My fear for President Muhammadu Buhari as 2019 thickens, by Bashir Adefaka

“it became so worse, that even within the government, elements that have been consistently alleged to belong to the clique of the Old Order are found and it has taken the anti-corruption President unexpected difficulty to remove them.  It would have been pretty for President Buhari to know that the person of Abba Kyari, who is his Chief of Staff, has got more than enough allegations of having partaken in the huge corruption of the past government he dislodged and thus to just allow him for the hardened Ibrahim Mustapha Magu of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to pick him up and prosecute, having been investigated and founded to have so many questions to answer.  Failure of President Buhari to allow Kyari for prosecution has been misconstrued in certain quarters to be the very interpretation of “I can work with anybody”, which therefore has rubbished the very first statement of “I belong to everybody, I belong to nobody”.  If you belong to everybody, although many Nigerians are full of mischief telling all dangerous lies against people in government in a way that if care is not taken can cause serious setback for the government but, you should at least know that when flies continue to fly over one and only (particular) parcel in the midst of many, there must be the need to move near such parcel and find out what the flies see in it that they refuse to leave.  That is Abba Kyari.”

President Muhammadu Buhari set out on May 29, 2015 at the point by which he said, “I belong to everybody, I belong to nobody”.  That was brilliant statement that any lover of change would quickly grab and embrace in the sense that it is packed with substances familiar with philosophical items.  Just as that was still being applauded and its breeze still blowing in the space of time, the Presidential Figure dropped another one: “I can work with anybody”, which finally distorted the whole idea of him belonging to everybody and to nobody.

No one should be of any short memory that same former ruling party he dislodged had created the era of gate-climbing that occurred as the Goodluck Jonathan-led administration found unnecessary trouble with the man who later emerged as (do I say automatic) democratically elected of Sokoto State, Mutawalle Aminu Waziri Tambuwal.  Although, much as they withdrew Tambuwal’s security and subjected him harsh cold weather of defencelessness as a result of their bad politicking of the time, they failed woefully to succeed over their evil plots against the amiable, exceptionally enigmatic former Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because, they failed to point out one area he was ever corrupt.

“I can work with anybody” that became a policy of a government that only merely escaped by the whiskers all such evil plots by the dislodged former ruling party is therefore a presidential tall order that, even the President himself would have seen by now, does not work.  How can a President, so much feared for his capacity to fight corruption without looking back and bothering whose ox is gored, and who as a result of that credential working for him even against the kingmakers of his own main opposition party at that time emerged democratically elected President, conclude so easily that he could have worked with elements of the same People’s Democratic Party (PDP) so much corrupt erstwhile Africa’s biggest party that only on March 28, 2015 he dislodged from the seat of power?

This is where President Buhari got it wrong.  So much that, very consistent and unbending as his administration remains in the fight against corruption, insecurity and fixing of the deeply damaged, looted economy, those elements of self-service that became the anybody he has been working with have virtually rubbished him to justify their mischievous claim that there can be no good governance by him.  It is so bad!

President Muhammadu Buhari should have been rugged – though still being conscious of the rule of law – to know that the Nigeria that he took as a vehicle to drive the very law-unfriendly people does not deserve the kind of “converted democrat” personality that he suddenly chose to be.  The moment he won election on March 28, 2015 the atmosphere of the nation changed immediately and every corrupt member of the loser-party in government started finding a way either to commit suicide or work a cheap and untraceable death for the then President-elect and that was the situation until he was, by the power of Nationhood, moved into the Defence House for stronger protection.  On the diplomatic ground, foreign nations started doing businesses with a President-elect that had not been inaugurated and officially handed the mantle of power.  It was so much so that then President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan had to voice out to say, “I am still in power”.

More so, the moment the former Military Head of State took over on May 29, 2015 with 2,600 megawatts of generated power, every Nigerian was filled with sighs of relief as that very low capacity of general power was enough for the over 180 million population at the time.  Police taking egunje (bribes) at checkpoints deepened the hand of their baby inside wrapper and all elements of corruption and impunity in the society started to fall within the dictates of order.

But alas! After three months of inaction away from anticipation of full force coming to bear on the bad eggs in the society and all of those evil minded people seeing in the retired General the softness they required to thrive, they quickly exploited it and thus General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB) became President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) and it has been the trends and perspectives in the thinking of the people till today.

So, smugglers intensified their activities; police taking bribes increased in strength, those who needed to dig into graves in cemeteries to hide their loots in hard currencies no longer did so but now publicly expend the loots to fight the same no-nonsense government of Buhari and, it became so worse, that even within the government, elements that have been consistently alleged to belong to the clique of the Old Order are found and it has taken the anti-corruption President unexpected difficulty to remove them.  It would have been pretty for President Buhari to know that the person of Abba Kyari, who is his Chief of Staff, has got more than enough allegations of having partaken in the huge corruption of the past government he dislodged and thus to just allow him for the hardened Ibrahim Mustapha Magu of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to pick him up and prosecute, having been investigated and founded to have so many questions to answer.  Failure of President Buhari to allow Kyari for prosecution has been misconstrued in certain quarters to be the very interpretation of “I can work with anybody”, which therefore has rubbished the very first statement of “I belong to everybody, I belong to nobody”.

If you belong to everybody, although many Nigerians are full of mischief telling all dangerous lies against people in government in a way that if care is not taken can cause serious setback for the government but, you should at least know that when flies continue to fly over one and only (particular) parcel in the midst of many, there must be the need to move near such parcel and find out what the flies see in it that they refuse to leave.  That is Abba Kyari.

