By Steve Osuji
President Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency will be defined by his undisguised rabid hate for Igbo. If there was an iota of doubt, his recent Bloomberg so-called interview presents yet another strong evidence of his malevolent outreach towards the Igbo nation.
It wasn’t an interview in the true sense of it (it’s indeed surprising that a reputable American news outlet, Bloomberg accepted such a scam). Buhari’s people had only responded to a set of questions from Bloomberg. Yet Buhari’s people dubiously termed the written responses they published, ‘TRANSCRIPT’. Yet there was no interview!
For Written Responses (WR), it was of course, not impromptu, there were no follow up questions and there was no catching the president off guard. It must a job by the presidential media team and high ranking aides. They took their time to produce it, rehearse and choreograph it before sending it out for publication. So we must perceive the publication to be the verisimilitude of the thoughts, moods and direction of the president’s current state of mind.
Of course, it’s the same delusional fare of a failed presidency. It’s full of lies, fallacies, misrepresentations and mischief. It’s very short on facts and rich in empty verbiage. For instance, the president claims that Nigeria is better off today than he met it in 2015, but that’s a lie from the pit of hell. Nigeria is at the bottom of nigh all HDIs in the world today. Nigeria is actually at the tipping point and could fail before 2023.
In fact, the most outstanding point on the entire WR is the take on IPOB – Indigenous People of Biafra. Buhari as usual, railed at IPOB, urging the international community to take additional steps to proscribe it as a terrorist organisation.
“Their leadership enjoys enjoys safe haven in the west, broadcasting hate speech into Nigeria from London, spending millions lobbying members of the US Congress and freely using international financial networks to arm agitators on the ground,” the president said.
But these are half truths and hateful victim-hounding in order to finish him off.
Here are 10 points to ponder about the terror situation in Nigeria:
1. President Buhari didn’t tell the world that the leader of IPOB, Kanu has been in his gulag since last year.
2. He didn’t tell the world that he ordered the abduction and cargoeing of Nnamdi Kanu from Kenya to Nigeria, refusing to grant him freedom nor allow for peaceful settlement in spite of entreaties by reputable stakeholders across Nigeria.
3. He didn’t tell the world that up until his coming to power in 2015, IPOB was an open, peaceful movement of people seeking referendum for the creation of Biafra from Nigeria.
4. He forgot to tell the world the genesis of IPOB which is a struggle for freedom and liberation of a suppressed and repressed Igbo Nation in Nigeria. Ir was actually president Buhari who radicalised IPOB.
5. To buttress Buhari’s hate and negative narratives against Igbo, as this dubious interview was being released last Sunday afternoon, Fulani bandits were on rampage as usual in the predominantly Christian Southern Kaduna. According to the BBC, for hours in the broad daylight, mass of armed terrorists on bikes moved from Ungwan Fada to Ungwan Turawa to ungwan Makama and finally to Rubu villages. There they killed five persons and set two churches ablaze – Maranatha Baptist Church and St. Moses Catholic Church. No mention of this.
6. President Buhari didn’t tell the world that two days earlier was the mass burial of 40 worshippers killed in St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State, June 5th, by Fulani terrorists. Nigeria’s president never visited Owo till now. Not when the incident occurred; not during the mass burial.
7. The president dodged to tell the world that Fulani terrorists have been carrying out officially supervised genocide since 2015 in Southern Kaduna, Plateau and Benue States.
There’s no word on the dozens of IDP camps occasioned by the Boko Haram and the attendant human misery. There’s no word on the numerous ambushes and attacks on military barracks and formations.
8. Further giving the lie to Buhari’s “interview” and obsession with IPOB, a security report by SBM Intelligence last Tuesday reveals that 2,079 Nigerians have died in 68 mass killings from January 2020 till date. The data doesn’t reflect the north east where Boko Haram holds sway.
As reported by SBM, “Since the start of 2020, there have been at least 68 recorded massacres against unarmed civilians who could not respond, in parts of Nigeria outside the northeast… 50 of these were carried out by terrorists who are often called ‘bandits’…”
9. Our president didn’t tell the world that since he came to power in 2015, Nigeria has been infested with vicious Fulani terrorists who come in the guise of herdsmen. They have held the entire northwest of Nigeria hostage and almost laid it waste; shutting down schools, sacking villages and engaging in kidnapping and killing spree. Even as they spread down south as witnessed in Owo, they seem to be no concern to the president. It took a protracted court action for the Fulani terrorists to be officially acknowledged by Buhari as bandits, even as the world community annotated them as the 3rd most deadly terrorists in the world.
10. Most troubling is the fact that for nearly two years, the Buhari administration has hedged prosecuting or naming the financiers, associates, companies and bureaux de change sponsoring the Fulani terrorists in Nigeria. The US government and other international agencies had availed the Buhari government these intelligence since 2020 yet not one person is prosecuted nor identities revealed. Not even the fact that UAE had successfully tried and jailed six Nigerians (including a federal official) for financing terror.
In summary, it doesn’t matter that IPOB has remained rather quiet and sedate since the beginning of this year, yet it remains the object of presidential angst. Any Igbo reading the Bloomberg heist wouldn’t help but feel the heatwave of presidential hate in the manner Buhari guns after IPOB in the face of relentless Fulani terror in Nigeria.
▪︎ Osuji is a newspaper columnist and public affairs analyst.