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BY TAYO DEMOLA
The situation Nigerians have found themselves now is not what they expected
from the Buhari government. The situation of things in Nigeria presently is
still shocking to many Nigerians and a mystery to all those who unanimously
gave their unalloyed support to Buhari in order to make him president with
the expectation that he would turn Nigeria around for the better but what
has Buhari done today? He has simply made Nigeria worse than he met it and
ended up turning the country into a banana republic where laws and court
orders are flagrantly disobeyed with impunity and ended up impoverishing
the life of an average Nigerian.
I know quite alright that many newspapers and media outfits would never
publish this type of article because it is very clear that many media
organizations have been compromised in Nigeria. The media has been gagged
by the Buhari government. The media has been caged and boxed to a corner
where they are now afraid of what the government will do to them and their
outfits and so they refrain from anything that will antagonize the
government. But for how long are we going to continue to fold our hands and
watch while an incompetent government keeps toiling with the lives of the
Nigerian people and generations yet unborn? Remember that this is a
government that told us to choose between cattle colony or death and wants
to compel us to lose our ancestral heritage to the fulani herds men cattle
ranching ideology.
But for how long are we going to continue to be intimidated and harassed
into silence by an autocratic government that takes the people for granted
and continues to inflict pains, sorrow and suffering on the citizens of
Nigeria? For how long are we going to continue to watch while our people
are slaughtered in broad daylight by some marauders and sacred cows with
tacit endorsement from a government that swore to a constitutional oath to
protect the citizens of Nigeria but failed to do so?
For how long are we going to continue to fear the unknown and be
intimidated by this government? It seems Nigerians have now been bullied to
resign to their fate and watch helplessly while the Buhari government keeps
perpetrating all sorts of injustice, constitutional breaches and impunity
without being answerable to the Nigerian people. Remember that Gani
Fawehinmi and Fela both of blessed memories were bullied, intimidated and
harassed for standing up for the people and for saying the truth to the
government, yet they never gave up and were never deterred irrespective of
all attempts by the government and their obnoxious collaborators to silence
them from saying the truth.
We must never shy away from saying the truth irrespective of whose ox is
gored or else Nigeria will never make any headway with all these numerous
challenges confronting the nation. The Nigerian people must stand up and
fight for their rights and heritage or else the Buhari government will
annihilate the will of the people and keep them on perpetual subjugation.
It is very clear that this is an anti people government that is hell bent
on perpetrating itself in power despite its woeful performance and failure
to ameliorate the acute sufferings of the Nigerian people. But Nigerians
must resist any attempt by Buhari and his cohorts to perpetrate themselves
in office. Nigerians must join hands to send Buhari back to Daura where he
rightly belongs.
When Buhari was presented to all of us, we though that by now Nigeria would
have witnessed a drastic and positive change but the reverse is the case.
We thought that we have found a messiah who would improve the living
standards of the people but he ended up increasing the suffering of the
masses of Nigeria. It is very clear that the Buhari government is very
desperate to remain in power to continue to enslave Nigerians but all
Nigerians must resist it and ensure that we all vote out Buhari in 2019 to
avoid subjugating our future and the future of our children and generations
yet unborn.
But come to think of it. If the Buhari government can inflict so much pain,
sorrow and suffering on the masses of Nigeria in its first term in office,
imagine what Buhari will do if he eventually comes back for second term. We
can all be sure that it will be hell for the Nigerian people if Buhari is
ever allowed to come back in 2019. You can imagine what he will do if he
eventually gets a second term ticket to rule Nigeria again. We must not
allow this to happen or else Nigeria will be doomed by this incompetent,
tribalistic, desperate and autocratic leader.
The Senate President Bukola Saraki has been harassed and pushed to defect
to the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) just like many other
senators have defected from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
This is an attestation to the fact that the Buhari government has lost its
bearing not only on its own party people but also on the entire country and
this government must be shown the way out of office in 2019 because this is
not the type of government that can take Nigeria to the promised land. The
Buhari government has only ended up dragging Nigeria backwards and we don’t
yet know the serious damage this government has done to us until many years
to come before we would realize it.
But we must take action and obtain our voter’s cards and ensure that we
vote out Buhari and his cohorts on election day 2019 and we must equally
stand up and protect our votes and our future by ensuring that the election
is free and fair and not tactically rigged by this government in order to
perpetrate itself power. We must ensure that we are never swayed or
influenced by money to vote for the wrong person who will come up to sell
our future and subjugate our collective ancestral heritage and patrimony.
We must never allow this to happen. We must all stand up and fight for our
future and the future of our present and future generations and avoid any
conspiracy against our collective will. Since we trusted Buhari so much and
allowed him to rule Nigeria the second time by voting him into power in
2015 and having unrepentantly betrayed that trust we reposed in him, we
must never allow him come back to rule Nigeria the third time again because
he has shown clearly that he cannot be trusted with the destiny of
Nigerians.
If Nigerians make the mistake of electing Buhari to come back in 2019,
Nigerians will surely regret such action just as right now we keep
regretting ever voting for him in 2015. The way forward is that Nigerians
must change this government through the ballot box in 2019. What we need is
a leader who will turn Nigeria around for good. To do this, we must first
of all subject all presidential aspirants to a compulsory live debate for
every aspirant to showcase whatever they have to offer Nigerians on
national television and any aspirant who fails to honour this debate should
be disqualified from contesting.
Buhari is known to shun debates of this nature or even the usual
presidential media chat. Is this the type of leader we want? Former
president Goodluck Jonathan usually had regular media chats where he
interacted with the media and with Nigerians on various issues of national
importance but since when has Buhari ever had any such chat with the people
of Nigeria? Since when has he deemed it fit to honour Nigerians by letting
them ask him pertinent questions about the nation on live national
television? Is this the type of leader we want beyond 2019? No, this is not
the type of leader we want because Nigerians deserve a better leader who
will improve their lives and turn the nation around positively within a
reasonable period of time.
We don’t need a president who will drag us fifty years backwards like
Buhari has done to Nigeria but an action president who will solve Nigeria’s
mounting problems within a reasonably short period of time without having
to dilly dally and continuously blame past leaders for the problems for
which he was elected to fix in the first place. No, that is not the type of
leader Nigeria needs. We need not just a president who says what should be
done but someone who matches his words with action and also takes such
action at the right time when such action should be taken for the interest
of the nation. The way forward is that Nigerians should ensure that Buhari
is voted out of office so that this nation can know peace and so that we
would not mortgage our future and the future of generations yet unborn to
the cluelessness of this inept government that cannot take Nigeria
anywhere. God bless Nigeria.
By Tayo Demola
Human Rights Activist
Lagos, Nigeria
Email: tayodemola@gmail.com