By Igbotako Nowinta
If Shagari blatantly broke his campaign promises to Nigerians from 1979 to 1983, General Muhammadu Buhari has simply pierced the hearts of millions of Nigerian voters with the cruelest daggers of corruption since May 29th, 2015 till date. What about the 100 million naira imposed by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to purchase the presidential forms for the 2023 Presidential primaries? There is no doubt that it was a mischievously calculated attempt to discourage and frustrate those who would have otherwise been more qualified to run, but cannot muster the financial resources to buy the form. Such is the tragedy of the Nigerian democratic experiment. How do we explain the fact that a man who vowed to fight corruption is now the greatest provider of safety nets for enemies of the Nigerian people, who had consciously impoverished countless millions of individuals in the name of corrupt practices? What do Muhammadu Buhari and his crowds of political bandits take us for? Imbeciles or idiots? On this note Buhari’s crime is beyond pardon. Sadly, corruption is now for sale in Nigeria, and most brutally it is being sold before our very eyes to the highest political criminals and bandits to continue to demonstrate their looting spree in the name of party politics. As 2023 comes nearer by the day, we see perpetualism of same policies that have proven to be ineffective in eliminating poverty, even as the cycle of deprivation is horrifying in the land, with endless tears in the eyes of the Nigerian masses.
General Muhammadu Buhari graduated himself into a special class of ignominy, in Nigeria’s checkered history on April 15, 2022, when he led members of the National Council of State to grant amnesty, to two of the nation’s most shameless political bandits.
They were Joshua Dariye – former Governor of Plateau State from 1999 to 2007, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison for laundering N1.162 billion; Jolly Nyame – former Governor of Taraba State from 1999 to 2007, who was put behind bars to spend 12 years for stealing N1.6 billion.
Both Dariye and Nyame were found guilty by Justice Adebukola Banjoko of the Federal High Court in 2018, and their conviction had been approved by the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
The amnesty granted to both executive ex-convicts is the greatest acts of political insensitivity and dishonesty ever committed by any sitting President in Nigeria.
Perhaps, a brief recourse to what transpired in the political firmament of Nigeria between 1976 and 1983, will explicitly explain why l have concluded that General Muhammadu Buhari is the worst thing that has happened to what we know as the Federal Republic of Nigeria today.
In my highly successful work:’ Where We Are – A Call for Democratic Revolution in Nigeria (September, 2009 page 55), l wrote as follows:’ The change of baton from Olusegun Obasanjo to Alhaji Shehu Shagari was the vilest rape that Nigeria was made to submit to in 1979.
Shehu Shagari’s civilian administration proved to be the worst Nigeria has ever had. First Republic politicians (parade of lunatical cheats; old wines in new bottles) predominantly peopled his National Party of Nigeria (NPN).”
Perhaps, if the late General Murtala Mohammed, who led the military coup against the wayward government of General Yakubu Gowon, had succeeded to hand over power to genuine democratically elected representatives of the people in 1979, the disaster that was Shehu Shagari would have been averted?
The assassination of Murtala Mohammed on February 13, 1976, paved the way for a General Olusegun Obasanjo’s misadventure and blunder, who went on to present himself as a worthless hypocrite.
When Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon-led military junta that appeared on the political scene in the early hours of 31st December, 1983, they came to prevent the country from falling totally into a precipice.
Ex-President Shehu Usman Shagari recklessly abandoned his presidential powers, for the likes of Umaru Dikko, Meredith Akinloye and company to manipulate to the zenith of their parochialism, and the people of Nigeria were repeatedly stabbed on their backs by unprecedented acts of political criminality and mind-boggling corruption.
Here is a befitting epitaph for the inglorious Second Republic in Nigeria: The people of Nigeria heaved a deep sigh of relief when the Second Republic was birthed, because the military regimes before it were a gigantic exercise in futility.
But in less than three years Shehu Shagari and his team squandered the tremendous goodwill and sank Nigeria into a deep shit of corruption.
If Shagari blatantly broke his campaign promises to Nigerians from 1979 to 1983, General Muhammadu Buhari has simply pierced the hearts of millions of Nigerian voters with the cruelest daggers of corruption since May 29th, 2015 till date. What about the 100 million naira imposed by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to purchase the presidential forms for the 2023 Presidential primaries?
There is no doubt that it was a mischievously calculated attempt to discourage and frustrate those who would have otherwise been more qualified to run, but cannot muster the financial resources to buy the form.
Such is the tragedy of the Nigerian democratic experiment. How do we explain the fact that a man who vowed to fight corruption is now the greatest provider of safety nets for enemies of the Nigerian people, who had consciously impoverished countless millions of individuals in the name of corrupt practices?