There is the side of Mamman Daura, known to be very closely related to the President.  The media of today are compromised to the fullest except few of them, no doubt.  But there is still no alternative to the media in terms of information and news dissemination and general publicity in any society of the world, meaning that The Press is the very making of Allah and so The Press is natural, meaning that whoever misapplies his natural power of The Press has the Almighty Allah to contend with.  So, if The Nigerian Press has continued to talk about Mamman Daura as leader of a cabal in the Nigeria’s Seat of Power, yet he is not a government official, there is cause for worry.  President Muhammadu Buhari should, at least, tell some of us in the media – who are in love with him as trusted person to lead our way back to the Nigeria of our father where things work – what offence Mamman Daura has committed against Nigerians that only him is being talked about all the times with serious accusations of wrongly influencing the Change Regime in a way that makes the President seems to be playing into the gallery and even giving bad names to the great Northerners of our great country.  How can Mamman Daura so much have access to all documents going to the President including secret ones, before being passed to the Chief of Staff for onward transmission to the President?  It is wrong.  As 2019 draws nearer and gathers stronger storm, this and the earlier mentioned aspect of Abba Kyari should receive serious attention of the President, at least allow him to go and prove his innocence with the EFCC.

Again, in the area of religion and ethnicity, President Muhammadu Buhari is being unfair to his Muslim and Hausa/Fulani people, which is understandable.  But, Mr. President cannot continue to please man and displease himself.  At 75, he should have nothing to fear other than to put his acts together and be higher in doing good based on justice, equity and fairness to enable him end well and meet his Lord, Allah with face beaming with joy.  The Hausa/Fulani and the Muslims of this country have persistently been pushed to the defensive by Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and their agents in government and other public institutions.  If the President now says because he does not want to be seen as supporting people of his own tribe and religion such that when even those people of his are being persecuted he refuses to open up and let the public know that he cannot be so blackmailed to unfairly damage the same people he will return to after government, alas! I fear for him, seriously too.

After all the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), whose mischief he probably fears, can never be pleased with him no matter how much good he pushes towards Christianity at the expense of his own Islamic religion.  He needs to realise that majority of Christians in Nigeria know Muhammadu Buhari – right from his days as Military Head of State, Federal Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural Resources, Chairman, Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) and now democratically elected President – to be an exceptionally detribalized, highly non-religiously biased person.  It was he that told Muslims that since it is not in the Qur’an that Muslims should have holiday on Friday he would have no reason to grant the rising population of Muslims in Nigeria a work-free Friday.  The same Buhari he is that has Igbo man as his pilot and surrounds himself with people from other tribes and religion.  Majority of Nigerian Christians know him to be above board as far as all of those ones and integrity are concerned.  But Mr. President should please – for the sake of Allah, his good name, the today and tomorrow of good great people that work with him and who flaunt his good course from outside the government – stand up to whatever atrocity the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), in collaboration with some kind of politicians, is engaged in against Islam and the Hausa/Fulani of this country and deal a big blow to them.  It is then the entire populace including many more sincere Christians will know that the President is truly doing rule of law.

I mean, what is he afraid of, that he so much plays a non-balancing policy that ends him up in virtually destroying the tenets of Islam whereby he cancelled “Amirul Hajj” at pilgrimage just because some kind of unscrupulous elements are saying government should remove hands from religion?  The day he declared that he would lead a country where Muslims and Christians would practice their religions without fear of attacks and in peace, all Muslims jumped up in joy.  That should please CAN but since it does not please them, Buhari should know that truth and justice have no eyes and so he should have just done his own thing in his own fair way and leave the judgment to the people to make, under the watch of Almighty Allah.  I can assure him that even up till today, Nigerian people who still love and are still ready to die for him as Muslims, Christians, Northerners and Southerners remain on the high side, although only Allah will decide who picks it again in the coming presidential contest. Then why afraid of taking steps to order the arrest of killers of over 1,000 Fulani killed across three states of Plateau, Taraba and Benue in the North?

Why afraid of ordering the arrest of those elements in the Nigerian Law School who caused public embarrassment and infringement of rights of that University of Ilorin Law graduate, Firdaus Abasa, who are known by the countenance of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to have been sponsored by them?

What then is the President going to bank on, much as he is being asked to re-contest for 2019, if the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) he has tried to please at the expense of his own religious people have continued to incite public chaos against him and his government with huge and very terrible allegation of Islamisation and Northernisation, which The Nigerian Press are even helping them amplify? Yes, you are father of all Nigerians but you must not be seen as destroying your own people before you can prove your spirit of balancing, fairness, justice and equity.  It is sad!

I mean, how does the President therefore convince the over 90 million Muslims and more millions Hausa/Fulani of Nigeria that he has protected them from the onslaught of CAN and its elements across the place with the continued oversight of persecutions and killings of their respective people, whether in the Northern states of Plateau, Taraba and Benue or South West of Nigeria?  Is there no way by which you think politicians of Benue have more questions to answer than the wrongful allegations and persecutions against your own people just because you think CAN would come up and do what?  Praise you?  No. CAN will praise you only on the day you renounce your faith in Islam and announce your conversion to Christianity and then you begin to spill the blood of Muslims in the country and by then automatically make Nigeria a Christian State.

All of these make my fear for President Muhammadu Buhari as 2019 politicking thickens.

*Bashir Adefaka is a Lagos-based media practitioner.