Nigeria is in the high season of worship.
What passes for democracy in the old country is what has come to be dubbed
“Buhari Worship”. The toadying submission put at the feet of President Muhammadu
Buhari is akin to religious fervor. It is a sacrament that brooks no
opposition. The motley masses who counter the ways of Buhari are dismissed by
the Buhari worshippers as “Wailing Wailers”. Buhari is being lionized for
giving Nigerian democracy iron teeth, a feat beyond the soft ways of civilian
politicians. The ready Buhari mantra, whether as military head of state or
civil president, is the fight against corruption.
To
go back in history, Nigeria’s first coup as arranged by Emmanuel Arinze
Ifeajuna, Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu and their fellow majors did raise the issue
of corruption as a major prong of why they struck to sack the First Republic.
The entire coup attempt got mired in the corruption of ethnic politics until
there was the counter-coup. Of course the Nigeria-Biafra war supervened. After
the war, Nigeria’s first president, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe proposed the adoption of
the theory of Diarchy in which the soldiers would be sharing power with
civilians, given the background that once the jackboots had tasted power they
can never ever allow themselves to be far away from it. The great man known as
Zik had many critics who would have nothing to do with is proposition.
The
Nigerian military enjoyed a long stay in power until the Second Republic was
inaugurated in 1979 with Alhaji Shehu Shagari as President. Of course the
military overthrew the civilian government on the last day of 1983 with the
selfsame charge of corruption ruling the airwaves amid martial music.
Incidentally, Buhari who is back in power today with the mantra of corruption
in his every utterance was the military ruler back then who jailed many
opposition politicians with uncountable years of imprisonment because of – you
guessed it – corruption. A major player in the Second Republic, Alhaji Umaru
Dikko who had escaped to London, gave a countering press conference that
corruption was only a smokescreen for the coup. According to Umaru Dikko, the
soldiers took power because they were angry that the then ruling National Party
of Nigeria (NPN) had paved the way for Vice-President Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo
from the former Biafran enclave, to succeed Shagari as President. Buhari
arranged a bungled attempt to put Umaru Dikko in a crate to bring him back to
Nigeria.
The
other dimension was that the military bigwigs did not find it funny that
Shagari pardoned the Biafran leader, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, and brought
him back to Nigeria from Cote d’Ivoire in a blaze of overwhelming fanfare. When
the Second Republic was overthrown Ojukwu was put away in prison by Buhari even
as the former Biafran leader held no political post.
Even
as the military took power then, touting Buhari’s integrity, the army boys would
soon overthrow him with the charge that he was too parochial and
unaccommodating given the largeness of the Nigerian enterprise. The military
brought forward Military President Ibrahim Babangida to dominate the Nigerian
space with political mumbo-jumbo, economic hocus-pocus and not a little
corruption thrown in as state policy. It became quite clearer than structural
adjustment that the military brass-hats could jump higher heights of corruption
than their civilian counterparts. Babangida succumbed to the final disgrace
when he annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by his bosom friend
Bashorun MKO Abiola. Amid nationwide riots Babangida quit power after cobbling
up a very wobbly kind of “Diarchy” featuring Chief Ernest Shonekan and General
Sani Abacha.
It
did not take daredevil Abacha any time at all to kick out the overmatched Chief
Shonekan. Whatever the civilian politicians achieved in corruption was eclipsed
by Abacha. Yes, Abacha’s loot was so much that it forced open even the secrecy
of the secret vaults of the Swiss banks! Upon the dubious death of Abacha, the
military knew it had lost all respectability for staying in power. Even so, the
military honcho had to recruit its retired type, General Olusegun Obasanjo, to
take over as civilian president in 1999. It is a well known Nigerian fact that
the more things change, the more they remain the same. That is why the
legendary musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti will never truly die so long as his
album “Army Arrangement” still plays, and his lines such as “Soja don put everybody for reverse”
remain on the lips of all and sundry.
When
Obasanjo had to leave power against his personal wish and desire after his
Third Term bid failed, he brought to power an ailing civilian, Umaru Musa
Yar’Adua who of course died on the job. The next civilian on the line, the then
Vice-President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, met with all makes of obstacles before
he could replace the dead man as President. Jonathan ran the most sabotaged
presidency ever. It was all war on the political front.
The
clear and present danger became that Nigeria would cease to exist as a nation
if ever Jonathan won re-election. Buhari thus became a godsend of change.
Buhari has since ascended the seat of power, but old habits die hard. The old
reasons for which he was overthrown by his military compatriots back in 1985
are already manifesting in a so-called democracy. Security agents can now
brazenly invade a Government House, as happened the other day in Akwa Ibom
State. No matter whatever the Buhari worshippers of military rule as
sacramental democracy would have us believe the obvious truth has to be told.
In the school of democracy, Buhari is not qualified to be in the kindergarten
class. He ought to be in crèche. If it is military rule we want in this
benighted country, let’s call it by its name instead of abusing the hallowed name
of democracy.