Buhari's irredentism

By 

Chris Akiri

When on December 31, 1983, General Buhari, and other starry-eyed military adventurers cavalierly turned the highly corrupt government of the Second Republic adrift, the overwhelming majority of unsuspecting Nigerians, in all walks of life, vociferously hailed the new military junta which, with effect from that date (December 31, 1993), was headed by Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. Nigerians were wont to hail all military rulers until they (the military rulers) exposed the cloven hoof.

The General was careful and thrifty with laughter. A slight twitch on his rather tame whiskers (which could be variously interpreted as an indication of extreme anger or happiness) was the only sign one ever had that he was tickled pink. By the following day, January 1, 1984, it became clear who his second-in-command was. He was Brig-Gen. (later Maj.-Gen.) Tunde Idi-agbon, a man who looked daggers at both friends and foes alike. Except for his more dour lineaments, the late Tunde Idi-agbon was a dead ringer for Muhammadu Buhari.

Before long, the duo unleashed an unprecedented and incautious reign of terror on the Nigerian populace, and called it "War Against Indiscipline" (WAI). At the beginning, a sizeable crop of Nigerians thought it was the best thing that had happened to Nigeria: "Nigerians need iron hand," "the only language the average Nigerian understands is that of violence," obsequious and trusting Nigerians would chant. Encouraged by the unseemly approbation of such Nigerians, Buhari and Idi-agbon graduated from subjecting innocent people to insincere military regimentation into full-blown fascism, buoyed up by obnoxious, sadistic, and draconian decrees, usually with retrospective effect, such as the State Security (Detention of Persons) Decree No. 2 (1984), Public Officers (Protection Against False Accusation) Decree No. 4 (1984), suitable only to the lower animals in countries where there is no branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: "Stand up!" Attention!" " Sit down!" "Chest out!" "Leap-frog!" etc.

The 240-day totalitarian regime of Buhari and Idi-agbon churned out discriminatory decrees which insidiously and covertly distinguished between crimes such as currency trafficking, associated with the North, and oil bunkering and hard-drug trafficking associated with the South: the former was regarded as a peccadillo, attracting a nominal sanction of five years' imprisonment; the latter, the death penalty! A Northern Emir imported 52 suitcases of foreign currencies into Nigeria during the phony and class-prejudiced War Against Indiscipline. He was apprehended at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos, but was promptly released "on orders from above." The Emir was subsequently rewarded with the Chancellorship of a University! Nothing was heard of the Emir's offence anymore. On the other hand, the trio of Bernard Ogedegbe, Lawal Ojuolape and Bartholomew Owoh, all Southerners, allegedly committed a "Southern crime." All three of them were publicly executed and wasted at the Bar Beach. On the date of their execution, those three victims of Buhari's barely veiled anti-South tendencies broke into a song, deprecating the rank injustice done to them and invoking the powers of the Almighty God to avenge the evil perpetrated against them. God would seem to have heard their prayers, in part, a few weeks later, on August 27, 1985, when that hateful junta was sacked by yet another junta that was to lay a rather solid foundation for the destruction of Nigeria.

The late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was lucky to have "committed" a currency-trafficking-related offence, a "Northern crime," and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, thereby avoiding execution at the Bar Beach. But Nigerians are inveterate praise-singers, unblushing lick-spittles and brazen-faced grovellers. Since Nigeria achieved self-determination in 1960 to date, no Head of State in my considered opinion, with the possible exception of that compulsive Arewaphile, General Yakubu Gowon, has scored more than 15 per cent in terms of overall performance. Which is probably because the overwhelming majority of them are unblushing socialists, using religion, tribe and the North-South dichotomy as a veritable springboard to power and legitimacy. Yet, mercenary intellectuals have written praise-singing biographies of every Nigerian Head of State as if such biographies were credible substitutes for history.

