Article written by former Minister Femi Fani Kayode. Read and tell us what you think...
Major General Muhammadu Buhari has
emerged as the APC flagbearer for the
2015 Presidential election and President
Goodluck Jonathan has emerged for the
PDP. The battle for the soul and future of
our nation now begins.
Let us consider Buhari. On 22nd July 2014
he told The Nation Newspaper that "our
country has gone through several rough
patches, but never before have I seen a
Nigerian President declare war on his own
country as we are seeing now.
Never before have I seen a Nigerian President
deploy federal institutions in the service of
partisanship as we are witnessing now.
Never
before have I seen a Nigerian President utilize the
common wealth to subvert the system and punish
the opposition, all in the name of politics. Our
nation has suffered serious consequences in the
past for egregious acts that are not even close to
what we are seeing now. It is time to pull the
brakes''.
One may have been prepared to accept the
general's words as being those of a genuinely
concerned and committed patriot who simply
wanted our President and his Government to do a
better job and who was worried about the
unfolding situation in our country if he had not
consistently exposed his true colors and his obvious
soft spot for Boko Haram.
Permit me to share just one example of the
expression of that soft spot in this contribution.
On 3rd June 2013, Thisday Newspaper led their
newspaper with the following headline: ''The
military offensive against Boko Haram is anti-
north- General Muhammadu Buhari''.
The headline was followed by these words: ''Maj.
Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, has criticised the
declaration of state of emergency in Adamawa,
Borno and Yobe States and the subsequent
military offensive against the Boko Haram Islamic
sect. Buhari, who featured on the “Guest of the
Week,” a Hausa programme of the Kaduna-based
Liberty Radio, yesterday said the federal
government’s action was a gross injustice against
the north. According to him, unlike the special
treatment the federal government gave to the
Niger Delta militants, the Boko Haram members
were being killed and their houses demolished. He
said he was not in support of the declaration of
state of emergency in the three north-eastern
states because President Goodluck Jonathan had
failed from the outset in addressing the security
situation in the country''.
The implications of these shameful and
indefensible comments, coming from a former
Head of State, are obvious and self-evident. If
the truth be told Buhari's peculiar affinity with
the terrorists and his fawning about their safety
and welfare is as unbearable as it is nauseating.
Yet that same General Buhari who said these
unacceptable things one year ago is now busy
pontificating about his concerns for our nation.
Many would argue that that is pretty rich coming
from him given his past comments about a
ruthless group of terrorists who, more than any
other, merit the award for the greatest
''troublers of our nation''. Given this I regard
Buhari's comments to the Nation Newspaper on
the 22 July 2014 as nothing but self-serving and
belated clap trap and balderdash.
Yet this clap trap and balderdash is worthy of a
little attention. Of particular interest to me were
the following words: ''never before have I seen a
Nigerian President declare war on his own country
as we are seeing now''. Really?
Correct me if I
am wrong but I thought that the war that
President Goodluck Jonathan had declared was
against terrorism and Boko Haram and not against
the Nigerian people.
Does General Buhari find it difficult to make a
distinction between the jihadists and the Nigerian
people? Does he see them as being one and the
same? Does he actually equate members of
Jama'at ahl as-sunnah li-d-da'wa wa-l-jihad with
the Nigerian people? Does he regard the military
offensive against Boko Haram as being an
offensive against OUR people? Does he honestly
believe that anytime that a Boko Haram terrorist
is killed by our Armed Forces and security
agencies or that his house is blown up that it is an
attack on the Nigerian people or an assault on the
north? Are those people that Boko Haram
slaughtering, terrorising, abducting, pillaging,
robbing and raping on a daily basis all over our
country not the real Nigerians?
Does he honestly believe that Boko Haram is
representative of the thinking of our people or
even the majority of the people in the muslim
north? Has this man not lost touch with reality?
Does he really belong to the 21st century or is he
nothing more than an old relic from the distant
past who secretly craves for a return to the
norms, ways and values of 6th century Saudi
Arabia? Is such a man really fit to be President
of our country?
Is he still insisting on having another muslim as his
running mate in order to establish his strange
dream of a muslim/muslim President and Vice
President for our country or has he shelved that
idea due to political pressure from President
Olusegun Obasanjo, public resentment and bitter
outrage?
Has he beat a tactical retreat from the muslim/
muslim adventure and finally opted for Governor
Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Professor Yemi Osibajo,
Governor Kayode Fayemi or some other yoruba
christian to be his running mate as my sources are
suggesting?
I must confess that all three of these individuals
are profoundly good men and are eminently
qualified for the job but does this latest
concession come from the heart or is it just a ruse
and an attempt to appease the christian
community? Is it an attempt to lure them in and
make them drop their guard? Does Buhari have
any respect for Christians?
