Fake campaign promises and people’s apathy: final path to predictable end

Reading “Buhari In Lagos, Defends Regime's 1984 Massive Imprisonment” in THEWILL Newspaper of 06/04/2011 ( http://thewillnigeria.com/politics/8136-Buhari-Lagos-Defends-Regimes-1984-Massive-Imprisonment.html), one concludes that the audacity and sheer arrogance of Nigeria's so called leaders already known for psychiatric grandiosity can only be matched by the equally astronomically high level of apathy demonstrated by the peoples living in Nigeria.

For one, why would any sentient society allow a man to ever run for political office who has shown the most utter disregard for law and order and for elected government by abusing his station as a soldier in carrying out a military coup to sack that government in the past? But there in Nigeria, not only did Buhari take over power by the force of arms from an unarmed civilian government, he is back now bragging about his “accomplishments” therein, and confidently expecting support from the peoples living and suffering in Nigeria, to be their “elected” ruler today! If the peoples living in Nigeria have a short memory and are in coma—and they have certainly shown evidence of that—Buhari, in taking advantage of that, has definitely shown doubly that he has no honor. In the first instance, based on his rape of an elected government, he should never show his face in any democratic process and dispensation.

Bragging about his much vaunted prowess in jailing corrupt public officials, Buhari proves one thing: he does not fully understand what corruption is. How naïve of him to think it's just all about embezzled money! Corruption is also about power, and arguably, more so. Here, then, Buhari is the most corrupt: he usurped power in Nigeria. Then, he used the power—neither delegated by the peoples nor by such authorized—to do awful and criminal things: a corrupt abuse of power. Military decrees are not laws: they are orders that must be carried out on penalty of death. Buhari set about issuing his decrees and their enforcement In Nigeria between 1983 and 1985. Due process, adequate legal representation and trial, presumption of innocence until just trial and conviction, were all thrown out the window as Buhari wielded the power of life and death over each single person unfortunate enough to live in Nigeria then.

The most travesty came when Buhari issued his Military decrees and then made them retroactive. Based on such primitive and unconscionable act and display of abuse of power, Buhari had, for example, persons earlier convicted of drug offences well before his “regime terrible” locked down Nigeria, executed. There is no place in the civilized or even uncivilized world where such is allowed or can be allowed to happen in law. Whatever crimes those who were killed by Buhari's retroactive decrees were guilty of or not, what is indisputable is that this act by Buhari is in fact an act of murder by a psychopath, his almighty, Buhari: corruption with power does not get much worse than that. But, that is “law and order,” Buhari-style, unchallenged, what he would be bragging about today, while failing to understand that this is the worst type of corruption. A society is always threatened by corruption in any form, but power-corruption is invariably more frightening, more devastating and more lethal than money-corruption.

Quick to blame deservedly unpopular PDP for Nigeria's problems, Buhari never asked himself what he has done with all his “popularity” all these years to make a positive impact in the lots of peoples suffering in Nigeria. He only shows up to run for elections, by his own admission, in Nigeria (suggesting that if the industry of Military political adventurism in the form of coups d'état had not been shut down earlier, nothing could have stopped him from performing another coup to get back on Nigeria's throne). No one hears him addressing any of the multifarious crises rocking Nigeria almost daily in a responsible and objective manner, except to take a parochial stand and issue threats predicated on his strong Muslim convictions, all but forgetting that there are as many, if not more, non-Muslim unfortunate to be Nigerians. As bad as PDP is known to be, was it not Buhari and his fellow-military coupists / military rulers who already ran Nigeria into the ground, well before PDP, originally started with lofty ideals, was to be corrupted thoroughly by Nigeria?

For that matter, by 1960, Nigeria was already floundering, pointing way back to original problems which most peoples living in Nigeria don't want to face today, resulting in the current alternative that they have to deal with the likes of Buhari today running for presidency of Nigeria. Here once again, shallowness in reasoning becomes quite clear: hear Buhari say it: “We all know the problem of this country and we have known them for the past 12 years and it is only now that PDP is becoming aware of them…” No, Buhari: based on your solutions as stated by you and your actions, you really don't seem to understand the real problems of Nigeria (of which you are one, just like PDP), nor the real duration of those problems.

Then, there was the talisman-like-superstitious predictions advanced by his running mate, around the ordinal of “seventh”, spoken like a typical false prophet and truly devious diviner, designed to influence weak minds by exploiting their religious and spiritual anxieties and vulnerabilities. That's how to win an election? Nevertheless, the next most pathetic desperate promise by Buhari was to “replicate Dubai in Nigeria…” No, actually, to “make six Dubai [sic] in Nigeria.” Just what does Buhari think it takes to be a Dubai? Or, to build one, never mind, six? Since he benefits from unmerited and unearned government pay, what does he care and what does he really know about how Nigeria's so called wealth (Oil) is spent? His ongoing pay is “taken at the source”: as a former head of State, he gets pay and pension—as does his family; as a retired military officer, he gets pay and pension; as a member of Nigerian government's council of State—yes, you got it by now; all the previous heads of state, military or not, belong there—he gets more pay; and there are perks we do not even know about including things like lucrative oil blocks (remember Danjuma and Obasanjo?) (As an aside, ask yourself: why does Nigeria insist on paying coupist previous military government usurpers a huge stipend and pension as an entitlement? Does that make any sense?)

Does Buhari understand that what is not stolen by corrupt persons is locked up in such entitlement payments like he and his ilk receive as such, including the so called civil service (who serve no one but themselves), the National Assembly (who just assemble wealth unto themselves), the LGA's (another so-designed money-thieving scheme), the emirates and sultanates, the lazy States who merely duplicate the sieve and example of the so-called “federal” level? In the end, the only way “wealthy” Nigeria could even afford to, for example, conduct a census—a botched and flawed exercise at that—was to beg and accept money from the EU; otherwise, go on a borrowing spree from ever-willing IMF-lender for any simple project and thus accumulate debt with no plans to repay the debts? What kind of a “Dubai” is that? It is clear that the understanding is not there.

And what is priority: re-kindling, maintaining, improving, expanding and supporting already existing (barely; and dilapidated) and neglected universities and institutions of higher learning in Nigeria (placed in such a sad state by Buhari and cohort, followed by Obasanjo and Atiku); or building new ones as being promised by same Buhari here? Even this basic analysis seems beyond the grasp of Buhari and his handlers.

In the final analysis, Nigeria's problems are not a “Buhari-by-name problem”; because one could plug in any of the other politicians or so-called Nigerian-leaders into that equation slot, and the result will be the same. The pressing issue here is how quickly and how thoroughly Nigeria and Nigerians forget what the real problem is, or pretend to forget, allowing and accepting this kind of endless charade and show of shame, resulting in loss of hope for the restoration of already lost hope, ensuring that there is no future for the hapless peoples languishing in Nigeria.

Set yourselves free, oh peoples living in Nigeria! Shouldn't you avoid Snake Oil salesmen and their handlers? Self Determination is what you need, not faux elections. Self Determination addresses the root problem of Nigeria effectively. Nothing else does or will: you have already tried them all.

Oguchi Nkwocha, MD
Nwa Biafra
A Biafran Citizen
[email protected]