Fear, Insecurity Rules Buhari's Government, Says Basil Okoh
Francis Tayor
Fear and a deep sense of insecurity is driving the pronouncements and actions of the Muhammadu Buhari Government.
It is becoming increasingly amazing how arbitrarily key personnel and spokesmen of Government respond to these fears that keen observers interpret to arise from a perceived feeling of illegitimacy. This inner sense of insecurity and fear ruling the Givernment is believed to be obviously linked to the emerging truths emanating from the electoral tribunal.
Muhammadu Buhari's much vaunted integrity has been taken to the cleaners and the dirt and stench has polluted the entire nation. Does anyone know of any world leader whose educational certificates has been so shamelessly assailed as Muhammadu Buhari's WASCE certificate?
We all know that the former president of South Africa Jacob Zuma never had a formal education but he didn’t present forged certificates to the electorate of South Africa to prove his worthiness. He presented himself as a self educated man and he won on his integrity and remarkably proved himself afterwards.
Does anyone know of any other public officer anywhere but Nigeria who would remain in public office after all the bludgeoning of his integrity on the forged certificates saga as Buhari has received?
Arising from all these, Buhari's Government no longer has the confidence and self assurance to take bold actions needed to rule a progressive nation, no matter what bold front they present to the public. Government is now ruled by fear and self doubt.
This pervading fear is arising from a deep sense of unpopularity, infamy and insecurity which leads to an enveloping sense of vulnerability. It is this feeling of vulnerability and insecurity that is guiding the Government’s every action and responses to perceived threats.
There is now the pervasive feeling that Buhari didn’t have the basic qualification to stand for President and didn’t win the presidency through a fair ballot. The key personnel in his Government know it and are ashamed of the loss of the high ground once associated with Buhari's integrity. They are also afraid of possible consequences and fallouts from a pre-bended ballot.
Anyone watching the management of the recent Shia uprising will be surprised at the speed Government compromised the leaders of the Shia Movement and promptly agreed to court ruling granting the application of the Shia leader el Zakhzaky an overseas treatment for wounds sustained in the attack on his home since 2015. Government had refused him the same request for four years.
This for a man who has been under detention, granted bail by the courts numerous times but refused freedom by Government for all of four years. The rallies and solidarity actions across the world, London, Canada, Australia, Iran, United States, even Syria and Palestine for the Shia in Nigeria has shown that el Zakhzaky and the Shia in Nigeria are no longer walking alone. And Buhari is afraid.
It is therefore obvious that Government panicked and just acted out fear of the looming uprising and possible mayhem and damage that the Shia would cause in the entire North and the damaging support it will garner across the world.
In the same week, word came from the Army high command of the conviction by a military court of 54 SOLDIERS for the offence of “cowardice” and disobedience of a valid order to “engage the enemy” (in this case BOKO HARAM). The penalty for all as spelt out by the report will be death by execution.
You wonder which other army in the world will choose to execute by firing squad, three platoons of it’s own soldiers for the offence of cowardice, without asking questions of itself. This is happening in an army where soldiers and officers in videos and reports complain bitterly of a sorry lack of weapons and ammo to engage the enemy, where in Metele in 2018, more than 100 soldiers were reportedly killed in a single attack by a rag tag force.
How will other soldiers seeing their own comrades-in-arms die by firing squad be motivated to continue the fight against the enemy?
Still in the same week, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), one of the world’s most respected newspapers, never given to sensationalism, reported that the Nigerian Army was keeping a Cemetry near Maiduguri where it secretly, at night, bury over a thousand soldiers killed in the War in the North East. Soldiers whose deaths are never reported or recorded. People have gone ahead to speculate that these unreported deaths are of soldiers of a certain faith and from a certain part of the country. The army has made a denial of this grim report.
Fear is also ruling the actions of Government as it contemplates and take unsure steps on Cattle Colonies, RUGA, River Banks or in whatever names they come. Government is tentative and fearful of the political and security consequences of it’s actions. Government withdraws its propositions when it faces opposition and goes back to find another name, another cover for it’s diabolic call.
A Government ruled by fear can never achieve and is eventually taken hostage by it's principal officers to feed their greed. These officers play on the fear of the principal and manipulate him to grab more power and money for themselves. Remember al-Mustapha and General Sanni Abacha? At a time, Abacha became a prisoner to Mustapha and was quarantined and rendered completely out of reach and out of relevance in Aso Villa. And so he had to keep himself busy with Indian Prostitutes.
Anytime you see Governments detaining and jailing people arbitrarily, it is acting out of fear. Fear of the consequences of the illegalities it commits. Fear of the people’s challenge to its unpopularity. Fear. Fear. Fear. Insecure Governments grow into dictatorships and dictators are the most insecure leaders.
The illiteracy and lack of competence of key Government personnel, operators and drivers results in incoherence and bad policies, lack of planning, knee jerk implementation of badly formulated policies, grandstanding, and stupendous costs attached to governance.
The Goodluck Jonathan Government stared down and lived through the November 2014 , “revolution” conducted in Ojota Park and Abuja without arresting a straggling SOWORE, Tinubu, Soyinka, Pat Utomi or Nasir El Rufa'I who were all jostling for space and prominence with Muhammadu Buhari during the “Ojota Park Revolution”.
The revolution was to become the biggest political con game that brought Muhammadu Buhari to power. Now his fellow conspirators and “co-revolutionaries” have become enemies and big threats to his regime of forgeries, fear and incompetence. It is true after all that “revolutions have a way of eating up their own kind”, a la Stalin eating up Trotsky.