In the halcyon colonial days, i.e. before the advent of the regimes of the inveterate spoilsports and the religio-political dilettantes, there was so much cordiality in the relations between the North and the South. Then came the likes of the self-styled "evil genius," Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, a Middle-Belter, who warmed himself into the good graces of the majority Hausa-Fulani kings and king-makers, by surreptitiously smuggling Nigeria into the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1986, after legitimising and consolidating his position as a military President.

Buhari's unfortunate statement, calling on all Moslems to vote Moslems, come year 2003, may come as a surprise to those who did not closely follow his military politics of discrimination when he was Head of State. If he had been allowed to stay much longer in office, he most probably would have slyly transmogrified Nigeria into an Islamic theocracy. Here is a man with at least a sound military training, a man who has had the rare privilege of serving as a Divisional Commander, a State Governor, a Minister, a Grand Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (GCFR) and a Head of State, in communities with a disparate congeries of ethnic groups and a multi religious, secular country, making a statement to slipshod, so loose-joined, so puerile, so unimaginative, at once in its ideas, its sentiments and its grasp as though it emanated from a desiccated calculating machine!

In March, 1995, Buhari joyously became the executive chairman of the Petroleum Task Fund (PTF). He conveniently forgot that petroleum is mined in the land of the "arnas," the "kafirs," who cannot and should not be Presidents of Nigeria. In his maiden statement on the inauguration of the Board of the PTF on March 21, 1995, he said, inter alia: "I have the good fortune to have received the best education and the best professional training at the expense of the Nigerian nation. I have also been privileged to have served this country at several levels up to the highest position." Continuing, the General stated: "I am a humble and simple man (indeed!) and I was brought up in the old tradition to cherish integrity..." Yet the success of the PTF came to be associated with a few geo-political zones other than those in the South or even those whose lands are daily plundered at the risk of future seismic eruptions. The General may have out-done himself, having literally come out of the little end of his own horn. But perhaps he imagined that the best way to criticise President Obasanjo ( a Christian) is to let the Moslem world known that the President's shortcoming are the direct result of his being a Christian. Only such nation-builders as Alhaji Sani Abacha and Moslem predecessors-in-office can salvage the country from its socio-economic and political labyrinth! The General's argument becomes as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death, when one takes a cursory look at the following list of our former Heads of Government: Balewa (Moslem): 1954-1966; Ironsi (Christian) (1966); Gowon (Christian): 1966-1975; Mohammed (Moslem): 1975-1976; Obasanjo (Christian): 1976-1979; Shagari (Moslem): 1979 - 1983; Buhari (Moslem): 1983-1985; Babangida (Moslem): 1985-1993; Shonekan (Christian): 1993; Abacha (Moslem): 1993-1995, and Abubakar (Moslem): 1998-1999. Of the foregoing list, Ironsi was not allowed to rule, Obasanjo was a child of circumstance, and Shonekan spent less than three months in office before the Babangida-Abacha plot was hatched! Now, let us dispassionately encircle the name(s) of the Head(s) of State who contributed to the impoverishment of this country.

Today, the country abounds in tribalists, religious bigots and fundamentalists. If people like Buhari did not ventilate their grievances the way he did, we would forever grope for the instigators of the incessant religious riots, the perennial torching of Christian churches with the concomitant killing of innocent citizens in the North. Yet our Constitution under its section 10, 38 and 42 enshrines freedom of conscience, thought and religion!

At a time when the Catholic Pontiff is going round the world, entering mosques and preaching the gospel of inter-religious harmony and global peace, some latter-day Sheikh Gumis are busy fanning the embers of tribal and religious hatred. Yet, you can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that "Nigeria must move forward." In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function; we castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. Whether or not Gen. Buhari recants in one form or the other will be of interest to no one. The harm is already done. It is axiomatic that "from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh." He should realize that pandering to religious fanaticism and irredentism, definable here as a greedy policy aimed at the imposition of socio-economic and politico-religious domination on other people against their will, in the 21st century, is antediluvian, anachronistic, damnable and enough to try the patience of job.