By Igbotako Nowinta
President Buhari’s household over-pampered ‘first class bandits and mean scoundrels’, who flew into Kano, in private jets, and succeeded in turning Yusuf Buhari’s knot-tying ceremony into bazar for ‘known celebrated outlaws’, while millions of Nigerians, along with their helpless school children, were paying (still paying) ransom to cartel of kidnappers. It was a wicked insensitive development that even attracted condemnation from a known patron of kidnappers in Nigeria, Sheikh Ahmed Gumi. According to Gumi: “You are spending money to hire jets to go to weddings, while criminals are holding people to ransom in the bush. The criminals (bandits) are holding the people. Even, our leaders milk us dry. Where did they get the money to hire all these jets?” Now, if a character like Gumi was shocked to his marrows, at the incredible show of shame and ridicule, that General Muhammadu Buhari, and his family recklessly showcased in Kano, how and what could the rest of us feel? Nigeria at 61, and the highest level of Nigerian Parliament, the Senate and the House of Representatives, have woken up from the kingdom of professional rubber stampers cum sleepers, to find out that this Commander-in-Chief has bitten the bullets of compromise, what could the rest of us do? I am waiting for a show of ‘people power’ in Nigeria! Nigeria at 61, and when, a sitting President is assiduously and energetically, using a compass to locate grazing routes around the country, for multitudes of Fulani kidnappers, masquerading as herdsmen, even when his brother from the same state like him, Aminu Masari, has poured out his heart, that the enemies within are nothing, but Fulanis, what are we expected to do as responsible citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria?
Shamelessly, the Nigerian Government chose the premises of the United Nations Organization (UNO) Headquarters, in New York, United States, recently, to export an extract of its blanket barbaric domestic manipulative game, to the whole world.
By allegedly offering raw dollars to some gang of homeless American citizens, to carry placards telling the world, absolute lies and falsehood, about the real situation obtainable in Nigeria, the present rulers have consciously revealed the real stuff they are made of – enemies of Nigerian people.
Sixty one years after the Union Jack was lowered by the British colonial masters, on October 1st, 1960, it is unpardonable that the present masters have dropped Nigeria and Nigerians, into a big pot of soup.
Suddenly, Nigeria has become a nation being harassed and humiliated by: ‘bandits and banditry’, even at 61 years of age.
Jaime Cardinal Sin was the 30th Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila; he was a rallying point in the historic and peaceful 1986 ‘People Power’ revolution in the Philippines that ended the tyrannical government of Ferdinand Marcos.
Sin, champion of the poor, who once said: “I must be a minister of reconciliation as well as a prophet of denunciation”, was at the forefront of a massive action of students, Catholics and activists that poured into the streets of Manila, and ended Marcos 20 years of impunity and selfishness.
There had been a presidential election in 1986, in which Corazon Aquino, wife of the assassinated opposition leader, Ninoy Aquino, featured and won, against the then President Marcos.
Ferdinand Marcos, rigged the election, declared martial law to suppress the wish of the people. In an attempt to silence and liquidate two of his trusted military leaders, who did not support his draconian actions, Cardinal Sin mobilized 40 million Catholic citizens for three days; stormed the Presidential Palace, held the country down, before Ferdinand Marcos flew hurriedly out of the country.
By leading the denunciation of the wicked, bloody and corrupt regime of Ferdinand Marcos, he harnessed the fire hidden in the Eucharist, to bring about the much needed brotherhood and unity in the Philippines.
That was how the most basic force of the country: ‘the people’, tore into shreds martial law, repressive dictatorship and democratic rule, in a swirling political upheaval, that brought Corazon Aquino, to presidential power in 1986.
At 61, kidnapping seems to have knocked out the capacity of Nigerian rulers to concentrate on provision of democratic dividends to Nigerian people.
At 61, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has become perpetual agitators for better funding of the tertiary institutions in Nigeria; the health sector is in constant turmoil, even as Resident Doctors have thrown their scalpels under their bedrooms, while millions of patients are waiting for certain death, and the Nigerian Government is still fiddling about.
Absolutely worried and worn out, about the spate of sophisticated banditry, in Nigeria, few days ago, the Senate and the House of Representatives, passionately urged President Muhammadu Buhari, to tag the so called ‘bandits’ that have been putting poisoned daggers across our hearts, ‘terrorists’, in order for them to be handled, with the fullest arm of the law.
This is really mouth gapping, that a President that supposed to have taken this form of strict action, considering the fact that he swore by the Constitution to secure lives and property, has blatantly lost sense of direction and control.
In civilized democracies, the development above would have been the other way round, but here we are confronted by a lame duck of a President.
