Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka in a piece written 7 years ago, spoke
about “the crimes of Buhari” and why he should not be elected President
of Nigeria.
Former Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari has been chosen to represent the All Progressives Congress (APC) as its presidential candidate for the 2015 elections.
However, Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, in a piece written 7 years ago, spoke about “the crimes of Buhari” and why he should not be elected President of Nigeria.
This
intervention has been provoked, not so much by the ambitions of General
Buhari to return to power at the head of a democratic Nigeria, as by
declarations of support from directions that leave one totally
dumbfounded.
It would appear that some,
myself among them, had been overcomplacent about the magnitude of an
ambition that seemed as preposterous as the late effort of General
Ibrahim Babangida to aspire yet again to the honour of presiding over a
society that truly seeks a democratic future.
What
one had dismissed was a rash of illusions, brought about by other
political improbabilities that surround us, however, is being given an
air of plausibility by individuals and groupings to which one had
earlier attributed a sense of relevance of historic actualities.
Recently,
I published an article in the media, invoking the possible recourse to
psychiatric explanation for some of the incongruities in conduct within
national leadership. Now, to tell the truth, I have begun to seriously
address the issue of which section of society requires the services of a
psychiatrist.
The contest for a seizure
of rationality is now so polarized that I am quite reconciled to the
fact it could be those of us on this side, not the opposing school of
thought that ought to declare ourselves candidates for a lunatic asylum.
So be it. While that decision hangs in the balance however, the forum
is open. Let both sides continue to address our cases to the electorate,
but also prepare to submit ourselves for psychiatric examination.
The
time being so close to electoral decision, we can understand the haste
of some to resort to shortcuts. In the process however, we should not
commit the error of opening the political space to any alternative whose
curative touch to national afflictions have proven more deadly than
the disease.
In order to reduce the
clutter in our options towards the forthcoming elections, we urge a
beginning from what we do know, what we have undergone, what millions
can verify, what can be sustained by evidence accessible even to the
school pupil, the street hawker or a just-come visitor from outer space.
Leaving
Buhari aside for now, I propose a commencing exercise that should guide
us along the path of elimination as we examine the existing register of
would-be president. That initial exercise can be summed up in the
following speculation: “If it were possible for Olusegun Obasanjo, the
actual incumbent, to stand again for election, would you vote for him?”
If
the answer is “yes”, then of course all discussion is at an end. If the
answer is ‘No’ however, then it follows that a choice of a successor
made by Obasanjo should be assessed as hovering between extremely
dangerous and an outright kiss of death.
The
degree of acceptability of such a candidate should also be inversely
proportionate to the passion with which he or she is promoted by the
would-be ‘godfather’. We do not lack for open evidence about Obasanjo’s
passion in this respect.
From Lagos to
the USA, he has taken great pains to assure the nation and the world
that the anointed NPN presidential flag bearer is guaranteed, in his
judgment, to carry out his policies. Such an endorsement/anointment is
more than sufficient, in my view, for public acceptance or rejection.
Yar’Adua’s candidature amounts to a terminal kiss from a moribund
regime.
Nothing against the person of
this – I am informed - personable governor, but let him understand that
in addition to the direct source of his emergence, the PDP, on whose
platform he stands, represents the most harrowing of this nation’s
nightmares over and beyond even the horrors of the Abacha regime.
If
he wishes to be considered on his own merit, now is time for him, as
well as others similarly enmeshed, to exercise the moral courage that
goes with his repudiation of that party, a dissociation from its past,
and a pledge to reverse its menacing future.
We
shall find him an alternative platform on which to stand, and then have
him present his credentials along those of other candidates engaged in
forging a credible opposition alliance. Until then, let us bury this
particular proposition and move on to a far graver, looming danger,
personified in the history of General Buhari.
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 Buhari’s coup staged?
Judging by the conduct of that regime, it was not against Shagari’s
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 from 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
‘dis’pline’, 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 strictures 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 needle’s 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.
