It’s troubling enough that a general would take a trip out of his abode when enemies are at the gate, but to be seen to lecture about security or otherwise in another
By Steve Osuji
END-TIME OR ENDGAME? It seems end-time is arriving early for Nigeria and Nigerians. Armageddon, long foretold, seems imminent upon this space called Nigeria. Like the singer Asa, sang, there’s fire on the Nigerian mountain and nobody is arunning! Some say it’s the vicious endgame of the current leadership playing out but who would play with even his own life?
SUICIDAL INCOMPETENCE: This is why this column puts it all down to what one wants to term SUICIDAL INCOMPETENCE: a situation in which a man is so incompetent he would fatally harm himself without knowing it. This is the situation with Nigeria today; this is the story of Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari. It is the story of nearly eight years of underlying health situation, debilitating senility and congenital incompetence that continues to compound in geometrical proportions.
WE WILL KIDNAP THE PRESIDENT: Consider the current and trending example. The the raging bandits in Nigeria (very result of the incompetence under discourse) recently killed two officers and eight soldiers in Bwari, just about the outskirts of the seat of power in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital. The officers and men slaughtered in the manner of cattle were men of the elite corps of the Brigade of Guards of the Nigerian Army.
After this gruesome attack and a slap on our collective national psyche, the murderous marauders boasted that they would soon kidnap President Buhari, governors and other political bigwigs. Understandably, bombast is the life of bandits and it is not expected that the presidency would shakedown the roof of Aso Rock on account of the boast of scoundrels.
But what’s most discomfitting is to learn from no less a persona than the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el Rufai, that President Buhari was not aware of the boast by the bandits to kidnap him! This was coming three days after the comment had reverberated through all the corners of the entire world.
PRESIDENT UNAWARE: There cannot be a better characterisation of incompetence than this. We ask: how come the president was oblivious of such open assault on him and his domain by invading bandits? Could it be that he is not living here on earth among us? Is it conceivable that the president of over 200m people is not online in the cyber space? He has no social media account? Could it be that he is not personally present on any of Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, etc? It seems utterly implausible that an educated adult in this age is absent on the world wide space. Perhaps aides manage some of these platforms on his behalf and he knows only what they allow!
What about the traditional media? The newspapers, radio and television? Perhaps, there’s hardly time for any of these anymore.
PRESIDENT AS SECURITY EXPERT: Must be this utter lack of awareness that would make President Buhari to jet off to Liberia on the day officers of his guards corps were slaughtered by a ragtag non-state militia down the street from the Presidential Villa. And guess President Buhari’s mission in Liberia: to talk about insecurity or security or both!
It’s troubling enough that a general would take a trip out of his abode when enemies are at the gate, but to be seen to lecture about security or otherwise in another, more peaceful domain than yours is the best signpost of not just ineptitude but loss of cognitive presence.
COGNITIVE ABSENCE: This indeed, is the grave condition Nigeria has endured in the last seven plus years under the watch of President Buhari. A state of vastly diminishing cognition, mental acumen and self-awareness. A dire state of body and mind debility that is incapable of tending to itself how much more to a vast country like Nigeria.
The results of Buhari’s inate and ingrained ineptitude now conjoined with age and ailment is the story of Nigeria today – a country that is faced with armageddon brought upon her by her president!
The indicators as to the president’s poor state of mind and body are numerous as they are glaring. All the things he campaigned against, all the promises he made, hardly any one has been fulfilled. He started by denying some, for instance, even though his party, APC, has restructuring enshrined in its manifesto, President Buhari claims he is not aware of it and that he would never broach the matter. He never did, almost 8 years after.
BANDITS FROM HELL AND THE SAHEL: He had been alleged to have inflicted Nigeria with armed Fulani bandits; men he and his cohorts had readied to forcefully take power in 2015 should the election not have gone in favour of his party. This dragon, allegedly unleashed in the northwest end of Nigeria could not be returned to the cage over these years. Instead, it continued to grow in ferocity. The beast now knocks on the gate of the Presidential Villa…
BANDITS ARE NOT TERRORISTS: For many years, President Buhari blatantly refused to tag them a terror group even as they shot down our fighter jet and kill hundreds of our military boys and officers. It took a court ruling to do so after so much havoc had been wreaked. When it was late…
Buhari would not name financiers of bandits and terrorists even after countries like the US and the UAE had furnished him with a list almost two years ago. As you read this, he has neither made public the list nor prosecute the financiers.
