By Sehinde Omoniyi
It is amazing that in the build up to the 2015 general elections especially the Presidential polls, the once celebrated Nigeria human rights community with years of objective confrontation and resilient opposition to people with any form of human right abuse records, has suddenly gone to sleep over certain candidates who are vying for the exalted office of the President of this country.
Suddenly, an attempt is being made to pull a wool over the eyes of Nigerians in spite of the uncomplimentary human right records of one of the two leading presidential candidates.
Before our very eyes to the extent of ridiculing our democracy before the rest of the world, a coupist and an unrepentant hater of democratic norms is being brandished before Nigerians as an equal to great democrats from the western world. These men were not coupists.
Nigerians must not forget in haste that the current democratic dispensation came the hard way. Several Nigerians laid down their lives that we may enter this path and it will only amount to grave injustice to the memory of those martyrs for us to turn around and elect one of the major characters who truncated the second republic as President.
Clearly, General Buhari and his sponsors have not considered Nigerians of much value to warrant an open, unreserved apology for his human rights abuses between 1984 and August 1985. Instead, the campaign managers of the retired army general have elected to change his wardrobes, dress him up in suits when they know that western dress does not make the man a democrat.
The temperament of the APC Presidential candidate is irascible and he has not made a hiding of his resentment for democratic processes and institutions, and this is why it has been quite difficult for him even believe that the law courts of the land are adequate places of redress in the event of defeat at the polls.
It is for this lack of confidence in democratic institutions and its critical components of equality, justice and fairness that General Buhari after the 2011 elections vowed not to have anything to do with elections in this country, again. What prompted his change of heart?
Clearly, desperation and the illusion that the APC, an amalgam of ACN, CPC and decamped five PDP governors will guarantee his victory against the ruling PDP has forced General Buhari to swallow his pride and is once again a candidate in the 2015 elections.
From his failed attempts to this moment, it is still unclear what are the ideals upon which General Buhari is seeking to become President of a democratic Nigeria.
Ironically General Buhari is a stranger dwelling among equally strange men who are only making use of him to achieve their selfish end. On one hand, the APC leadership argue that age is critical factor in determining who leads Nigeria as it castigates old age. Buhari is 73.
These men have deceptively avoided any mention of the ageing retired general and by so doing making light his incapacity to match the challenges of managing the complexities of a 21st Century economy.
An economy that has been further complicated by dwindling oil revenue, distraction of insurgency in the north east of the country and the demands of a sophisticated population that is predominantly made up of people under the age of 35.
While the APC may not have openly admitted that these shortcomings of its presidential candidate is of any concern, the party leadership has always defended its position that its Vice Presidential candidate, a Professor of law Yemi Osinbajo is enough compensation for any shortcomings there may be of its flag bearer.
General Buhari who is ‘celebrated’ for his astute stand against corruption is obviously in collusion with these strangers each for a different reason.
Surrounded by these variegated politicians most of whom have followed him since 2003 when he began the yet to be fruitful adventure to becoming a democratic President of Nigeria, the former military head of state must be under intense pressure this time.
There is no doubt that with these pretenders surrounding him, the Katsina born General has accumulated enormous political debt that if ever he emerges President in 2015, he would have to pay back the cabal that has funded his robust campaign this far.
The loads of moral questions hanging on Buhari’s neck are enormous and the clock is ticking away for the general to make amends, but for Nigerians this is not time to follow sheepishly one of the men who desecrated democracy in 1983.
Sehinde Omoniyi is a media practitioner based in Abuja