May 2, 2010
The virulent opposition to Babangida’s political ambition by the very individuals and groups whose barely disguised tolerance of or even veneration for the ex-tyrant called Obasanjo and his continued active involvement in partisan politics should be considered as a serious indictment of Nigeria’s self-acclaimed pro-democracy and human rights activists. The announcement by the former dictator from Minna a few weeks ago that he will be contesting the 2011 presidential election has rightly been met with scorn , revulsion and outright rejection by decent citizens.
The recall of the catalogue of atrocities committed by Babangida during his reign of sleaze and murderous conduct does remind us that the corrupt and sadistic tyranny of the ex-despot from Ota was, to a large extent, a replica of the Babangida misrule. The terrible human rights abuses and murders of innocent civilians that one witnessed under the thieving Babangida regime were matched by the sordid track record of the born-again kleptocracy of Matthew ” Igbochukwu” Obasanjo. While Babangida had instituted corruption as state craft and imposed punishing so-called austerity measures on the nation, Obasanjo and his acolytes assaulted our sensibilities with a puerile rhetoric of neo-liberal reformation whose mendacious credo could not conceal the organized looting of the national patrimony which was perpetrated in the name of a dubious privatization agenda by the regime’s head and his allies, both local and foreign.
Alleging their involvement in coup plotting, the former potentate from Minna did order the killings of scores of army officers in the likes of Colonel Iorshe, Gen. Vatsa, Capt. G. Ahura and Orkar. Also, the assassination of Dele Giwa is suspected to have been sponsored by the Babangida regime so as to permanently silence the formidable journalistic talent who was reportedly on the verge of making damaging revelations about the military ruler and his diabolical rule. And to cap his infamy, in 1993, Babangida annulled the election of the late M. Abiola as president. That poll was considered as relatively free and fair. The cancellation of the election results led to over a hundred people killed by security forces especially in the western region. Obasanjo’s demonic trajectory of human rights abuses and mass killings has also been well documented. From his regime’s instigation of the mindless slaughter by Nigerian soldiers of hundreds of innocent and unarmed civilians in Odi, to the genocidal and remorseless annihilation of defenceless communities in Zaki-Biam and surrounding villages on the part of the same army, one is confronted with the criminal impunity of perhaps the most depraved tin god to lay claim to governance in the history of Nigeria. Still under the satanic misgovernance of the Ota son of the soil, key political figures were assassinated with the police doing little or nothing to find the culprits. The assassinations of Bola Ige and Marshal Harry are some of the examples of major opposition figures that were victims of the desperation by the ex-tyrant and his PDP associates to render the opposition ineffective.
Under a supposed democratic dispensation, that is the Obasanjo reign of terror which lasted from 1999 to May 29, 2007, the country did witness the most concerted attacks so far on our national institutions by the very persons who were charged with defending them. In 2003, Obasanjo and his PDP rigged themselves back to Aso Rock. In 2007, that feat of electoral wizardly was repeated in the worst election in world history. That election threw up the duo of Yar’Adua and Jonathan whose illegitimacy is at the root of the mess Nigeria has found itself in today. Remarkably, it was under Obasanjo that the anti- corruption campaign did suffer its worst abuses under the Nuhu-Ribadu-led EFCC. Ribadu used the outfit as a redoubtable hounding enterprise against perceived enemies of the former ruler.
Nowadays, the same Obasanjo and his allies are busy beating the gongs of triumphalist revanchism around Goodluck Jonathan. For these elements, the good old days of reckless impunity are here. With Jonathan. their friend and ally, it is once more the season of wanton revelries of hedonistic debauchery. It is hardly surprising that amongst these bacchants, known fugitives from the law as well as self-confessed agents of tyranny in the el-Rufai hue are in a celebratory fantasy land where all malevolent desires are permitted. And they are not alone. Those who plundered local banks and left the economy in a pathetic state are also rejoicing as can be seen in the obviously orchestrated attacks on the indomitable CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and his courageous and timely reforms. Recently, the acting president’s security adviser, Aliyu Gusau, did make a profoundly offensive and unwarranted outburst that sought to impugn the integrity of the CBN governor and his leadership of that institution. The illiterate, self-serving and apparently teleguided gaffe by the glorified thug called national security adviser who ignorantly and mischievously accused both the EFCC under Mrs. Waziri and the CBN of undermining national security was surprisingly not adequately challenged by our civil society representatives. The likes of Wole Soyinka and his save Nigeria congregation are too far gone in their cheerleading for Jonathan to pay attention to the danger posed to Nigerian democracy by a scheming deadwood like Aliyu Gusau and his political masters at Aso Rock. During Gusau’s tenure as national security adviser under Obasanjo, the nation experienced unprecedented insecurity occasioned by the nefarious activities of armed robbers, kidnappers and chiefly PDP looters and election riggers..
