WAKE UP: Between Buhari as ‘stingy rightwing dictator’ and Atiku as ‘Established Thief’ – A deep thought about UK Guardian publication

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

“The boldness to stand to the local and foreign anti-Onnoghen suspension was informed by the fact that none of the foreign countries either in the West or Europe would accept that its Judiciary be manipulated by corruption and unpatriotic tendencies.”

It hit me like a pebble in thick forest that theatre icon Papa Jimoh Aliu would call Igbo Eledumare.  That was my feeling when my attention was called on Saturday by Dr. Emman Shehu, Nigeria’s journalism teacher, icon, poet and author of note, to a publication by United Kingdom based International Guardian used as lead with bold title: “Inside Nigeria: The stingy rightwing dictator and an Established Thief” with pictures of two leading contesters in February 16, 2019 presidential election, President Muhammadu Buhari and former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar vividly as illustration.

It will be recalled this is not the first time foreign media in recent times have intervened in clarifying or tackling naughty Nigeria’s domestic issues at a time people who should tell the truths choose money over integrity and morality or conscience. 

The last time, when some elite chose to run Nigeria down along ethnic and religious lines to slight President Buhari saying that the killings in Benue, Taraba and Plateau states were his doing, being a Fulani man in power; using “herdsmen” to kill the people, no foreign media participated in such mischievous news trending.

Although those alleging couldn’t prove, yet continued to claim that doing so by the President was in actualization of an unfounded Northernisation (or do I say Fulanisation?) and Islamisation agenda in the country.  Femi Fani-Kayode, a pastor, lawyer and, of course, a former minister of the Republic, was one of a major crier-out against the decision or non-participation of the foreign media in the mischievous reports spreading the Fake News of Buhari as killer of the people of the North Central states.  Fani-Kayode was in the news, at that time, accusing the foreign media of betrayal of trust for choosing to stay aloof from the fake reports trending in the local media at the time.  To refuse to be part of the lies and mischievous media trending of such unfounded occurrence was a positive intervention by the foreign media like CNN, Aljazeera and BBC for Nigeria.

In recent times, presidential candidate of the Nigeria’s opposition, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, embarked on an unholy pilgrimage to the United States of America (USA) to prove to the ruling class and electorates in Nigeria that he has no corruption case to answer in the western country as claimed.

In order to perfect the plot, Atiku chose the imperfect means, which became exposed to even the layman, the untraveled, by his use of a man he is generally believed to have installed as Senate President and who has since inception of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government held back the hands of clock of Nigeria’s effort to move forward, Mr. Bukola Saraki, whose diplomatic cover he hid under, according to the US Department of African Affairs, as ‘aide’ and because of which, based on existing agreement between the two countries, he could not be arrested.

Back home in Nigeria, Atiku, Saraki and their party, in apparent show of desperation, told all sorts of tales including that the US, UK, EU and, indeed, major Nigeria’s foreign friends had given their commitments to recognize their aspiration to emerge as a government in coming dispensation as if to say that those societies particularly America, from whose democratic system Nigeria copied, had jettisoned their commitment to norms of democracy.

They went ahead to mislead envoys of those countries resident in Nigeria to believe that the suspension of a self confessed “corrupt” Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Nkanu Samuel Onnoghen, was in connection to the incoming general elections so that the APC-led government took him out of the way to enable it rig the elections for its members.  US, UK and EU Observer Mission reacted in favour of the opposition but the Presidency hit back to say there would be nothing to gain by the age long Nigeria’s foreign friends in putting up “coordinated statements” based on lies of desperate opposition without adequate information.

It took the resoluteness of the man at the helm of affairs, President Buhari, his Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and media aides of the President, Mr. Femi Adesina, Mallam Garba Shehu and, fiery presidential social media assistant to the President, Lauretta Onochie, who all stood their grounds to say no foreign interference would be condoned to interfere in Nigeria’s internal affairs and warned that no amount of outcries by the opposition, Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), and their media and foreign collaborators would change anything in the decision that the President had taken based on order of court, the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).  The boldness to stand to the local and foreign anti-Onnoghen suspension was informed by the fact that none of the foreign countries either in the West or Europe would accept that its Judiciary be manipulated by corruption and unpatriotic tendencies.

