Sometime in March, Fulani herdsmen invaded Agatu, a community in Benue state, murdered more than 500 persons and razed down the whole town. The surviving members of the community fled and joined the growing ranks of internally displaced persons (IDP) and or refugees in Nigeria chased away either by Boko haram or Fulani herdsmen—while the vacated land was conveniently taken over by the herdsmen. As this outrageous genocide on Agatu played out, president Buhari whose most important constitutional responsibility is the protection of lives and property and who wastes no time sympathising with foreign leaders when acts of terrorism on a much smaller scale happens in their countries, strangely maintained a conspiratorial silence.
Loading ...The security services comprising the army, police, DSS and others ostensibly on orders from Buhari did nothing. To date, not a single Fulani herdsman has been arrested over the Agatu genocide even as the herdsmen have been in full view giving press conferences justifying their attack on Agatu. Fast-forward to April and Uzo-Uwani in Enugu state was similarly attacked by Fulani terrorists. Properties including a Church were razed down while almost a 100 persons were massacred in cold blood. As it later emerged from details divulged by the governor of Enugu state, all the security agencies in the state; the army, police, DSS and civil defence corps were notified of the impending terrorist attack well in advance but they neither deployed nor acted to forestall it. Again Buhari kept mute and only belatedly issued a laughable order to security services that Fulani terrorists be apprehended only after a barrage of public opprobrium forced him to do so.
And as if to prove the purported order was a fake gambit merely designed to deceive the public, not a single Fulani terrorist implicated in the Uzo-Uwani genocide has been apprehended by the security services. Even the Dss that within two days issued an inciting announcement that of 55 persons uncovered in a shallow grave in Abia state, 5 were allegedly the corpses of abducted Fulani herdsmen whom they claimed was murdered by IPOB has remained silent in the face of these genocidal attacks by herdsmen underscoring their double standards and support for Fulani terrorists. Similarly, the army that arrested 76 young men in Awgu just for mobilising to protect themselves from Fulani herdsmen have since lost their manhood and are nowhere to be found.
But neither the silence of the president nor the inaction or complicity of the security agencies is by accident. It’s a well orchestrated agenda of the president and the compromised security organisations working for him to aid, abet and protect Fulani terrorists as they unleash genocide across Nigeria. Suffice it to say that in spite of the outcry that greeted the genocide in Agatu, Uzo-Uwani and others across the country, Fulani herdsmen still occupy Agatu in open view and still illegally bear AK47 assault rifles without any harassment from the security agencies. Under Buhari, Nigeria now more than ever before operates an Apartheid system of different laws for the Fulani who are largely untouchable and different laws for other Nigerians who cannot even bear a common dane gun talk less of killing anyone without being hounded by security agents. This is a further consolidation of the double standards the north has since created for themselves in the internally colonised Nigerian space. Thus they illegally operate sharia laws that are unconstitutional, use it to violate the right of other Nigerians to sell and consume alcohol by seizing and destroying alcohol in Sharia states while at the same time hypocritically collecting VAT on alcohol sold in other states.
Yet none of what is presently going on should surprise anyone. Everything in Buhari’s sphere from when he was military head of state has always functioned on ethno-religious sectionalism, double standards, contradictions and hypocrisy. This is why non-violent Shiites, Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB are being persecuted while Fulani mass killers are being protected and why the most corrupt Nigerians comfortably ensconced in Buhari’s party and cabinet are being protected while opposition members and critics of his government are being hounded by DSS and EFCC. Willy-nilly ongoing events have only succeeded in vindicating Buhari’s critics and all those who warned the nation that Buhari being so sectional/tribalistic, fundamentalist, dictatorial, insensitive to Nigeria’s diversity, hypocritical and averse to the principles of democracy and justice is unfit to lead the nation more so in the 21st century.
It’s not for nothing that in normal climes, simple recruitments for jobs require character references/criminal records and political positions come with severe scrutiny into past actions and antecedents of would be political leaders. This is because past antecedents provide the surest indication of what a person or political candidate represents. Indeed, there was nothing in Buhari’s past that made him suitable to lead. This is a man who as military head of state was infamous for sectionalism and for being malevolently unjust. As a retired president and supposed elder statesman this same man irresponsibly supported the unconstitutional introduction of Sharia in Northern states even as Sharia riots were killing thousands. In 2001 he went to Oyo state to launch a verbal war on behalf of irate Fulani herdsmen that were destroying farmlands and terrorising the area. He provided ample support to Boko haram as they massacred thousands in the North claiming that an attack on them is an attack on the north.
In 2011, after losing an election adjudged to be free and fair by local and international observers, he remorselessly incited riots that killed over a thousand persons including youth corpers. These in a nutshell are the despicable antecedents of the man who was falsely repackaged as a change agent and sold to a gullible nation. The more discerning including myself—cried our voices hoarse and dried the ink as we repeatedly warned the nation that given Buhari’s damning antecedents, he would be a disaster for a nation grappling with existential issues, but hypnotised by tribalism and religious fanaticism they voted for him. 12 months after; everything we said has been vindicated. Extra-judicial detentions and disregard for the rule of law has returned. Extra-judicial killings and human rights violations by security services at an unprecedented scale have returned. Crass disregard for the nation’s diversity and fragile unity is the order of the day with brazenly sectional appointments and insensitive statements. A total lack of concern over a collapsing economy, and above all an unhidden tribal support in collaboration with security agencies for Fulani terrorists as they devastate communities and massacre people across the country.
It’s now obvious that Buhari lacks the temperament or capacity to lead Nigeria. If anything, by abdicating his fundamental responsibility to protect lives/property and dangerously crossing the line to bastardise and use the security services to protect Fulani terrorists as they massacre other Nigerians; he now represents a clear and present danger to Nigeria itself. With the way Buhari is going, Nigeria might sooner be fighting another civil war. All of men of goodwill must now come together to ease Buhari out before he unleashes unprecedented bloodshed on all of us. We must accept that Buhari has lost it. He simply is not fit to lead and its either he is shown the way out or he will kill Nigeria!
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Lawrence Chinedu Nwobu
Email: lawrencenwobu@gmail.com