The civil society should be taking to task not only the vermin who want to be kings but also the scum bags whose truculent delusions point to the sobering realization that they are hell bent on pursuing their ungodly fantasies consisting in the imposition of kindred spirits on the hapless people of this country. It is a moral incongruity to condemn Babangida and his depravations only to turn around and be seen to be condoning the excesses or failings of a consummate election rigger like Jonathan as Wole Soyinka and his friends are doing. Coming after his pro-Obasanjo stance in the “419” presidential election of 2003, Soyinka’s uncritical and sophomoric appreciation of the acting president who is a creature of the self-perpetuation gambit of the Ota monster must be seen as quite unsettling. Commenting on his visit to Jonathan some weeks ago, the Nobel laureate did not disappoint his followers when he reportedly announced to the effect that he believes Jonathan’s sincerity in the matter of electoral reform. Said he: “Unfortunately, one cannot transmit the same vibrations from the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, many of whose members are unelected anyway, and would like to leave things as they are because they hope to benefit from this illegitimacy and the whole corruption of the electoral system. “I believe from our conversation, and even before now, that he (Jonathan) is of a different cast of mind and that if everything is left to him, I have no doubt at all that there will be a commendable tempo in the passage of the Uwais report and recommendations,”! This is an unfortunate statement coming from an individual of Soyinka’s fabled perspicacity. It is a mark of intellectual dishonesty on the part of Soyinka for him to futilely seek to establish moral dichotomies regarding Jonathan and what should rightly be deemed as his confederates. It has to be said that the members of the House of representatives and the Senate whose illegitimacy Soyinka has acknowledged were cut from the same moral cloth as Jonathan, a man Soyinka is unbelievably implying is imbued with legitimacy, electoral or otherwise.
Wole Soyinka’s view on Jonathan as reported in Daily Independent should be troubling, not just for his Save Nigeria Group (SNG), but importantly also, for the citizenry in general. It portrays Soyinka and much of the pro-Jonathan lobby as unserious. Or, worse, as driven, not by lofty considerations of moral probity, but rather, by partisan and conceivably primordial allegiances. Soyinka’s blind trust in Jonathan notwithstanding the damning evidence as to the acting president’s excesses and unwholesome track record is a Freudian slip of sorts, the clearest indication yet of what many believe is an unholy alliance between the SNG and the sponsors, both local and foreign, of Jonathan’s ascendancy. It is a telling commentary on the Nigerian civil society and especially its media and soi-disant pro-democracy components whose relative silence in the face of the danger posed by the regrouping of perhaps the most reactionary elements in Nigeria’s history is a source of serious national concern.
It is worth reiterating that less than one year from the next general elections which one had hoped would signal a critical transformation away from the PDP-dominated status quo, certain individuals and groups who have arrogated to themselves the role of moral conscience of the society have cast their lot with the usurpers who have tormented the nation for decades . The knee-jerk castigation of the former despot from Minna should not be seen as an alibi by those whose deceptively progressive discourse has adopted a mainly ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ stance with sectarian undertones regarding the acting president and his grey eminence.
Aonduna Tondu ( [email protected] )
The recall of the catalogue of atrocities committed by Babangida during his reign of sleaze and murderous conduct does remind us that the corrupt and sadistic tyranny of the ex-despot from Ota was, to a large extent, a replica of the Babangida misrule. The terrible human rights abuses and murders of innocent civilians that one witnessed under the thieving Babangida regime were matched by the sordid track record of the born-again kleptocracy of Matthew ” Igbochukwu” Obasanjo. While Babangida had instituted corruption as state craft and imposed punishing so-called austerity measures on the nation, Obasanjo and his acolytes assaulted our sensibilities with a puerile rhetoric of neo-liberal reformation whose mendacious credo could not conceal the organized looting of the national patrimony which was perpetrated in the name of a dubious privatization agenda by the regime’s head and his allies, both local and foreign.
Alleging their involvement in coup plotting, the former potentate from Minna did order the killings of scores of army officers in the likes of Colonel Iorshe, Gen. Vatsa, Capt. G. Ahura and Orkar. Also, the assassination of Dele Giwa is suspected to have been sponsored by the Babangida regime so as to permanently silence the formidable journalistic talent who was reportedly on the verge of making damaging revelations about the military ruler and his diabolical rule. And to cap his infamy, in 1993, Babangida annulled the election of the late M. Abiola as president. That poll was considered as relatively free and fair. The cancellation of the election results led to over a hundred people killed by security forces especially in the western region. Obasanjo’s demonic trajectory of human rights abuses and mass killings has also been well documented. From his regime’s instigation of the mindless slaughter by Nigerian soldiers of hundreds of innocent and unarmed civilians in Odi, to the genocidal and remorseless annihilation of defenceless communities in Zaki-Biam and surrounding villages on the part of the same army, one is confronted with the criminal impunity of perhaps the most depraved tin god to lay claim to governance in the history of Nigeria. Still under the satanic misgovernance of the Ota son of the soil, key political figures were assassinated with the police doing little or nothing to find the culprits. The assassinations of Bola Ige and Marshal Harry are some of the examples of major opposition figures that were victims of the desperation by the ex-tyrant and his PDP associates to render the opposition ineffective.
