FEATURE ARTICLE

Sam C. Okudah
scokudah@optonline.net>

Muhammadu Buhari is no saint: A response to Tonye

Dear Tonye,

n choosing to exclude an important stanza of Buhari's tenure from your analysis, "Let Us Examine Buhari's Head", you did not make my day. I don't mean to suggest you had ulterior motives – your previous articles are there as a testament to your political and social orientation.

In your write-up, you stated that while Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon can be accused of heavy-handedness and iron-fisted rule, no one could accuse them of embezzlement. Those two were not as clean as you made them out to be, Tonye, and you know that.

Embezzlement is not the only yardstick for measuring a corrupt leadership. Good leadership means playing by the rule.

The first thing Buhari did on commandeering power was to build for himself a multi-million-naira presidential guesthouse in his village at Daura. This happened at the time he had suspended all contracts that had been awarded by the Shagari government and canceled the award of new ones. I do not know of any other past Nigerian ruler who built himself a presidential retreat in his village. Who do you think has been using that guesthouse since Buhari was overthrown?

During Buhari's jailing extravaganza of Second Republic politicians, it was southern politicians who were dehumanized and humiliated. If my recollection is correct, the first politician to get sentenced to about 100 years was Bisi Onabanjo, followed by perhaps Ambrose Alli, and others like Jim Nwobodo. One can only imagine how devastated those politicians and their families were at the time. Onabanjo and Alli never quite recovered from their experiences.

By the time the jailing train arrived Kaduna for the turn of the northern politicians, it had been widely expected that every one of them would go in for long prison terms. So much so that during their trials, some of them, like Sabo Bakin Zuwo of mineral water fame (the former governor of old Kano state) stated that he was waiting for his own 100 years. But that did not happen.

The point I'm trying to make here is that the trials of the northern politicians were strategically and selectively delayed so that they would not go through the same humiliations and ordeals that their southern counterparts did. One would only need to look at photographs of Jim Nwobodo taken during one of his court appearances to summarize the experiences of southern politicians. I would need someone to convince me that the order for this ethnic-preferential treatment did not come from Buhari himself.

His regime introduced the much-acclaimed War Against Indiscipline (WAI) which the masses embraced whole-heartedly, to the point that public-transport buses had small refuse baskets inside, so that passengers would not be tempted to throw things out on the road. The masses had no problem submitting themselves to the dictates of WAI, but Buhari's colleagues in power considered it beneath their offices and pride to subject themselves to the same values they were pontificating.

One of them was a major general who was the boss of DIC Kaduna at that time. This major-general could not for the pride of his rank and office entertain the idea of waiting for his turn at a commercial bank. For him WAI was decreed for “idle” civilians. Although that incidence was widely reported in the press, there was no official reaction to it. With his much-talked-about iron hands, Buhari could have made this errant major-general fall in line, but because of his Animal Farm mentality, he couldn't care less.

While his foreign exchange decree was wreaking havoc in the land, Buhari had no problem with the 53 cash-stuffed suitcases that were brought into the country by an "untouchable" Emir of Gwandu. In fact Buhari's aide-de-camp, who happened to be the son of the Emir, went to the airport to clear those suitcases himself. Today, the same ADC is sitting on that Gwandu Emirate throne, after his father died. He was later dismissed from the Army for the role he played on the 53 suitcases saga by the regime that booted Buhari out. Unfortunately, after behind-the-scenes maneuvering and military politics, the dismissal was converted to retirement with full benefits.

It was also during this foreign exchange decree period that a permanent secretary fragrantly violated the decree by having on him thousands of British pounds sterling, which he forgot and subsequently lost in a taxicab abroad. This embarrassing case was widely reported around the world, but this untouchable super-permanent secretary from the north was never prosecuted. He did not even have to resign his job.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti of blessed memory was not an untouchable, and so was not as lucky as the permanent secretary. He therefore ended up in jail for having some hard-earned foreign currencies on him.

Buhari also came up with another draconian decree that every woman who planned to go to pilgrimage to Mecca must be accompanied by a male, and that no child under the age of 16, would under any circumstance, be allowed to go to Mecca for a pilgrimage. While other Nigerian Muslims submitted themselves to the rules of that decree, Buhari's second-in-command, Idiagbon, did not hesitate to go to Mecca with his under-aged son. That trip turned out to be his last as one of the duo that ruled Nigeria with iron hands at that time.

Buhari had no respect for the extensive ethnic and religious diversity of our country and he showed it by the pattern of his appointments while in office (both he and Idiagbon were Muslims and northerners). Even now, he's an unyielding champion of sharia, a clear and present danger to Nigeria's survival as a single political entity. He had no respect for the decrees he himself imposed on the country (his administration repeatedly violated the same decrees).

He had no respect for the principle of fairness (southern politicians were selectively humiliated at his military tribunals). Even very recently, he flagrantly ignored a summons to appear before the Justice Oputa commission on human rights abuses. In other words, Buhari is no better than the other thieves and rascals who have held power in Nigeria and ruined the country over the years.

And now, this guy has the audacity to tell us he wants to be elected president. Only in Nigeria would a man like that have the guts to run for president.