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Those Who Remember Nothing And Forget Nothing By Achike Chude

May 12, 2022

But we know that their present shenanigan is not beyond them. After all, they are the seeds and progenitors of their fathers and uncles in the 'dark arts and acts of politics' à la Nigeria. It is for them that the statement was made over two thousand years ago:

They have started again - the same tricks, the same strategies, the same mischief, the same deceits and the same manipulations. Happily, we know that they will be met with the same outcome.
 
But we know that their present shenanigan is not beyond them. After all, they are the seeds and progenitors of their fathers and uncles in the 'dark arts and acts of politics' à la Nigeria. It is for them that the statement was made over two thousand years ago:
"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies."
 
So, they have begun the whisperings, the lies, the propaganda and the hawking of fear - all to provide a basis and justification for extending President Muhammadu Buhari's largely crisis strewn eight years of governance by six months.
 

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Elder statesman and lawyer, Robert Clark (SAN), said recently that President Muhammadu Buhari has the constitutional power to extend his eight-year, two-tenure presidency by another six months. In fact, the respectable lawyer implied that President Muhammadu Buhari can extend his presidency by as months as he wants. That means that President Buhari can actually remain in power till 2035 or till such a time that nature calls him home to his maker.
 
In fairness to them, (the presidency), they have distanced themselves from this elongation call. But, unfortunately our history as a country tells us that such denials are usually part of the game.
 
We know what they call Robert Clark's intervention. It is called 'Testing the Waters.' It's about throwing the idea to Nigerians and seeing how they react before the next course of action.
 
Robert Clark's reasoning is actually sound. He wants the president to remain in power for six months to give him more time to save us from terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, and ritualists - all dangerous psychopathic elements that the president has not been able to save us from in seven years. What he couldn't do in seven years, he would now do in six months to enable us run an election in 2023. What a laugh!
 
But what exactly is happening?
 
Simple: Cold is catching some people! Fear has gripped and overtaken them. In the next few months, after the elections in 2023, all their privileges, powers, gra-gra, and the pomp and pageantry or the trappings of office will come to an end and those who had exulted themselves beyond the mandates and authorities of their office will be brought down to earth. For all of seven years they had been gods. But once the deed has been done in 2023, they will be mortals once more, and live and work with us in our own spaces. What a fearful prospect!
 
You see why late statesman, Nnamdi Azikiwe once declared that "No condition is permanent?" You see why Heraclitus the Greek philosopher seconded him by equally asserting that the only thing that is permanent is change?
 
So, out of fear of lost privileges and power, the enemies of our democracy have gone to work.
 
For so they did under the 'Prince of the Niger,' Ibrahim Babangida, the 'Evil Genius' or 'Maradona' who, with the recently demised Authur Nzeribe and his Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), ran rings around Nigeria for eight years until they ran into a cul-de-sac and came unstuck.
 
For so they did under the late dictator Sani Abacha, telling us that he was the only saviour of our country and that without him we were finished. And as religious leaders, traditional rulers, market women, and professional groups trooped to Aso Rock to beg and cry for him to transmute to a civilian president, they proclaimed that he was the anointed one - until fate or destiny stepped in and had the final say as Abacha was suddenly found dead on his bed - just weeks away from becoming civilian president.
 
For so they tried to do under President Olusegun Obasanjo who had served out his two terms as president and was seeking an unconstitutional third term. And as the battle for the third term was raging across the country, senators of the National Assembly laid siege on banks at the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja to each cash the sum of #55 million third term bribery largess to push the agenda. Following very fierce pushback by the political elites and civil society, Obasanjo's inglorious dream of a third term died on the floor of the Senate after then senate president, Ken Nnamani's famous and impassioned plea of: "Every man must answer his father's name. I know my father's name"
 
As it was with Babangida, so was it with Abacha and Obasanjo, and so will it be with Muhammadu Buhari. Come the 29th of May 2023, the president, his entourage, ministers, spokesmen, Laurel and Hardy, will all leave Aso Rock to begin new lives outside the glare of splendor and dizzying power. It is the way of life.
 
History has shown us that any attempt to seek ways to extend this administration's tenure by the proxies, praise singers and eulogists will end in failure and disgrace. They must and will leave power. As the saying goes:
 
"Their place, let another take."