More deeply heated on the mischievous out-criers was the salvo from the no-nonsense Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, who warned that any foreign group that comes to Nigeria to negatively interfere with intent to discredit the outcome of its 16 February presidential election to favour the desperate opposition would return to its country in ‘body bags’.  Not even the fresh negative reactions, ostensibly orchestrated and sponsored by opposition bothered the governor, who insisted that not only that his statement was not intended to incite chaos but that it became necessary he made it for the protection of Nigeria’s sovereignty.

At that point, European Union Observer Mission on ground in the country, which had been talking in favour of the misleading opposition, finally denied supporting or working with them against the party in power or the government but that it was in the country on invitation of the Federal Government and thus promised its continued commitment to free, fair and credible polls which the Buhari Administration is out to give.

At last, America’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke from Washington, and urged that security agencies in Nigeria must not allow politicians out to cause violence to achieve their scandalous mission.

The big one that finally blew the empty confidence of politicians, who had, had their 16 uninterrupted years as ruling party but now in opposition, was what came from the UK-based International Guardian lately and which – although was clearly not in support of any of the two leading candidates – described APC Presidential Candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, as ‘stingy rightwing dictator’ and PDP Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, as ‘Established Thief’.  Using that aspect of the piece authored by Anthony Obi Ogbo Ph.D. to lead the whole of the front page stories of the foreign media tabloid, to me, signposts the true position of International Community and their media organizations as parties not in support of corruption in Nigeria.

To Nigerians, who have to choose between the two, I hereby provide some clarifications.  My consultation with Wikipaedia describes “‘rightwing’ in political terms as one which holds that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, or tradition.”

Further fact finding into rightwing populism defines it as a political ideology which combines right wing politics and populist rhetoric and themes.  The rhetotic, Wikipaedia says, often consists of anti-elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establishment and speaking for the common people.  ‘Establishment’ in this contest of this explanation is said to refer to the dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation or organization.  It may be a closed social group which selects its own members or specific entrenched elite structures, either in government or in specific institutions. 

That explains the ‘right wing’ with which the UK media publication tagged President Buhari and, to Nigerians who want to vote their next President, they are favoured by that since taking the power from the few owners in elitism who for long have held control to the disfavour of the masses.  A dictator, yes, Buhari is a former military Head of State (dictator) but now as civilian president, he has continued to hold on to his promise of a running Nigeria as a Converted Democrat.  Stingy?  Yes, any leader who is not ready to open up the treasury for looters will be seen as looters.

But ‘Established Thief’, used to describe Atiku, the PDP’s presidential candidate in the election, has no hidden meaning.

In all, like Dr. Emman Shehu in his Facebook post said to Nigerians that “the choice is for you” to choose your president between the ‘stingy rightwing dictator and an established thief’, the presidential candidate that has the tag of ‘stingy rightwing dictator’ as broken down broken, is said to be more preferable to Nigerians than the ‘Established Thief’ seeking to be elected as President.  

In the end, although he slammed Buhari and called him all sorts of names bothering on his health which we have seen as untrue as Buhari is even more fit than himself, the author, it has turned out to be that even Anthony Obi Ogbo, in the International Guardian publication, wanted Nigerians to choose the lesser from two evils. 

I however would at this point bring my pen to a stop by concluding that “stingy rightwing dictator” is in no way one of two evils as there is nothing negative in it so long it is about an ideology that is out squarely to demolished the existing order of the self-centred elite, among whom there were that run Nigeria for 16 years without anything to show even after having spent $16 billion on power without electricity supply to Nigerian consumers and yet subjected the people to huge extortions and who are now desperate about coming back to do the evil again to the Nigerian masses.  Evil has no other name or meaning but evil.  Established Thief is truly bad!

*WAKE UP, is the online newspaper column of Bashir Adefaka, an Isolo, Akure, Ondo State Prince, who is Lagos-based media practitioner and proprietor.  Reach him via his email: omope72@gmail.com and text or whatshap him via: 08163323906.