By Uche Mbah
For the first time in Nigerian history, a President of Nigeria summoned Security Council meeting three times in one week, underlying the tension that has engulfed the polity due to the faceoff between the National Assembly and the Executive arm of government.
In recent times, there have been serious altercations between the executive and the legislature. The Source reported last week how the United states Ambassador to Nigeria was in a closed door meeting with the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and the impeachment threat that resulted in Buhari summoning Security Council meeting.
The outcome of that meeting was the declaration of June 12, 1993 a public holiday and the National honors bestowed on Late Chief Moshood Abiola, the acclaimed winner of June 12 1993 presidential elections, Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, the legal Luminary that doubled as a human rights lawyer, and Babagana Kingigbe, Abiola’s running mate. The awards to Abiola and Fawehinmi were to be done posthumously, while Kingigbe is to receive his own award personally. The magazine was told that this was to kill three birds with one stone following the nose-diving of Buhari’s popularity rating. Recently, the Guardian Newspaper, a pro establishment paper, conducted a mock election between Buhari and the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, and Buhari trailed Atiku in votes. The same trend was found in another poll by another National Newspaper. And the current trend whereby many runoff elections are being won by the rival Peoples Democratic Party is becoming worrisome. And the trend is possibly going to affect the forthcoming Ekiti elections.
The decision to immortalize Abiola was meant to achieve three things: to divert attention from the impeachment saga, to assuage the Southwest, who were the support base in the south for All Progressives Congress, APC, and to take the shine off from IPOB in their May 30 annual sit at home. This year, the sit at home order was fully observed in major cities of the South east. Meanwhile, the Fulani herdsmen continue their activities, which involves there coming to a town, kill a few, the town runs away, they burn their houses and when everything is settled, they will have nowhere to go to, and they will end up in IDP camp, and the herdsmen will take over quietly.
But the distraction boomeranged as it was not well thought out. The Senate took it up and requested that Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC should declare the full result, and Abiola declared winner and all entitlements of a former president paid him-a near impossibility. And the South east, through Ohaneze Ndigbo, has declared him an Igbo hater as he ignored Humphrey Nwosu, the National Electoral Commission boss. Many see the Abiola Saga as a Greek Gift.
This was the state of things when information filtered in that Theophilus Danjuma, a former Minister of Defence and a retired General and one of the most influential triumvirates of Obasanjo, Danjuma and Babangida, is in the United States of America with the Taraba governor, Darius Ishiaku, campaigning against the presidency. They have met with various White House and congressional committees.
“Evidence is there that President Buhari has failed. Corruption continues and ineffective governance does not confront attacks on villages. If chaos continues in Nigeria, refugees will flood over West Africa, then Europe and eventually America – whether you build a wall or not,” he told the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON), in collaboration with Heritage Foundation and 21 Wilberforce, adding that the issue of extremism among some Fulani people has led to horrific attacks on villages that echo Boko-Haram tactics.
They have been providing evidence of Christian killings and collision with security agencies, a very worrisome development in view of the recent visit by Buhari to the White House and his soliciting for support from the White House. He allegedly agreed to many of Trump’s propositions just to get his support towards his second term bid. He even was said to have instructed Nigerian Ambassador to attend American opening of their Embassy in Jerusalem.
This angered the Arab World, and they breathed down his neck, forcing him to disown the action. Now Danjuma is in U.S. Trump, during Buhari’s visit, had vowed that “we will do something” about the killings.
The new trend of things necessitated a second Security meeting, as the senate has allegedly collated about 84 signatures for the impeachment. Indications were that coup is not a ruled out option if the impeachment is carried out to keep the presidency in the North. This Junaid Mohamed, a Buhari henchman, was used to fly the kite, warning the populace of the repercussion of impeachment. The prospect of a Vice President Osinbajo taking over after impeachment seems like a terrible nightmare.
So much inflammatory statements from Buhari supporters have increased in recent times due to the impeachment threat. Attempts to impeach both the president and Vice at the same time will result in their worst nightmare: Bukola Saraki Interim presidency.
Indications are that, torn between the American bullying President and his own preferred constituency, the Arab world, he prefers to damn the consequences and follow his religion. According to the president, he will prefer to act in such a way that he will be able to go to Paradise when he passes on.
Perhaps that was why, after a third meeting to assure himself that nothing will happen in his absence, he jetted out to morocco, a a country that has been struggling to join the ECOWAS group even though it is not a west African country. The idea is to join Nigeria as a strong voice in defense of Islamization in the meetings. It will be recalled that Morocco was on her way to an ECOWAS Meeting when he got wind of the fact that Benjamin Natanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, was already addressing the body. He turned back from the airport and went back home. Nigeria was not represented at that ECOWAS summit.
Hobnobbing with such fringe countries shows how far Buhari can go in pursuing his agenda.