Under a supposed democratic dispensation, that is the Obasanjo reign of terror which lasted from 1999 to May 29, 2007, the country did witness the most concerted attacks so far on our national institutions by the very persons who were charged with defending them. In 2003, Obasanjo and his PDP rigged themselves back to Aso Rock. In 2007, that feat of electoral wizardly was repeated in the worst election in world history. That election threw up the duo of Yar’Adua and Jonathan whose illegitimacy is at the root of the mess Nigeria has found itself in today. Remarkably, it was under Obasanjo that the anti- corruption campaign did suffer its worst abuses under the Nuhu-Ribadu-led EFCC. Ribadu used the outfit as a redoubtable hounding enterprise against perceived enemies of the former ruler.
Nowadays, the same Obasanjo and his allies are busy beating the gongs of triumphalist revanchism around Goodluck Jonathan. For these elements, the good old days of reckless impunity are here. With Jonathan. their friend and ally, it is once more the season of wanton revelries of hedonistic debauchery. It is hardly surprising that amongst these bacchants, known fugitives from the law as well as self-confessed agents of tyranny in the el-Rufai hue are in a celebratory fantasy land where all malevolent desires are permitted. And they are not alone. Those who plundered local banks and left the economy in a pathetic state are also rejoicing as can be seen in the obviously orchestrated attacks on the indomitable CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and his courageous and timely reforms. Recently, the acting president’s security adviser, Aliyu Gusau, did make a profoundly offensive and unwarranted outburst that sought to impugn the integrity of the CBN governor and his leadership of that institution. The illiterate, self-serving and apparently teleguided gaffe by the glorified thug called national security adviser who ignorantly and mischievously accused both the EFCC under Mrs. Waziri and the CBN of undermining national security was surprisingly not adequately challenged by our civil society representatives. The likes of Wole Soyinka and his save Nigeria congregation are too far gone in their cheerleading for Jonathan to pay attention to the danger posed to Nigerian democracy by a scheming deadwood like Aliyu Gusau and his political masters at Aso Rock. During Gusau’s tenure as national security adviser under Obasanjo, the nation experienced unprecedented insecurity occasioned by the nefarious activities of armed robbers, kidnappers and chiefly PDP looters and election riggers..
The civil society should be taking to task not only the vermin who want to be kings but also the scum bags whose truculent delusions point to the sobering realization that they are hell bent on pursuing their ungodly fantasies consisting in the imposition of kindred spirits on the hapless people of this country. It is a moral incongruity to condemn Babangida and his depravations only to turn around and be seen to be condoning the excesses or failings of a consummate election rigger like Jonathan as Wole Soyinka and his friends are doing. Coming after his pro-Obasanjo stance in the “419” presidential election of 2003, Soyinka’s uncritical and sophomoric appreciation of the acting president who is a creature of the self-perpetuation gambit of the Ota monster must be seen as quite unsettling. Commenting on his visit to Jonathan some weeks ago, the Nobel laureate did not disappoint his followers when he reportedly announced to the effect that he believes Jonathan’s sincerity in the matter of electoral reform. Said he: “Unfortunately, one cannot transmit the same vibrations from the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, many of whose members are unelected anyway, and would like to leave things as they are because they hope to benefit from this illegitimacy and the whole corruption of the electoral system. “I believe from our conversation, and even before now, that he (Jonathan) is of a different cast of mind and that if everything is left to him, I have no doubt at all that there will be a commendable tempo in the passage of the Uwais report and recommendations,”! This is an unfortunate statement coming from an individual of Soyinka’s fabled perspicacity. It is a mark of intellectual dishonesty on the part of Soyinka for him to futilely seek to establish moral dichotomies regarding Jonathan and what should rightly be deemed as his confederates. It has to be said that the members of the House of representatives and the Senate whose illegitimacy Soyinka has acknowledged were cut from the same moral cloth as Jonathan, a man Soyinka is unbelievably implying is imbued with legitimacy, electoral or otherwise.
Wole Soyinka’s view on Jonathan as reported in Daily Independent should be troubling, not just for his Save Nigeria Group (SNG), but importantly also, for the citizenry in general. It portrays Soyinka and much of the pro-Jonathan lobby as unserious. Or, worse, as driven, not by lofty considerations of moral probity, but rather, by partisan and conceivably primordial allegiances. Soyinka’s blind trust in Jonathan notwithstanding the damning evidence as to the acting president’s excesses and unwholesome track record is a Freudian slip of sorts, the clearest indication yet of what many believe is an unholy alliance between the SNG and the sponsors, both local and foreign, of Jonathan’s ascendancy. It is a telling commentary on the Nigerian civil society and especially its media and soi-disant pro-democracy components whose relative silence in the face of the danger posed by the regrouping of perhaps the most reactionary elements in Nigeria’s history is a source of serious national concern.
It is worth reiterating that less than one year from the next general elections which one had hoped would signal a critical transformation away from the PDP-dominated status quo, certain individuals and groups who have arrogated to themselves the role of moral conscience of the society have cast their lot with the usurpers who have tormented the nation for decades . The knee-jerk castigation of the former despot from Minna should not be seen as an alibi by those whose deceptively progressive discourse has adopted a mainly ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ stance with sectarian undertones regarding the acting president and his grey eminence.
Aonduna Tondu ( [email protected] )
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