For the unprogressive, naive manner he has been sinking the ship of the Nigerian state with his one-sided nepotistic style of government, the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari is News Echo’s Man in the News for this week’s edition.
There is a saying that when the righteous is in authority the people rejoice, but when the wicked in authority, the people will continue to mourn. Aside pretences, the coming onboard of President Muhammadu Buhari as President of Nigeria threw the country and its people into great mourning. This government superintended by Buhari is allegedly a government of blood, a government that is clearly out to pursue an agenda that is anti-people. This is the truth staring us in the face, anything otherwise is wicked pretences.
The only people that are rejoicing under the government of Muhammadu Buhari are his Fulani kinsmen who he is out to pursue their agenda. He has gone about this with brazen impunity. One thing that is clear as many Nigerians have observed and said is that Fulani led by the president is out on a mission of conquest.
Many a times they have said it directly or indirectly, both in secret and openly that Nigeria belongs to them and nobody will stop them from their mission to take over all parts of the country. Nigerians have been shouting on how their president has become a sectional leader who is only interested in the welfare of his section.
With all the killings masterminded by Fulani herdsmen or jihadists as they are currently being referred to, the president has not for once taking any serious action that has yielded any tangible result. Most times his statements over the incidents of bloodshed by his kinsmen have been vague and hopeless. He trivializes the issues and always uses “farmers-herders clashes” to give soft landing to terrorists who are clearly on a mission of ethnic cleansing in most places they have visited.
In the face of the escalated security situation in the country recently, the president remained silent for quite long, until he was prodded by Nigerians to speak. However, Nigerians who were prodding him to speak up apparently forgot that each time the president is persuaded to address the nation over some boiling issues, he had always disappointed majority of Nigerians with his speech which always pleases a few people among his religious group, ethnic nationality and cronies while leaving the majority bemused, downcast.
His speeches on such occasions have always messaged the ego of his marauding brothers giving them impetus to carry on with their nefarious activities. Observant Nigerians recall that during the early stages of his administration, when the president was battling for his life with protracted illness, staying away for months on medical trips abroad, each time he travelled, the country always witnessed peace and stability. During such times, the killings by the so called Fulani herdsmen stopped or at least reduced drastically.
A businessman in Aba, Abia State, Mr. Peter Ogeke, speaking about the problems of Nigeria said, “Do we need a soothsayer to tell us that Buhari and his clique of cabals are the problems of Nigeria. Nigerians know the truth, but prefer to paint the issue. Thank God for some vocal voices who have tried their little best to speak truth to power, but each time they did, the president unleashes his retinue of attack dogs on them. The attack dogs resort to threatening them with everything they hold dearly.
He recalled the incident during one of the president’s medical trip when the vice president stepped in to douse tension in the land and addressing some issues of lawlessness, including removing the Director of the Department of Security Services (DSS) who unleashed his men to lay siege on the national assembly in an apparent attempt to undemocratically change leadership of the legislative arm of government or cage that arm of government.
“Also at the absence of the president, the vice president did the needful by confirming the Chief Judge of the federation Walter Onoghen, a Southerner who Buhari refused to confirm as substantive Chief Judge. These were highly contentious issues at that point which were threatening the peace of the country. The actions of the vice president doused the tension and created room for an ambience of peace which pervaded the atmosphere and created room peace at every corner of the country, engendering economic prosperity.
But lo and behold, the president when he came back showed apparent disdain for the actions of his vice. It was not long before he reversed the actions and returned the country to square one. He even went to the level of sponsoring a “judicial cue, whereby the then Chief Judge, Onoghen was brazenly removed with some flimsy and apparently cooked up corruption allegations.
In a recent interaction, Chief Innocent Ashamole, a community leader in Imo State listed some uncomplimentary and tribalistic comments of the president as follows; the president was quoted to have said sometime at the early stages of his administration that if situation calls for it, he will still take up arms against people of the South East to defend the indivisibility of the country.
Before then he had said something he will not take the positions meant for those who gave him 90 percent vote and give it to those who did not vote for him. Again in recent pronouncement, while speaking about the agitations for secession in the South East and other regions, the president reaffirmed his earlier position when he said those of them who witnessed the first civil war will teach all those misbehaving now the lesson they will never forget.
He warned that rude shock awaits those unpatriotic elements promoting insurrection and burning critical national assets across the country
He said, “Whoever wants the destruction of the system will soon have the shock of their lives. We’ve given them enough time. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will teach them in the language they understand. We are going to be very hard sooner than later.”
According to Ashamole, the president also made vain effort to exonerate his kinsmen of all the terrorist actions they have been carrying out in the country by saying Nigerian Fulani herdsmen do not carry AK-47 riffle, but rather carry sticks. He made bold to say that the herdsmen carrying AK-47 and killing Nigerians are foreigners.
Ashamole pointed out that T this singular statement once again brought the office of the Nigerian president to international ridicule.
“People now question whether the Nigerian president knows that one of his core mandate is to protect his countrymen from any external aggression, failure of which is an impeachable offence.
Meanwhile, the most current controversial and unguarded utterance of the president is when he described the Igbo as a dot in the circle. The president had during an interview with Arise TV on Thursday said that the, ‘”IPOB is just like a dot in a circle. Even if they want to exit, they will have no access to anywhere.
“And the way they are spread all over the country, having businesses and property, I don’t think IPOB knows what they are talking about. In any case, we say we’ll talk to them in the language that they understand. We’ll organize the police and the military to pursue them.”
Meanwhile reactions have continued to trail the president’s utterances:
Afenifere, the apex socio-cultural organisation in the South West, berated President for the comment which it said was against the Igbo nation. Afenifere noted that the President takes delight in ridiculing Ndigbo which he used IPOB to represent.
In a recent programme with Channels Television on Monday night, and apparently reacting to the stand of Buhari against the ban on open grazing by Southern governors, Governor of Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State, stated that the people of Ebonyi have no land to give out for open grazing or cattle ranching
Umahi stated that while the states in the southeast have banned open grazing, it is not within the powers of the governors to do otherwise because the decision is about the people. According to him, whatever position the people take in this regard, that is what the governors will follow. He said that no land is not owned by an individual or a corporate body.
Chairman of the Southwest Governors’ Forum and Ondo State Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, had earlier cautioned the Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity to the President, Garba Shehu, to desist from comments that can plunge the country into anarchy.
Akeredolu insisted that Shehu, who derided the resolutions of 17 Southern governors meeting in Asaba had no right to speak for President Muhammadu Buhari and the Presidency on the farmers/herders’ clashes.
