You’ve got to give it to Buhari. He’s the most audacious Tyrant this country has had the singular misfortune of being cursed with.
And yet, he is the most transparent.
Transparent In Evil.
No pretence, no diplomatization of his despotism and no long grammar. He carries out his tyranny, nepotism and ethno-religious agenda in the most primitive and brazenly blatant manner.
Conclusively, Buhari has shattered the myth that a civilian President cannot successfully suspend the Constitution and transmute to a full blown Dictator with the entire country still believing their own lie of being in a democracy.
As a lawyer, you will go to court and quote all the sections from Sir McPherson Constitution and that of Sir Richard in a bid to convince a Judge to grant bail to your client and after cowering in fear of the same Buhari, the Judge will grant bail to your client with impossible conditions. You will now go enter all manner of unholy deals just to meet the punitive bail conditions only for the Department of State Security (DSS) under the same presidency which abducted your client in the middle of the night to now tell you they cannot release him because there is no one to hand him over to. You will now sigh and say to yourself, “if na that one, I go go their office in the morning” only for you to reach their office and be turned back by the same people who had earlier announced they were looking for who to hand your client over to.
When you look back and think to go report back to the Judge and possibly file a complaint of contempt of court against them, you will then remember who the number one Judicial Officer in the country is and how he got to that position. There and then, you will kukuma shut up and come on social media to wail in peace until you remember that even the social media space is not guaranteed to be yours for so long considering that even after passing the Cybercrime Act, the same govt is currently pushing a bill that will effectively regulate the social media space by taking from you the right to express your frustration at their tyranny. Not dis-remembering that to pass a bill through the National Assembly involves so many processes and procedures, you will want to rejoice and assure yourself that their social media bill will fail but your mind will now flash back to last Wednesday the 6th of November (4 days ago) when the Ahmed Lawan rubber stamped Senate quickly passed a Value Added Tax Bill sent to them by Buhari through second reason even when they HAVE NEITHER SEEN NOR READ the bill.
At this point, it will now become clear to you that you are actually at the mercy of this merciless Tyrant and will remain so for a time far longer than 2023. This is where you realize that a President who has the head of the judiciary in his pocket and can get the Legislature to pass a bill they have not seen will have no difficulty using the aforementioned two arms of govt to amend the so called Constitution to keep himself perpetually in power.
This is the point you’ve got to appreciate the enormity of the existential threat we all face with these vile men in power.
It is a very looooooooooooooooong night, guys. And this night is not just dark, it is full of terror. And no, this is not me trying to impress you with lines from HBO’s TV series, Game of Throne. Ours is neither a game nor a make belief stuff. It is real. And unlike in the Game of Thrones, Our own Night King is actually more formidable than the HBO’s. Unfortunately, we have neither the fire spitting dragons of Daenerys Targaryen nor the faceless but brave Arya Stark and certainly not the wisdom of Tyrion Lannister nor the rare gift of a leader with the charisma of Jon Snow who got Mortal enemies to drop their enmity and fight alongside each other to defeat a common enemy, the Army of the Dead.
I don’t mean to sound hopeless but I have no intention of selling false hope to anyone either.
We are in trouble! The future is looking extremely and exceedingly bleak. And this is putting it mildly.
Even in the unlikely event of ‘Yar’adua-lization’ of President Buhari, vice President Yemi Osinbajo will not be ‘Jonathanized’. The ethno-religious irredentists in this govt will let themselves be consumed by worm before allowing one tree branch to injure them in the same eye the second time. I would add that Osinbajo’s humiliation is just getting started but I’m sure we all know that, don’t we?
Quite frankly, I see no hope in sight.
In the East, IPOB, despite being arguably the most formidable opposition to this contraption, yet, even with all her local and international network, the group is yet to prove it has the required emotional intelligence, verbal discipline and tolerance to galvanize and unite the entire old Eastern region. Apparently, petty quarrel and fight with its own political and socio-cultural groups is more of a priority than the quest for freedom. To be clear, to some degree, their bitterness is not entirely unrighteous. But choosing a time such as now to express it is fundamentally inexcusable.
In the Niger Delta, the Militants are too invested in matters of personal intestinal consideration to really care about the environmental genocide going on in their region. Obviously, the whole pipe line bombing thing was never to force the federal govt to develop their region but to get settled just so a few of them could get rich while the people they pretend to be fighting for keep wallowing in penury.
In the Southwest, some groups, it would seem, deeply believe a DEJA VU of the Yar’adua situation is still possible for the Jonathanization of Osinbajo. Add that to the religious mix plus the very huge influence of Bola Tinubu, you’d realize why a reasonable number of Yorubas will always support the Buhari presidency come rain come shine. To be clear, considering that as PLO Lumumba would say, “the blood of ethnicity is thicker than the blood of Christ”, I really don’t blame anyone supporting a govt that has one of his own as the number two man, the reality on ground notwithstanding.
Because I’ve read things like, “Charles Ogbu doesn’t proffer solution. He only talks about the problem”, let me say this, the solution to this problem is in the problem analysis. But let me break it down:
If you are IPOB (whether member or sympathizer) and you genuinely want freedom, stop wasting precious time and energy fighting your own political and socio-cultural groups FOR NOW. Everyone has a role to play. You need them just as they need you if we must survive this existential threat. If you are a Niger Delta militant, understand that you are uniquely positioned to hold Nigeria in the blokos and force the authorities to do what is right by us all. And if you are from the SouthWest, please bury any hope of Osinbajo or Tinubu succeeding Buhari. The Fulanis don’t share power. Read your history to understand what Alimi did to Afonja and what they used Akintola to do to Awolowo back then.
Connect with Charles Ogbu on twitter @RealCharlesOgbu.
