By SKC Ogbonnia
\nDecember 30, 2019<\/p>\n
Once a dictator, as a military Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari sought
\ndemocratic power, preaching change; and we embraced him, believing that
\nnothing could be worse than the regime of Goodluck Jonathan. But we are
\nfinding out the hard way: the obvious change the Nigerian people have
\nseen since Buhari came back to power is a change to a \u201cnext level\u201d
\nof dictatorship that is wildly uncouth and acutely primitive to relate
\nto the genius of changing times and its digital age.<\/p>\n
Buhari\u2019s freefall, or rather his renewed dictatorship, is traced
\nsquarely to the time he disavowed his oath of office by deploying the
\nworst form of political vendetta against the Eastern Nigeria for the
\nsimple reason that the people voted en masse for their native son in
\n2015 elections, similar to the electoral gesture accorded to Buhari
\nhimself by his native North in 2003, 2007,\u00a0 2011, 2015, and 2019
\nelectoral cycles. This apparent warpath heightened a call for secession
\nand the tacit support given by the East to the Indigenous Peoples of
\nBiafra (IPOB) led by Nnamdi Kanu. After all, different forms of Biafran
\nmovement had existed in every administration in the current Fourth
\nRepublic, from Obasanjo, Yar\u2019Adua, to Jonathan.<\/p>\n
Instead of dialogue, as accorded other dissident groups, including even
\nthe Boko Haram, Buhari isolated the crisis as an Igbo palaver and thence
\npounced on the IPOB with brute force. I quickly admonished the President
\nthat his move was \u201cnothing but a scheme to rekindle the zeitgeist of
\nthe Biafran war\u2014hoping to regain his waning popularity within our
\nparty and the nation at large.\u201d There I reminded him that the Nigeria
\nof 1967 is not the Nigeria of today.<\/p>\n
Yet, General Buhari did not listen. Rather, he declared the Biafran
\nactivists as terrorists. It is worth saying, however, that while the
\npresident was busy \u201ccrushing\u201d the Biafran activists with land army,
\nhe gleefully condoned the deadly Fulani Herdsmen, an organization
\nrecognized worldwide as a terrorist group since 2014.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take long before a legion of Nigerians in the Diaspora, some
\nof who may not necessarily subscribe to the style or visions of IPOB but
\nare conscious of the scale of injustice in the homeland, were provoked
\nto unleash a worldwide campaign that sufficiently painted Buhari as a
\ndictator and bigot. And the world took note! The toll of the IPOB crisis
\non national economy, particularly with foreign investment, is well
\nchronicled.<\/p>\n
Upon his being sworn in for the second term, I followed with an innocent
\npiece: \u201cSecond Term: A Leadership Lesson Buhari Must Learn\u201d. Here is
\nan excerpt:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe days are gone when the Nigerian government can preach justice
\nabroad, while promoting injustice at home. The inconvenient truth is
\nthat the country now boasts of millions of independent ambassadors,
\nstrategically entrenched in all the nooks and crannies of the world, who
\ntell it as it is. Some of these Diaspora Nigerians have also become
\nBiblical Josephs of sort and thus play influential roles in the
\nnation\u2019s foreign exchange, foreign trade, foreign investment, the
\nmedia, as well as other socio-economic relationships. Needless to remind
\nus that the same Josephs are the leading block contributors to the
\nyearly amount of foreign money remitted to Nigeria, which is ironically
\nmore than the national budget. As they go, so goes the national image
\nand much more.\u201d<\/p>\n
But an Igbo adage goes that the sickness that typically kills a dog
\nhardly allows it to perceive the odour of faeces. Thus, the biggest news
\nout of Nigeria since Buhari assumed second term has been the morbid
\naudacity to frame and detain Omoyele Sowore, a renowned anti-corruption
\nand human rights activist, journalist, and his opponent in the 2019
\npresidential election. Sowore\u2019s sin remains the term
\n#RevolutionNow\u201d, a mere plan to protest against bad governance in his
\nhomeland. But the Buhari regime would charge him for treasonable felony.<\/p>\n
I warned of the consequences, noting that \u201cOnly a poon ignores the
\npotential of the heavily funded but regional IPOB, with a worldwide
\nmembership, fusing with a broad-based national outfit like
\n#RevolutionNow\u201d The president countered with a mundane temerity of
\ndeploying the trio of Ministry of Information, Ministry of External
\nAffairs, and the Nigerian Diaspora Commission to peddle false
\ninformation on Sowore to the international community. Not surprisingly,
\nBuhari could not recognize that, besides the Nigerians in the Diaspora
\nand social media; the ever-vibrant Nigerian press and the core of the
\nNigerian Civil Society now have global reach.<\/p>\n
Today, Nnamdi Kanu, the \u201cterrorist\u201d, is celebrated in the
\ninternational community as a paragon of justice. Today, Omoyele Sowore,
\nthe \u201ccoupist\u201d, is seen worldwide as a mystical mixture of
\nconviction, courage, and stoicism in the course of the Nigerian
\nliberation. Today, the General and his brigade are on the run, with
\nBuhari once again widely viewed as a maximum dictator and the most
\nlawless leader Nigeria has ever known. The stubborn tsetse fly, we say,
\nfollows the corpse to the grave.<\/p>\n
SKC Ogbonnia, a 2019 APC presidential aspirant, is the author of the
\nEffective Leadership Formula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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