When the Deputy United Nations Secretary-General recently visited her two countries – Niger Republic and Nigeria to receive a traditional title in the later, she charged the youths in Nigeria to protect democracy, warning that the world is not ready for the refugee crisis that will emerge from any armed conflict in Nigeria. Surprisingly, she had no words for Nigeria’s worst president ever – Muhammadu Buhari who happens to be her Nigerien and Nigerian kinsmen. The fact that Muhammadu Buhari has presided over an era where the Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) is now forcing media houses not to mention the details of the killings, kidnapping, rapes, and large-scale insecurity in the land is not enough to get a word from her. No nation can continue in the present situation in Nigeria. Industries and businesses are closing as unemployment continues to break new ground. The most basic reason why a government exists is to maintain law and order. This is absent all over Nigeria including Katsina – the home state of the Muhammadu Buhari. Notwithstanding Amina Mohammed has deliberately switched her attention to the same Nigerian youths whose hopelessness and desire to immigrate even through the dangerous Mediterranean Sea continue to increase.
The gross incompetence and irresponsibility of Muhammadu Buhari will continue to plague the nation if we continue to succumb to the strategies being employed to gag the press and all of us who use the internet and social media to report the evil and unreasonableness of the Buhari administration. We must voice out our dissatisfaction and the urgency of the grave polity in Nigeria. This selective scrutiny of individuals or groups like the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General has done is one of the reasons why a large percentage of Africa is under the worst leadership in the world. What is happening in South Africa is a testament to this fact. A leader as bad a Jacob Zuma still has supporters who are protesting his imprisonment. Rulers like Buhari who are zeros nationally are revered as heroes by their kinsmen and community locally. Elites like Amina Mohammed who benefit by way of international and national support in key appointments, government contracts, or community developments often turn a blind eye to the bad leadership of their benefactor. No matter how beneficial our benefactors are to us personally, we must know that our silence condones and encourages official malfeasance which kills good governance and impoverishes the people as is the case in Nigeria and Africa if their conducts and policies are unprogressive.
As the Buhari administration perfect ways of gagging free speech and freedom of expression, we must increase our resolve to report the unreported. As the Department of State Security (DSS) receives new funding to spy on Nigerians, fear not! Research available technologies like advanced VPN or using pseudonyms to do your civic responsibility to do the necessary in legally ending the misrule of Muhammadu Buhari. We cannot depend on the support of those who are open or secret supporters of tyrants in local, state, and federal governments in Nigeria and Africa. Every day, as we keep quiet, evil, and unreasonable men and women are gaining more ground. If not for the outcry of Nigerians, Lauretta Odochie would have been confirmed as an Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) Commissioner. Even though it seems our outspokenness is not yielding the desired results, we must not relent. We must continue with the mantra that an injury to one, is an injury to all. We must record and report attacks by Fulani herdsmen, bandits, kidnappers, rapists, and all other criminal elements among us. The recording and posting of George Floyd’s murder have helped the United States to move forward in its quest to end police brutality and racism. We must be our brothers and sisters’ keepers and say the truth to those in power. Otherwise, they will use their power to misrule, plunge the populace into extreme poverty and engender an era of a total breakdown of law and order as is the case with Muhammadu Buhari.
Ata Ukuta, Editor – www.towncryyers.com