure. taking the oath of office to put together, is a And no one is to blame other than Buhari. But constellation of “my corruption allegation is some supporters of the architects of this tragic bigger than yours”. and desperate state of affairs have been dancing
Same goes with the National Assembly and popping the champagne corks since their and its phoney leadership. It is now a huge so-called success in the 2019 general election. home for suspected looters. Imagine Senator They don’t give a hoot about the poor governance Aliyu Wammako, who is under probe by the of the country, the lacklustre leadership of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission country, the insecurity and gradual descent into (EFCC) for alleged N15 billion fraud, was named anarchy, the indifference of President Buhari the Vice-Chairman of the Senate Committee on to the virtual breakdown of law and order, Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes. With the enablement his government is giving to his role, Wammako and other members of the “herdsmen from neigbhouring countries” to committee will carry out oversight functions on come into the country and kill Nigerians, burn the EFCC! We all saw the joke called ‘Screening down communities without consequences, etc. of Ministerial Nominees’ the Senate conducted. It is just beyond comprehension. After watching clips of the nonsense, I realised The questions some of us are asking are, why why Buhari and the All Progressives Congress did Buhari come back from retirement to contest (APC) chose Ahmed Lawan to lead the Senate. elections? Why? He contested every presidential The so-called screening was one of the biggest election since 2003 and failed three times before testaments to Nigeria’s descent into ignominy. succeeding in his fourth attempt. One would A shameless display of how unserious we are have thought he came prepared to change things as a people. Many Nigerians were broken and for the better. Well, if he came prepared, it sure filled with righteous anger. Words aren’t enough wasn’t for the good of country. He plunged the to describe the feeling of melancholy about the economy into recession a few months after he screening. The senators who were supposed to took office. He approaches everything with such do the people’s work by asking the nominees indolent pace that you would think he was the the right questions to ascertain their fitness for one that created time. He refused or neglected to the job based on their records, were laughing at appoint a cabinet several months after assuming Nigerians. They were mocking us and having a office in 2015. Throughout his first term, the good time at our expense. Their demeanour and country struggled like a chicken that perched on attitude were generally lackadaisical. Senators - oh a string in high wind. After scrapping through suspected treasury looters took turns, showering four years and creating such major rift in our
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body politic, why did he seek another term? Was it to impoverish Nigerians the more and destroy the country altogether? What was his motivation for seeking a second term? Because I really don’t understand.
We had been inundated with Buhari’s good intentions about our beloved country by his apologists. We were told he was destined to turn things around for the better and “build the Nigeria of our dreams”. Has he? He was described as a born-again phenomenon by no less a person than Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka himself at a time the danger signals had become ringing handbells. Is he?
To defenders and apologists of such line of thought, intentions matter only insofar as they cause you to take actions that make the lives of the people better. Your actions and the consequences are more important than your intentions because the highway to even hell is paved with good intentions. From the gathering clouds of frustration and public unease about his government, such sermons are destined to failure. When he was declared the winner of the February election by an electoral umpire that did its job with a great deal of cunning, there were hisses of frustration and suspicion from well-meaning Nigerians. The generality of the population wore mournful look, it was as if a requiem mass had been declared.
Just two months after he took the oath of office for a second term, many Nigerians are already tired of him and are gloomy about the country’s future.
Resentment they say infects, hunger fuels the people’s anger. But crippled by self-destructive arrogance, this government is not about to accept responsibility for the majesty of its failure, rather it is consumed by suspicion and fear of the word “revolution”. Anyone who criticises it is suddenly a marked man, and faces the possibility of being hit with charges of terrorism, if not treason. The person is brought before a bendable judge ever so willing to grant obnoxious orders to give legitimacy to human rights abuses, impunity and violation of the constitution of Nigeria.
Bizarrely, some of those who sacrificed their hard-earned reputations to support him in 2015 and even did everything in the book to undermine the opposition against his re-election are suddenly questioning how he could have won a re-election in 2019. Others including some people that supported him in 2015 are mobilising protests across the country against his poor leadership and sheer ineptitude. Their actions are direct consequences of hope deferred. Elections it is said have consequences.
Since Buhari mounted the saddle, Nigeria has been in decline, accelerated partly by clannish policies, incompetent appointments and putting square pegs in round holes, bigotry, feudal mindset of conquest and a colonising mentality, a lack of decisiveness on matters requiring urgent attention, general lethargic decision process, etc. The economy is in a shambles today for no other reason but poor leadership. Unprecedented level of poverty, insecurity and a near-complete breakdown of law and order is a telling indictment of the president. Short of the civil war, at no time has Nigeria faced such daily human carnage caused by kidnappers, herdsmen, terrorists, bandits and other non-state actors. And never before have we seen such feeble responses from a government and a president.
A party that rode to power on the back of protests, scalding and unrelenting criticisms of the previous government, a party that was guilty of the most shameless politicisation of the insecurity in the country when it was in the opposition, has suddenly become intolerant of protests and criticisms. Now let us look at the reasons for the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore’s arrest. He called for protests against this government’s poor leadership under the banner headline: RevolutionNow! He was immediately arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS). The police immediately declared that his call amounted to treasonable felony. How?
Then a judge granted his detention for 45 days, half of the 90 days the government had applied for. What was that? Where did the judge derive such powers to curtail a man’s freedom for that length of time when the condition precedent had not been met by the government?
I have often said impunity under any guise will be minimal if judges have the courage to rise to their true calling - the protection of the weak from the over-reach of the powerful. But from what we have seen and will continue to see, the judges are now part of a conspiracy against the vulnerable, contrary to the provisions of the constitution.
In Sowore’s case as in many other cases before them, judges are being used by government to exert unmerited punishment on individuals it targets over political disagreement. By granting DSS a 45-day detention order, Justice Taiwo Taiwo exercised powers above his legitimate scope. He has displayed a willingness to be used to legitimise impunity and tyranny of the powerful. In other words, Justice Taiwo has already sentenced Sowore through the back door to 45 days in prison, renewable for another term of 45 days on fresh application, even before being formally charged with a crime. The judge should have known better about protecting human rights and upholding the constitution. Under the Terrorism Act 2011, under which the request to detain Sowore was made and granted, an accused is allowed to be detained for a total of 90 days at first instance, but with conditions precedent. One of which is that the security agency seeking to hold the individual MUST show that the individual is a member of a terrorist organisation that has been proscribed.
The questions we should all naturally ask Justice Taiwo are: did the DSS meet this important bar? Is Sowore a member of a proscribed terrorist organisation? If yes, which terrorist organisation does he belong to? Why did the judge ignore this fundamental requirement and condition precedent to grant a 45-day renewable detention order?
It was the high probability of abuse that the law enforcement agencies could put the Act to, as a pretext to keep people in detention for extended periods that led human rights groups to mount a spirited opposition to the 90-day detention approved by the Act. Now those fears are coming to pass. The Sowore detention debacle is an opportunity to actually test the constitutionality of such sweeping powers contained in the Act which clearly breach the constitution of Nigeria which says an individual cannot be detained beyond 48 hours without being charged to court. Please note that Sowore has not even been charged yet.
Also under the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, ACJA, 2015, sections 293 to 296, the court is empowered to grant law enforcement agencies extended detention of a defendant for a total of 42 days broken into 14 days per application. One is at a loss why the court granted DSS 45 days in one fell swoop.
You see, Decree No. 2 of 1984 has clearly reared its ugly head in another guise. The government is now using the courts to legitimise its fantasies of human rights abuses, impunity, oppression of the people, violation of the rule of law – which the president once argued albeit, perversely must be subject to the supremacy of national security, as his government deems fit.