By Femi Fani-Kayode
President Muhammadu Buhari has been away from our shores for over 100 days in a stretch treating an undisclosed and mysterious illness in far-away London. Since May 29th 2015 when he was sworn into office as President he has spent 350 of his over 740 days in power abroad treating the same strange ailment.
Those that demand that he should “resume or resign” are being attacked and brutalised by security forces and agents of the state. The Buhari government has no respect for human rights and civil liberties. Charly Boy Oputa, Deji Adeyanju, Ariyo Dare- Atoye, Jude Ndukwe and other notable figures and leaders of the “Our Mumu Don Do” movement were brutalised and almost murdered by Buhari’s savage footsoldiers at Wuse Market in Abuja the other day simply because they dared to go on a demonstration and ask for the President to “resume or resign”.
If that had happened Nigeria would have exploded yet no arrests have been made and the government seems unperturbed.
Tension has gripped the land as we approach October 1st and the Nigerian people have expressed deep concern about what is unfolding yet all we are fed with on a daily basis are pictures of an ailing Buhari, holding court in London and granting audience to his friends, political associates, family members and loyalists.
The whole thing is not only inappropiate and undignified but it is also deeply insulting. Simply put it is sordid. Meanwhile the world laughs us to scorn and mocks our nation. We are a nation in which an Acting President who is scared of his own shadow, has been reduced to a mere national co-ordinator and that is in the power of a faceless and tiny cabal .
The truth is that we are now a full-fledged dictatorship that is being controlled and presided over by a tiny cabal with a religious and ethnic agenda. This, together with an unrelenting, though unsuccessful attempt, to demonise and crush the traditional opposition and silence all forms of dissent has resulted in the irresistable rise of powerful and well-organised secessionist and separatist groups such as the Yoruba Liberation Command (YOLICOM) and the Nnamdi Kanu-led Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
The fact that the Federal Government is incapable of encouraging national cohesion and integration but is instead saddled with a morbid obsession to try to destroy President Goodluck Jonathan and rubbish his excellent legacy speaks volumes.
The lies and propaganda of the Buhari administration are second to none. Simply put they are filled with deceit, deception, mendacity and hate.
They have sought to demonise and destroy more innocent Nigerians than any other Government in our entire history. They have killed more innocent Nigerians than any other Government in our history outside of the civil war. They have locked up more innocent Nigerians and subjected them to shameful and barbaric witchunts and media trials than any other civilian Government in the history of our country.
Under them soldiers slaughtered over 1000 Shia Muslims in one afternoon in Zaria and buried them in mass graves. Under them thousands of IPOB youths have been butchered by security agents.
Under them hundreds of thousands of innocent Nigerians have been raped, maimed, robbed and massacred by well-armed, well-funded and well-organised Fulani militias and herdsmen all over the country yet not one of the perpetrators has been arrested or brought to justice simply because they are members of the President’s ethnic group Under them Boko Haram has resurrected, restored its fortunes and won back virtually all the territory that they had lost when President Goodluck Jonathan was in power.
Under them more Christians have been butchered and more Churches burnt down than any other Govermment in the history of Nigeria. Under them northern youths have given a chilling quit notice to our Igbo compatriots to leave the north.
They have also threatened them with genocide and mass murder if they fail to do so by Octobr 1st yet not one of those youths has been apprehended, questioned or arrested.
Under them a frightful and barbaric song has been crafted and is being shared and sang all over the north which openly calls for the ethnic cleansing and total elimination and annihilation of every Igbo in the country yet the song has not been outlawed or banned and its authors have not been arrested.
Under them a culture of silence and fear has been imposed on the Nigerian people and few are ready to risk life, limb and liberty by speaking truth to power or resisting and standing up to tyranny.
Under them the worst economic recession that we have ever experienced in our history has been established and the Nigerian people have been afflicted with pain, hunger, hardship, suffering, poverty, uncertainty and despair.
Under them cows (yes cows!) have taken over our city streets, schools and places of worship and the lives of cattle are deemed to have more value than that of human beings. They refer to every northern Muslim that resists their evil agenda and that does not support them as a traitor and an infidel and they refer to every southerner and Christian as a slave and an unbeliever.
Their’s is the language of hate, violence and division and it must be condemned and resisted by all men and women of goodwill regardless of their faith and ethnicity. More than any other Government this government has divided us along ethnic, religious and regional lines and they don’t appear to give a hoot about the implications of doing so.
As a matter of fact the contrary is the case: they appear to enjoy doing it and they feed on the dangerous divisions that they have created. permit me to conclude this contribution with the following.
So obsessed, so primitive, so provincial, so insensitive, so petty, so cruel, so crude, so paranoid, so deluded, so out of touch with reality, so reckless, so hateful and so obsessed with President Jonathan and the PDP is this Presidency that they went as far as to say that the great lady and former Minister of Information Mrs. Dora Akunyili was sent to her premature death and early grave because she was given a job by the former President.
Never in the history of our nation has such a vicious, nonsensical, baseless, malevolent and specious mendacity been pronounced by an official of the Federal Government. Never-mind the fact that the statement was issued by a very junior staff of the Presidency It is also a clear reflection of the intellectual bankruptcy of the Buhari administration.
Whatever this government feels about Jonathan, the People’s Democratic Party or anyone else they should please leave Dora Akunyili out of it because this profoundly good lady that brought joy to the hearts of so many is not here to speak for or defend herself.
They should allow this great daughter of Nigeria who was not only my colleague in the Obasanjo administration over ten years ago but who also served our nation honorably and creditably through the auspices of no less than three PDP President’s and Federal Governments to continue to rest in peace.
Those talking about Dora are not fit to mention her name or to lick the bottom of her shoes.
