Fani-Kayode said this a few days after the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court affirmed the election of President Bola Tinubu.
A former Director of Special Media Projects, Operations and New Media for Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has said that supporters of Peter Obi, who are popularly known as Obidients and youths informally regarded as members of the Gen-Z generation, who are calling for the military takeover of power in Nigeria are naive, gullible, ignorant and irresponsible.
Fani-Kayode said this on Monday, a few days after the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court affirmed the election of President Bola Tinubu.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) and their candidates – Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi respectively have rejected the judgment of the tribunal.
Fani-Kayode, a former aviation minister said that Obidients and young people on social media, most of whom, according to him, are millennials, are busy fantasising and toying with the idea of a military coup in the country and indulging in illusions because “they do not know anything about the frightful dangers of military rule or the vicious, oppressive, draconian, repressive, reactionary, bloodthirsty and inherently unaccountable and unjust nature of military Governments.”
He further said, “They were not born when the June 12th struggle took place in 1993 and they know nothing about the series of bloody military interventions and coups that took place from Major Kaduna Nzeogwu's January 15th 1966 mutiny (with all its attendant bloodshed) right up until 1999 when General Abdulsalami Abubakar, finally relinquished power and handed it over to the democratically-elected Government of President Olusegun Obasanjo.”
However, on coups currently being experienced in some West and Central African countries including the most recent ones in the Republic of Niger and Gabon, Fani-Kayode said that African leaders who take pleasure in rigging elections, tormenting and crushing the citizens, imposing corrupt officials, persecuting and incarcerating members of the opposition, make military takeover of power, rebellion and insurrection inevitable in their countries.
He quoted a former US President, John F. Kennedy, as saying, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”, and the Mexican revolutionary hero, Emiliano Zapata, as saying, “If there is no justice for the people, let there be no peace for the Government.”
According to him, this sentiment is what is playing out in the hearts and minds of most Africans today.
He added that if people do not stand up, resist, fight back and “breed unnatural troubles” when confronted with wickedness, injustice and tyranny, they cannot expect to ever enjoy their God-given right of freedom, nor will they ever witness emancipation from subjugation and oppression.
He said, “Simply put, no matter who your senior military commanders are, whether the old or the new and no matter how many times you sack, retire, redeploy or change them, when you are an illegitimate, depraved and evil leader who crushes, murders, persecutes and incarcerates members of the opposition and who rigs elections, refuses to leave power, torments the people and imposes a corrupt, bloodthirsty and blood-lusting dictatorship and dynasty of barbarism and tyranny on his nation, coups, mutiny, rebellion, revolution and insurrection become inevitable: it is only a question of time.
“The great Mexican revolutionary and courageous hero, Emiliano Zapata said ‘if there is no justice for the people, let there be no peace for the Government.’
“This sentiment is what we see playing out in the hearts and minds of most Africans today: no justice for the people and no peace for the Government.”