Pricked by conscience, President Buhari’s kinsman and sitting Governor of Katsina State, Aminu Masari, has unveiled the true identities of those masterminding killings, maiming, raping of fellow Nigerians, in every nook and crannies of the country.
This is what Governor Aminu Masari said:” Majority of those involved in this banditry are Fulanis, whether it is palatable or it is not palatable, but, that is the truth. I am not saying 100% of them are Fulani, but, majority of them are, and those are people who live in the forest, and their main occupation is herding cattle”.
Giving the benefit and availability of technology, we expected the Nigerian Government, to have acquired the necessary sophisticated gadgets, to wipe out the lucrative business of kidnapping and banditry by now, instead of investing in heavy ransom payments, using religious cum professional fronts being offered by the likes of Sheikh Ahmed Gumi.
Just like General Yakubu Gowon, who conducted a most lavish marriage, when thousands of Nigerians, were being butchered in the midst of the nonsensical civil war from 1967 to 1970, President Buhari poured dirt on the poor masses, and spat on the faces of all of us, when guests, who attended Yusuf (his son’s) wedding, were over spoilt with mouth-watering delicacies and precious gifts.
That translated to his telling Nigerians, to go to blazes! What a man, what a President of Nigeria, after 61 years of tragic nationhood!
President Buhari’s household over-pampered ‘first class bandits and mean scoundrels’, who flew into Kano, in private jets, and succeeded in turning Yusuf Buhari’s knot-tying ceremony into bazar for ‘known celebrated outlaws’, while millions of Nigerians, along with their helpless school children, were paying (still paying) ransom to cartel of kidnappers.
It was a wicked insensitive development that even attracted condemnation from a known patron of kidnappers in Nigeria, Sheikh Ahmed Gumi.
According to Gumi: “You are spending money to hire jets to go to weddings, while criminals are holding people to ransom in the bush. The criminals (bandits) are holding the people. Even, our leaders milk us dry. Where did they get the money to hire all these jets?”
Now, if a character like Gumi was shocked to his marrows, at the incredible show of shame and ridicule, that General Muhammadu Buhari, and his family recklessly showcased in Kano, how and what could the rest of us feel?
Nigeria at 61, and the highest level of Nigerian Parliament, the Senate and the House of Representatives, have woken up from the kingdom of professional rubber stampers cum sleepers, to find out that this Commander-in-Chief has bitten the bullets of compromise, what could the rest of us do?
I am waiting for a show of ‘people power’ in Nigeria!
Nigeria at 61, and when, a sitting President is assiduously and energetically, using a compass to locate grazing routes around the country, for multitudes of Fulani kidnappers, masquerading as herdsmen, even when his brother from the same state like him, Aminu Masari, has poured out his heart, that the enemies within are nothing, but Fulanis, what are we expected to do as responsible citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria?
Only deranged and day-dreamers like the Miyetti Allah, would hide under an ethnic agenda, of suffocating, extracting and segregating against other ethnic nationalities, with the ultimate dream of conquering, to take it all, in a federation like Nigeria; only jokers. We have not seen anything like this!
Then, our so called umbrella of Christianity, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has increasingly become toothless bulldogs. Why have Christian leaders failed miserably and dramatically to unite, and confront these monsters?
Nigeria at 61, considering the fact that, the 1999 Constitution, operateable here, is not a product of Nigerian people, but was dictated by an insane despot, General Sani Abacha.
We need a massive display of ‘people power’ in Nigeria, to usher in genuine restructuring, which will not only capture and embrace a true ‘Nigerian Constitution’, but make productive populace a national priority.
In a country, and Nigeria at 61, where a new lexicon cum phenomenon has been invented: ‘banditry’; schools are closed down mostly in the Northeast and Central, and the number one citizen of Nigeria, is seen in action and in words succumbing and buckling under the weight of Fulanism; confining himself to well chiseled outdated native ideology, where should we go? I am waiting for a carnival of ‘people Power’ in Nigeria!
What of a nonsensical scenario, where on the eve of Nigeria at 61, a Naval Base inherently suitable for a location, in the Niger Delta axis of Nigeria, is being located in Kano, of all places, a very sad situation, where, the garment of statutory provision: ‘Federal Character’, has been torn to pieces, l demand the grand organization of ‘people power’, in Nigeria.
If Ferdinand Marcos and his likes around the world, could be taught a bitter lesson, because they were unfeeling, uncaring, unserious and hopelessly bereft of any ideological clarity, to jump start social, economic and political mess in their respective countries, who says the abandoned and dehumanized citizens, in Katsina, Sokoto, Abeokuta, Warri, Osogbo and Lokoja, cannot come together, to stage a ‘people power’, in Nigeria, during or before the 2023 Presidential Elections?
Nowinta wrote: Where We Are – A Call For Democratic Revolution in Nigeria.
