Buhari thinks that the implementation of sharia in Nigeria is “a legal responsibility which God has given us [Muslims leaders] within the context of one Nigeria to continue to uphold the practice of Sharia wholeheartedly and to educate non-Muslims.” For 12 years the fight to take over the presidency of Nigeria became a do-or-die affair for Buhari because “what remains for Muslims in Nigeria [to do] is for them to redouble their efforts [and] educate Muslims on the need to promote the full implementation of sharia law” (this and the one above are quoted from Buhari’s address in an Islamic seminar in Kaduna in 2012)(Muhammadu Buhari)
Nigeria that is sustained by slogans and propaganda
Over the years the Nigerian state has been sustained by propaganda and slogan-mongering political gladiators. Many critics believe that as a result of this trying to run a country’s government based on political sloganeering and gimmicks is largely responsible for the lack of any concrete political or sociological achievement in Nigeria since its independence from colonial Britain in 1960. The only visible real developments are usually those told by some unscrupulous international media people who many critics accuse are paid off by the northern Muslim oligarchs to doctor facts and paint hollow fantastic pictures of a “united Nigeria” that is not.
During the presidential campaign Buhari ran on the platform of a tough
ruler who would stamp out corruption from the political and social life of the
country, instil discipline and provide security for the lives and property of
the populace. To successfully rout his predecessor in office, with the lobbied
influence of some international politicians, Buhari’s team imputed on his
opponent the unfounded image of “cluelessness and incompetence”. The slogan
stuck and as a purpose-oriented political campaign creation, it served the
purpose for which it was manufactured: to impugn and make the opponent appear
incapable for the job. And with the deft use of these political gimmicks they
successfully deflected the people’s attention from the fact that the
“ungovernable political situation” in the country was created in the first
place by the same creators of the “clueless” slogan. In 2011 when Buhari lost
the presidency to Jonathan, record shows that he instigated so much
post-election violence in which many Igbo people in the north were killed
because the Muslim mob felt that the Igbo represented Christians of whom
Jonathan is a part.
Creating ungovernable state through use
of Boko Haram
Earlier, during the political parties’ primaries and nomination
campaigns for the 2011 elections, an important northern politician Lawan Kaita
made it very clear that it was either a northerner emerged as president in 2011
or the north would make the country “ungovernable” for President Goodluck
Jonathan if he emerged the winner of the 2011 election. Lawan Kaita said in an
interview that: “Anything short of a northern president is tantamount to
stealing our presidency. Jonathan has to go and he will go. Even if he uses
incumbency power to get his nomination on the platform of the PDP, he will be
frustrated out”. In conclusion to his threat Kaita said that the “North
should not be blamed for the calamity that would befall Nigeria if Jonathan
emerged as the president” (http://newsrescue.com/pdp-affair-revealed-man-promised-make-nigeria-ungovernable-jonathan-wins/#ixzz3cKG9TJQL).
Buhari on his own part never regretted the loss
of lives that took place in the 2011 post-election violence. Rather in an
interview when he was talking about the 2015 presidential election he declared
very emphatically that “If what happened in 2011 [alleged rigging] should again
happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked
in blood’’ (http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/05/2015-ll-be-bloody-if-buhari/#sthash.unBxZDmH.dpuf).
Of course Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group based in northeast
Nigeria intensified its activities soon after Jonathan emerged the winner of
the presidential election in 2011. Not surprisingly north politicians defended
Boko Haram’s killings, burning Christian churches, conquering territories and
declaring the conquered places sharia-compliant and the capturing of mostly
Christian girls and women, selling them into slavery as well as using others as
suicide bombers thus: “Boko Haram is fighting for justice. Boko Haram is
another name for justice” (Bamanga Tukur a prominent north politician quoted by
Nigerian Punch, May 16, 2012).
Innocent people falling prey to fanciful but
deadly slogans
In the 2015 elections, Buhari’s team successfully pulled off its
sloganeering stunt with the help of (as rumour has it) such formidable
political campaign managers like David Axelrod from the United States. The
intensity of the sloganeering campaign would become so severe that even the
President of the United States of America Barack Obama got carried away by the
effusive political gimmickry. Unfortunately on his own part President Obama
would be deceived into using the wrong slogan – a Nigerian genocidal slogan. On
March 23, 2015, in his goodwill message to Nigerians about the need to conduct
a peaceful election Obama used a phrase in what appears to be an honest faux
pas?: “To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done”!
The president of the United States failed to check up on the origin of
that slogan before using it in his otherwise innocent speech. The slogan
originated in 1967 during the Biafra-Nigeria war when the Nigerian state
carried out a genocidal campaign against the Igbo population of the country. In
the process of that campaign and with the use of that slogan, Nigeria
successfully exterminated 3.1 million of Igbo people and others who made up
Biafra which had seceded from the country. “To keep Nigeria one is a task that
must be done” is a genocidal cry that goaded Nigeria on till they murdered more
than 3 million people. For this reason therefore no decent leader anywhere
should ever use it in the context that Obama did. All Igbo people and other
Biafrans abhor that slogan since it reminds them of Nigeria’s unrepentant
genocide of them.
