By Ikeogu Oke
\nikeogu.oke@gmail.com<\/p>\n
Femi Adesina\u2019s paean for retired General Muhammadu Buhari, titled \u201cBuhari and 2015\u201d (Daily Sun, July 6, 2012, back page), made an engaging read. Hardly does one find a columnist of Adesina\u2019s high standing embarking on such an unrestrained praise of a controversial figure known to evoke extreme and contradictory passions from his admirers and critics, like Buhari. And among his critics is one of the most credible moral voices of our time, the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.<\/p>\n
Soyinka\u2019s \u201cThe Crimes of Buhari,\u201d published by Sahara Reporters on January 15, 2007, is recommended reading for anyone who wishes to balance Adesina\u2019s laudation of Buhari with an informed, unsentimental assessment of the man, one of whose transgressions in power \u2013 the wilful spilling of what technically would pass for innocent blood \u2013 should, I think, be indelible from the mind of every true humanist as from our history, despite our being prone as a people to the affliction that Soyinka also has diagnosed as \u201ccollective amnesia,\u201d a sort of Alzheimer\u2019s syndrome that manifests on a national scale, and erodes historical memory.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026we should not commit the error of opening the political space to any alternative whose curative touch to national afflictions has proven more deadly than the disease,\u201d Soyinka warns with a telling allusiveness in \u201cThe Crimes of Buhari.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, it is not hard to discern why Adesina writes so passionately in favour of Buhari, not when you think of the import of his declaring himself a \u201cBuhari forever\u201d loyalist, adding that he will \u201cfollow him into battle, even blindfolded.\u201d Buhari is a charismatic figure, which explains why those who love him do so with the type of uncritical mind-set implied in these quoted phrases. But one of the snags of abandoning ourselves completely to the force of anyone\u2019s charisma is that it soon begins to pull us in spite of our mind.<\/p>\n
And so we may not understand that going into battle for our idol, blindfolded, exposes us to the risk of killing people inappropriately, including defenceless women and children, since \u2013 thanks to our blindfold \u2013 we cannot differentiate between the enemy and such hapless casualties of war; and certainly like the three men executed under a retroactive decree by the Buhari regime, if we would permit a different take on Adesina\u2019s tropes. Even such an idol should worry for his safety when we follow him to battle blindfolded, since one of our \u201cblindfolded\u201d weapons might mistakenly strike him. And one of the shots Adesina fires in his piece turns out to be in disfavour of Buhari.<\/p>\n
For instance, when he says of Buhari: \u201cImagine a former military governor, a former oil minister, a former head of state, and a former chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund, yet he can\u2019t fund his campaign because there\u2019s no money.\u201d Whatever this statement was meant to achieve, it also doubles as an unintended invitation to reassess Buhari\u2019s blame of his poor electoral misfortunes on rigging, which one admits is a lingering worry with our polity. Yet it would make sense to ponder, following Adesina\u2019s hint, if Buhari loses elections because he is \u201crigged out\u201d or because he lacks the financial resources to run a proper electoral campaign that can produce victory.<\/p>\n
Even Barrack Obama apparently understood that money plays a pivotal role in electoral success, and so had to raise more funds for the Democratic Party campaign than his main rival, Hilary Clinton, to clinch the party\u2019s ticket, and proceeded to win the US presidential polls. So if \u201cthere\u2019s no money\u201d for Buhari to fund his campaign and yet he complains when his poorly funded or unfunded campaign fails to produce electoral success, is it not as unrealistic as a farmer lacking the resources to properly cultivate\/manage his farm and yet is unable to understand why he ends up with a lean harvest \u2013 of crops or votes?<\/p>\n
I admired the zeal with which Buhari embarked on his moral reform of our country as Head of State. But executing three men \u2013 Bartholomew Owoh (26), Lawal Ojulope (30), and Bernard Ogedengbe (29) \u2013 under a retroactive decree as an expression of that zeal continues to haunt me as an unpardonable act of murderous highhandedness. And I remember expressing a similar view in my reader\u2019s response published in Newswatch magazine circa 1985, after that painful \u2013 and unjustifiable \u2013 execution.<\/p>\n
Curiously, the Buhari advocacy continues to beat its chest for the supreme moralist credentials of its inspirer and beneficiary, and his being a disciplined\/disciplinarian leader.\u00a0 Yet it was during his War Against Indiscipline that fifty-three suitcases passed with undeclared content through our nation\u2019s major airport to no consequence in spite of media outrage against the brazen indiscipline of it! And did he show good example as \u201can icon of discipline\u201d by ignoring the invitation to appear before the Oputa Panel? And why did he refuse to appear? For fear of confronting truths that might justly tarnish his moralist iconography?<\/p>\n
It is actually a sign of moral weakness when a leader ignores the transgressions of the strong and punishes those of the weak. And such weakness was evident from the episodes of the fifty-three suitcases, considering the status of their owner, and the three men the Buhari regime executed under a retroactive decree.\u00a0 Great moral beings confront forces greater than themselves without undue compromise, and ennoble our common humanity through their triumphs, as Mahatma Gandhi confronted British colonial rule, as Martin Luther King Jr. battled racial segregation, and as Nelson Mandela fought Apartheid. Buhari\u2019s implied threat to resort to bloodshed as a solution to vote rigging will further bestialise our humanity, like his metaphor of the \u201cmonkey and baboon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, those who advocate the shedding of blood as a \u201csolution\u201d to any socio-political problem, suggesting what little regard they have for human life, do not usually contemplate their own blood or the blood of their loved ones being part of the grisly pool. Sacrifice for nation building becomes tantamount to drenching their road to power with the blood their fellow beings.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach time a bomb explodes, I ask myself what Buhari would have done,\u201d writes Adesina. I am persuaded that Buhari\u2019s reaction would depend on whether the responsibility for the bombing is traced to a \u201cmonkey\u201d or a \u201cbaboon,\u201d in which case he would ignore it like the fifty-three suitcases or punish the culprit \u2013 a la Bartholomew Owoh and co \u2013 if the culprit turns out not to be one of his favourites among the rich and powerful. Nor do I think what he might do in future should be as important as what he should now \u2013 openly condemn the senseless bombings and their death toll on the innocent, as expected of any genuine patriot, leader or statesman.<\/p>\n
Jonathan\u2019s performance, which Adesina compares unfavourably with how things might have been under a Buhari presidency, will not be judged fairly outside the context of the distraction of the mindless bombings and other forms of contrived violence that have intensified in our country since he took office. That peace and stability are necessary for progress in any nation is clear from what the Bible records of the reigns of kings David and Solomon. Those who won\u2019t give their leaders peace and expect them to give them prosperity \u2013 a fruit of peace \u2013 may need to reassess their ways and expectations even as they righty call on such leaders to rise to the occasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Ikeogu Oke ikeogu.oke@gmail.com Femi Adesina\u2019s paean for retired General Muhammadu Buhari, titled \u201cBuhari and 2015\u201d (Daily Sun, July 6, 2012, back page), made an engaging read. Hardly does one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n