Buhari, deaths and rumours of death
Since the travel of President Muhammadu Buhari to the UK for medical reasons, the nation has been rife with the rumoured death of the president. In fact, there is a picture in the cyberspace showing the president to be relaxing and watching TV over there in the UK.
While some, for whatever reason, had celebrated the rumoured death, some others have given knocks to such people for rejoicing over the rumoured demise of another. Thankfully, our president is alive, or, so we are made to believe. Only time will tell, and in a short while, too.
Then comes the issues of actual death where the Air Force under the command of General Buhari (rtd), as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, bombed an IDP camp in Rann, Borno State, and it was mischievously termed a “mistake”.
One wonders what manner of mistake could that be when this same military had told us in the past that they had refrained from attacking Boko Haram camps because the terrorists were using women and children as human shield.
It is even more disheartening to hear from one of the survivors, Abdulwahab Adam, that the fighter jet dropped the bombs thrice.
That incident committed by an arm of the military under Buhari’s watch should have elicited enough empathy from Buhari to compel him to visit the camp himself, commiserate with those who lost loved ones and give them his assurances on a number of issues bedeviling the IDPs. But Buhari seems to have also lost his own sense of humanity!
Having stolen their foods and medicines, the only way the IDPs could get compensated by government was to get bombed. Thrice!
Beyond rumours, deaths in the IDP camps are real. Although official figures tended, to reduce the number of casualties, the chairman of Kala Balge Local Government Area, where the incident occurred, Babagana Malarima, revealed that a whopping 234 persons were killed in the “mistaken” expedition.
It was for this reason that I became apprehensive when it was announced that Nigeria would be sending a contingent of military personnel to The Gambia to help oust that country’s erstwhile dictator, Yahya Jammeh.
My apprehension came from the fact that our military might end up bombing Ghana by mistake instead of Gambia. Such a mistake would have had very fatal consequences for Nigeria. Thankfully, Jammeh relinquished power without a jet being flown or a bullet being shot.
On Friday, 20th January, 2017, our security agents also went berserk in Port Harcourt in an attempt to repress pro-Biafra supporters on a peaceful rally in support of Donald J. Trump on the occasion of his inauguration as the 45th president of the United States.
On that day, it was reported that 11 or more pro-Biafra peaceful demonstrators lost their lives to the raging bullets of Nigeria Police. This is surely the umpteenth time such most unfortunate incident would be happening without provocation under Buhari’s watch.
Some have blamed the demonstrators for holding the rally in Port Harcourt instead of a state in the south east? Question is, is there any law that forbids any Nigerian from exercising his/her rights and expressing him/herself peacefully anywhere in Nigeria?
When Nigerians are supposed to be alarmed at the murderous clampdown of peaceful demonstrators by state agents but choose to blame the victims of state-organised-carnage, then we know we have lost our humanity. Is it then a surprise that some Nigerians rejoiced at the rumoured death of Buhari?
It is even more ironical that while the police were allegedly mowing down pro-Biafra supporters of Trump in Port Harcourt, anti-Fayose demonstrators were at the same time receiving royal treatment from our security agencies in Abuja. What a nation!
My take is this, Buhari must not die. Dying now would be a cheap escape for Buhari from disgrace that comes with crass ineptitude, gross incompetence, brazen tribalism, humongous and asinine official stealing of our commonwealth and from the IDPs, double standard in the acclaimed war against corruption, barefaced persecution of political opponents, religious bigotry, economic hardship, extra-judicial killings, massacres of fellow citizens by his tribesmen, the Fulani herdsmen, and others too numerous to mention.
Buhari has to live to cringe in shame for all these. It would be a painful thing if he dies now. How can he lead us thus far, and escape through the backdoor? He brought this upon us and he has to be alive to be haunted by the wailing blood of the innocent ones he failed to protect.
Finally, Buhari and his marabouts, must not be astonished at the seeming joy gripping Nigerians at his rumoured death. How the people react to a man’s demise is totally dependent on how the man treated his people while alive and in power. The Holy Bible says “The whole city celebrates when the godly succeed; they shout for joy when the wicked die” (Proverbs 11:10 NLT).