Does he have any empathy with the christian
community in northern Nigeria for the immense
suffering, degradation, humiliation,contempt,
shame, indignity, persecution and mass murder
that they have been subjected to in the north for
the last 54 years and particularly in the last few
years?
Does he regard christians as being human beings?
Does he accept the fact that Boko Haram are
nothing but beasts? Does he recognise the fact
that no-one has the right to take the life of
another human being in the name of religion?
Does he know that compulsion has no place in any
civilised religion and that each human being has
the right to exercise his or her free will to
determine which religious faith he or she wishes to
espouse?
Does Buhari understand the meaning of the words
''secular state'' or the concept of the secularity
of the state? Can he possibly accept the virtues
and comprehend the wisdom of such an equitable
and reasonable constitutional arrangement which
guarantees the rights of all faiths and which does
not allow one faith to laud it over another
anywhere in our country?
Does he recognise the fact that Nigeria is in
actual fact a secular state in which the rights and
dignity of the members of every faith, including
the christian faith, are guaranteed by the
constitution? Does he accept the fact that in this
day and age it is a heinous crime against humanity
and particularly the girl-child and that it is a
complete violation of the laws of our land for
little girls of the age of 5, 6, 9 13 and even up to
16 to be married off and subjected to rape in the
name of religion and marriage?
Does the General support paedophiles, sexual
predators, sociopaths, sadistic perverts and the
criminally-insane like the Boko Haram leader
Abubakar Shekau who are sexually attracted to
innocent and defenceless little girls and who
believe that they can be ''sold in the market'' and
''forced into marriage and slavery?''
Does he
honestly believe that Boko Haram are human
beings? Does this man that wants to be President
of our country not recognise a heartless and
callous beast when he sees one?
Does the wanton and relentless shedding of rivers
of innocent blood, including the blood of children,
not move his heart? Does the open abduction of
almost 300 little girls, each of whom is young
enough to be his grandaughter, from the sanctity
of their school dormitory in the dead of the night
not evoke pity in him and not stir him to rage?
Does he have any compassion and does he feel no
pain for the suffering of the victims of Boko
Haram? Does he know that Boko Haram has killed
as many muslims as they have christians in their
insane attempt to establish an islamic
fundamentalist state in our country?
Is his inability to make a distinction between Boko
Haram and the Nigerian people informed by the
fact that he is a closet Haramite whose stated
desire is to ''spread sharia throughout the whole
of the country'' as he said in 2001?
Does Buhari
still believe that ''muslims should only vote for
muslims’’ or ‘’for those that will protect their
interest'' as he said in 2001?
Does he still believe that ''christians should not
worry when muslims chop off their own arms and
hands in the name of sharia because it is none of
their business'' as he said in 2001?
Does he still
believe that Boko Haram members should be
forgiven, granted amnesty, pampered, sent
abroad to learn and given monthly allowances ‘’like
the Niger Delta militants’’ as he suggested in
2013?
Does he still believe that , if he is not elected as
President in 2015, ''the dog and the baboon shall
both be soaked in blood''?
The questions are legion. Given his views about
Boko Haram does General Muhammadu Buhari have
the moral right to condemn anyone, least of all
the President and the Federal Government, for
the challenges that we are facing in this country?
Never before have I seen a former Nigerian Head
of State openly express sympathy and covertly
support a murderous and bestial terrorist
organisation that has killed well over 30,000
innocent Nigerians in cold blood, that has abducted
and raped our little girls and that has slit the
throats and drained the blood of our young boys.
Never before have I seen a former Nigerian Head
of State openly defend a bunch of cowardly,
uncouth and barbaric jihadists that have bombed
and burnt alive the weak, the vulnerable and the
elderly in our country and that have slaughtered
our soldiers, policemen and intelligence agents at
will and with such callousness and glee.
Never before have I seen a former Nigerian Head
of State openly canvass restraint and mercy for a
bunch of bloodthirsty, cold-blooded mass
murderers and criminals that have turned our
country into a pariah nation, that has made the
north the home of the most callous, ruthless,
hateful, vile and evil terrorist organisation in the
world and that has transformed our nation into a
horrendous haven for ruthless islamic
fundamentalists and bloodthirsty islamist militias.
If the truth must be told the only thing that is
worse than Boko Haram are those in the Nigerian
political class that secretly support and covertly
assist them. A Buhari Presidency would be a
disaster for our country, a danger to the
Christian community and clear evidence of the
final victory and triumph of Boko Haram and the
jihadists over the Nigerian state. It would also
represent the end of Nigeria as one nation.
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