Buhari “to end” corruption in Nigeria
Let’s quickly look closely at Buhari’s declared intention to end
corruption in Nigeria. At this point we need to remind readers that most
Nigerian experts regard Sani Abacha, a former Nigerian Head of State as one of
the most corrupt leaders that Nigeria has ever had. Yet it’s on record that
Buhari served under Abacha’s administration with a portfolio that held billions
of dollars in it budget. Buhari was the head of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF)
under Abacha’s regime. Probably because he was anxious to defend his former
boss or that he was actually speaking sincerely, Buhari jointly defended
Abacha’s regime with his close military comrade Abdulsalami Abubakar by
declaring that “Abacha served Nigeria well” (The Guardian, Lagos, June 9, 2008). According to the report the two
men made the statement in support of Abacha’s widow Miryam Abacha who
complained that “there was no basis for accusing her husband of corruption”, In
the report Buhari personally went further to say that “all the allegations
levelled against the personality of the late Sani Abacha will remain
allegations”. Furthermore, and in Buhari’s opinion, because “it is 10 years now
[since Abacha’s death] things should be over by now”. So there you have it: Buhari,
Nigeria’s corruption general who is leading, as the new slogan says, the “war
against corruption”, advises Nigerians to just move on and away from talking
about Abacha’s corrupt practices since “patience and time” of ten years should
be enough to create the necessary collective amnesia.
Dictatorial & genocidal tendencies of
excessive use of slogans and propaganda in running governments
What caught my attention is the slogan that Sanders used in her article
“The Buhari Doctrine”. Here we are talking about the dangers that are inherent
in maliciously trying to create political cult figures and the manufacturing of
high sounding political slogans and propaganda designed to distract the people
from critically appraising their leaders and their performances in governance.
This writer has wondered without coming up with any satisfactory answers as to
why Sanders chose to undertake this thankless task of making a
mountain out of a molehill about the new regime in Nigeria. May be she will
need to stop and think for a while and remember that a people’s life and
destiny depend on this path and it would be more sensible for her to tread with
caution.
History teaches us as earlier said that running governments that are
based on the pathological indiscriminate application of flatulent slogans and
propaganda will always drive these pathetic political cult personalities that
are so created into frenzies as they are pushed along this dangerous path. In
most cases it drives these sick personalities to self-destruction and in the
process they drag along the state which they oversee into the abyss as they
begin to commit genocides against a section, sections or the entire population
of their ill-fated country.
Examples abound here. We have already mentioned the Nigerian wartime
slogan which the country used to kill 3 million Igbo people and the other
Biafrans: “to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done” (conspicuously,
Buhari was part of that Nigerian genocidal squad that murdered the Igbo in during
this genocide). The Armenian, the Greek and the other genocides committed by
the dying Turkish Ottoman Empire in 1915 were also committed on slogans by the “Young
Turks” who wanted to “Turkify” the Ottoman Empire by eliminating Christian
Armenians, Greeks and others. The Three Pashas as the “Young Turks” were also
called also had another slogan that sounds familiar: “Committee of Unity and
Progress”. With these slogans the “Young Turks” exterminated 1.5 million
Christian Armenians in order to cleanse
the Islamic Ottoman Empire of “non-believers”. In the same way it seems people
everywhere, starting from President Obama to Ambassador Sanders and of course
Nigerian north leaders are talking about a baseless “unity and progress” of
Nigeria. We are also reminded of Hitler’s slogan of the “final solution to the
Jewish question”. With that slogan the Nazis killed 6 million Jews in what is
today known as the Jewish Shoah or Holocaust. The Roma people and
several others were also killed along the Jews.
In her article Sanders created a Buhari who would do no wrong, has all
the answers, and who only needs “patience and time” and he would “fix” all of
Nigeria’s problems. She also has an “interesting take-away” which is that “the
inaugural activities . . . reflected the diversity of Nigeria”. And that “they
were inclusive”. In this respect, Sanders could not have “taken away” a more
deceptive “truth” than that. The truth however is that going by Buhari’s
antecedents this writer and many other concerned individuals doubt very much
Buhari’s ability to tackle successfully Nigeria’s problem.
Just for emphasis alone, we must remind the readers of the fact that
Buhari was a visible part of Nigeria’s genocidal squad that murdered the 3
million Igbo people and the others in Biafra. And for this reason Sanders may
need to be reminded that when she talks about “inclusiveness” that 98% Igbo
people and the other people from the geographical stretch of the east region never voted for Buhari and they have
expressly made it clear that they are
very proud of that collective choice to reject Buhari for being a part of the
team that murdered them. Additionally, and very important to note by anyone
who cares: since the 29th of May, 1966, which is the official date marking the
beginning of Igbo Genocide in Nigeria, Igbo people rejected forever Nigeria’s
citizenship, its Buharis, and all others like him and that it’s only “patience
and time” and hard work which the Igbo require and they will become free and
independent of the Nigerian state forever.
******Osita Ebiem is the author of Nigeria,
Biafra & Boko Haram: Ending the Genocides through Multi-State Solution
(New York: Page Publishing, 2014)
(Tina Brooks Quintet, “Back to the tracks” [personnel: Brooks, tenor saxophone; Blue Mitchell, trumpet; Kenny Drew, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, US, 20 October 1960])
Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe
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