The way things are going on in Nigeria is totally unacceptable and unbecoming! The media anchors and advisers to Mr. President are incompetent and are not realistic. Their media statements to cancel his official engagements so far are baloney; a complete package of balderdash. Please, Mr. President Buhari is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces, the most populous black nation in Africa. We have our tentacles spread everywhere in the world. We are still a beacon of hope to African countries and the world. We are not Iraq or Afghanistan for President to cancel state itineraries for frivolous threats to national security. The sly war we have in Nigeria is a war of attrition. Period!
The media statement on the current cancellation of President’s official visit to Southeast is nonplussed and psychological, the empty and premeditated threats to his state planned visit are also psychological. This is the third times, if my memory is updated, that he would have to cancel major events that required his presence for revamping a comatose economy. In the end, it’s unjustifiable excuses that are dished out to foul our collective psyche in a wasteland.
By jettisoning his official duty with the psychological threats or war of mind; and the psychological warfare, he is helping growing the wings of terror, and creating monsters in our land. Please, the president should be presidential and call the bluff of those who are empty threats to national security. We are not asking for war on the people but war on any act of state terrorism. We are becoming a laughing stock in the international community. Enough should be Enough!
It is undoubtedly clear that President Buhari is of course, capable of handling the situation in Nigeria. Boko Haram is being crushed and the economic saboteurs are being arrested to account for their illegal wealth. But what one is miffed at is the Abuja’s stance in succumbing to EMPTY threats to performing its official responsibility. It is also frustrating to note how the legal technicality is impeding Buhari’s efforts at sanitizing the system. I bet you, nothing would have happened if security is put in place in advance of Mr. President’s official visit to any region in the country. In security parlance, there’s what we call security surveillance, counter terrorism and intelligence ( i.e. information gathering, surveillance, reconnaissance and espionage) in advance to any presidential visit to any state or country. Are we postulating that the president will avoid going to the Southeast or other hotbeds for the rest of his administration?
Because we are used to Banana republic and the dystopian ways of doing things in Nigeria, that is why the advisers of Mr. President are not advising him presumably on a matter premised on national security. Security is not convenient. It is an active intelligence that works to counter any act of terrorism or any violent protest. We all have our constitutional rights to peaceful protests but when the national security is threatened, it is the responsibility of a state to maintain law and order against perceived or real threat to national security without abdication. It is a welcome development for President to avert violence, but the watery statement of the media arm of his administration did not manage the situation adequately well. Its official statement gives leverage to his adversaries.
No one is advocating for disruption of Yuletide, but yielding to empty threats to embolden the militants is encouraging to other terrorists and it is adverse to stability and national security. Nigeria is a difficult country to administer but easy if we do the right thing. The president has good intentions for Nigeria, but he’s encumbered in a difficult terrains. His body language when he came to power was reassuring to deal with mundane problems we face. People were sitting up to do the right things! But all that is fading away now with unsustainability.
I am beginning to understand more the bluntness of Aisha Buhari in her avowed warning to her husband about the failing of the president to meet the mandate of the people. President Buhari is missing opportunity to restructure the country and it seems Baba is surrounded with opportunistic deal-makers in Abuja. He is a one-man battalion in the midst of political infantry who are self-subsumed in political opportunism. Participatory democracy seems a nonplussed and unrealistic in a country, after decades of rebirth and rebooting still grappling with her own identity. A country full of so many contradictions. Restructuring doesn’t mean disintegration. I am an advocate of unfettered unity and peaceful coexistence in any society, and my country-Nigeria is not an exception. In this 21st century, the stakeholders in Nigeria have failed Nigerians in their selfish quest and responsibilities to meet the needs of the people. Everyone is confused and it’s sad!
The emotions of the people is understandable in a nation that care less about the plights of the people. That is why I always muse over these agitators and the illusionists of the “Biafran country”. The existing status quo in the South East cannot judiciously manage the wealth accrued to it from the Federal allocations let alone taking care of the people in their geopolitical zones. If you have been to the Eastern part of the country recently, you will attest to the hobessian state of the region. Every successive government has been abysmal failure. One finds it extremely implacable how these divided youths in the Southeast will manage themselves, with obvious and gluttonous ways; and the ostentatious lifestyles among its political elites, even if the state of Biafran is realizable.
The non-correctable and the disgruntled elements in the Southeast are derailing the genius efforts of the nationalist brothers and sisters from the Southeastern part of the country. They fail to learn a reasonable lessons from the Biafran war that claimed millions of innocent lives. A people with repetitious history is doomed to repeat history. Our history is full of ugly repetitions. The Sudan massacre, the ethnic cleansing in Burma and the historic genocidal war in Rwanda are psychological burdens and the recollection of brutal history. We should avert overt and covert war in any form.
The northern part of Nigeria, and Obafemi Awolowo they’ve demonized are indeed the saviors of the Eastern people in terms of viability of their entrepreneurship in other parts of the country. Those who are not ethnic blinded are the ones not seeing anything good from Buhari’s administration, and the late Awolowo’s compendium of knowledge and wisdom to restructure Nigeria. Frankly speaking, considering the continued resentment of the Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the continued balkanization of the regional North by some people from the Southeast, the dream of any sons and daughters of this region becoming the president of Nigeria in the near future may be a mirage. I strongly stand by mutual national respect, and the equitable distribution of power and resources amongst all Nigerians. We should make it known that fairness, unity and peaceful coexistence are recipes for development in any society. We shouldn’t be insidious of the truth that nurtures our conscience.