AN UNBRIDLED ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST IN THE HOUSE: Buhari is known to have lived an adult life of promoting Fulani hegemony and Islamic fundamentalism. Before he became president in 2015, there are examples of his fighting for Fulani domination across the country. He openly opposed President Goodluck Jonathan, labelling the fight against the rampaging Boko Haram as a fight against Islam!
Today, Boko Haram has been converted to a multi billion dollar Fulani military corruption machine for siphoning Nigeria’s resources. Thousands of unrepentant and hardened murderers are allegedly, being ‘rehabilitated’ and stealthily integrated into the military through the backdoor.
Meanwhile, Buhari is in bed with the masterminds of Boko Haram, in the persons of Ali Modu Sheriff and Kashim Shettima. While Modu Sheriff is related to the president, Shettima is the current vice Presidential candidate of the president’s party, APC.
THE GREAT FULANI AGENDA: But upon his ascendancy to Aso Rock, he ordered that the borders of Nigeria be thrown open for migrant Fulani from across the Sahel region to converge in Nigeria. He pushed for a revert to the 1960s cattle grazing routes. He aided and abated genocidal mayhem in southern Kaduna, Benue, Taraba and the middle belt for Fulani to forcefully hijack land from indigenous people.
Through crass nepotism, all the important positions in Nigeria are ceded to the north and Fulani.
He tried several times to introduce RUGA and various dubious land schemes to carve large settlement spaces for Fulani migrants across Nigeria.
He has introduced a nonsensical Water Bill three times in the National Assembly with the sole purpose of imposing federal control on all surface and underground water resources across Nigeria. This is in blatant repudiation of the Nigerian constitution which gives state governments power over all the land in their state, yet the bill is currently, still being vigorously pursued in the NASS, dubious ploys being deployed to see it through. It doesn’t matter that FG already controls all the major rivers in Nigeria through the river basin authorities.
IT’S ANOMIE HERE: Under Buhari, Nigerians have endured an extended period of pain and anguish. Everyday Nigerians are kidnapped, our wives and daughters are raped, villages are sacked and citizens are killed. Even our military men are not spared.
Security has collapsed, our economy has bottomed out and corruption is at an astronomical level. Yet one Fulani man under Buhari’s watch could cart home about N150b, yet he is released to go home …
Anarchy is staring us in the face already!
WILL ABUJA FALL TO BANDITS? Now in the Buhari endgame, everything is coming to a head. Buhari’s bandits are sequstering him to the confines of Aso Rock. It seems only a matter of time before his fortress is breached.
Our soldiers have become shooting range targets with recent hits in Shiroro, Bwari and Zuma.
Kuje Correctional Centre, probably the safest in Nigeria and near the centre of Abuja was completely neutralised and made a mess of by Buhari’s bandits. Schools in Abuja have been forced to close… And the danger is grave and palpable that Abuja might fall to bandits soon.
Many Nigerians are convinced that current debacle and imminent defeat of the Nigerian state by terrorists has been orchestrated by Buhari and his Fulani hegemonists (some northern governors led by Nasir El Rufai) who would rather hand over to bandits than to a leader from the south.
Whatever the case may be, this column insists that Nigeria is under the unprecedented ravaging of incompetence the magnitude of which has not been witnessed anywhere in modern history. Buhari and his Fulani have virtually committed harakiri throughout his era. The entire place (north) has been ripped apart and turned upside-down as if a thousand hurricanes have passed through it! Our Hapless compatriots in the north are flummoxed, with no where to hide…
Guns, drugs, IDPs, broken infrastructure, abandoned schools, poverty, malnutrition, diseases and deaths are the order in Buhari’s and El Rufai’s north. But they don’t give a damn. They are sadists. Just give them power and they are cool with the blood fiesta all around them.
They could well allow their rampaging bandits to overrun Aso Rock and seize the seat of power if that ensures them the lever of power.
But that would only further exemplify their folly and ineptitude. Power no longer resides solely in Aso Rock. Not in the sense they imagine.
If indeed, as Nigerians fear, and as carefully articulated by former Senator Shehu Sanni, that there’s a plot by a few hegemonists to breach Nigeria’s constitution, it would amount to sheer suicide – suicidal incompetence. Who benefits from suicide?
▪︎ Osuji is a newspaper columnist and public affairs analyst.