What do Muhammadu Buhari and his crowds of political bandits take us for? Imbeciles or idiots? On this note Buhari’s crime is beyond pardon.
Sadly, corruption is now for sale in Nigeria, and most brutally it is being sold before our very eyes to the highest political criminals and bandits to continue to demonstrate their looting spree in the name of party politics.
As 2023 comes nearer by the day, we see perpetualism of same policies that have proven to be ineffective in eliminating poverty, even as the cycle of deprivation is horrifying in the land, with endless tears in the eyes of the Nigerian masses.
The evil doctrinal political system has not shifted gears, as we continue to see politicians known for their veritable impudence and moral cowardice.
General Buhari and his walking lies have shifted the system back to the old pretext and created a new unpalatable social realities, new norms about fighting corruption, which continue to witch-haunt Nigeria political stability till this minute.
We are seeing total absence or abandonment of moral and ethical restraint in the use of power and management of public resources. This is the grand net into which Nigeria has fallen headlong, and it has been having ripple effects in all spheres of life, causing the code of our traditional honor to fall into disuse in our clime.
Looking at the long list of presidential aspirants queuing up to succeed General Buhari, come 2023, within the frontline political parties in Nigeria today, it is very clear that our country is still in the cul-de-sac necessitated by missionless and visionless politicians.
Who amongst the present crop of aspirants can take us to the much talked about next level of sincere political engagement?
The frontline aspirants are busy saber-rattling about their abilities to govern the Federal Republic of Nigeria on a positive mantra, yet we know very well that they don’t have the capacity to move us forward because of their nauseating political antecedents.
Ahmed Bola Tinubu, who started well in 1999, has become a danger magnified by corrupt politicians, because he proposed and sustained them in power, while the institutional basis of the country is being atrophied, and hyper inflationary trends is killing our people in the market places.
Is it Goodluck Jonathan whose presidency by 2015 produced dire social economic consequences, which allowed the political misfit called Muhammadu Buhari to emerge?
The promptings of some political lunatics from the Northern axis to manipulate things within the All Progressives Congress, in the name of bring back Goodluck Jonathan campaign represents an unacceptable affront.
It is clearly insulting our sensibilities, because we have not forgotten where we were in 2015.
Is it Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, whose presidency, if he emerges, will not be far from a Goodluck Jonathan’s heavily compromised presidency?
Is it Atilku Abubakar, Olusola Saraki or one Aminu Tambuwal from Sokoto, etc who are archetypes of Nigeria’s hypocritical politicians; who at the same time represent poison running through our democracy? One can go on and on!
The fact that a Goodluck Jonathan thought came up at all, is a sign that our country has degenerated and fallen into the hands of demented ultra-conservative cabal who continue to dare us by the day.
Nigerians are bewildered and traumatized, the amnesty given to Jolly Nyame and Joshua Dariye and the N100m prize tag to obtain presidential forms have blown open the current anti-corruption agenda as nauseating garbage and gimmick.
The political disaster gets bigger and bigger every day. Never in the modern history of Nigeria has a ruler made himself a visible emblem of the worst presidency ever, like General Muhammadu Buhari.
It is annoying that the corruption fight of more than seven years now is dead, and Mr. President has simply put the nail on the coffin of anti-corruption mantra; and betrayed his electrified commitment to the Nigerian people.
Whether we like it or not, we certainly cannot continue like this. We must choose to swim or sink out of the nonsensical lake of political corruption which the presidency of General Muhammadu Buhari has imposed on us.
We must carve out a successful lane; a more constructive political avenue to break free from the present horrors of a vicious political system, which transformative dream has hit the rocks.
It is now clear that the much talk about anti-corruption since 2015, has been a clandestine swoop on the rest of us. Where do we go from here? It is a tragedy when politics continue to dominate and diverges from the ultimate interest of the mass of our people.
It is pathetic that corruption is being sold in Nigeria today by Muhammadu Buhari and his clones! If what we had in Shehu Shagari in 1983 was absolute corruption, today what we have in Muhammadu Buhari is pandemic corruption.
I support the call for the African Union (AU) to strip Muhammadu Buhari the medal of “Anti-corruption Champion”, given to him. For me the battle to reclaim our country just started.
Nigerian people must be ready to prosecute by themselves an uncompromising and ruthless democratic revolution, via the instrumentality of the ballot box come 2023, and practical demonstration of people’s power, such as we have seen succeeded in other climes.
Nowinta wrote: Where We Are – A call for Democratic Revolution In Nigeria.
