Atiku Abubakar the PDP presidential candidate led a protest in Abuja against the outcome of the just concluded 2023 presidential election. Every aggrieved Nigerian has the right to protest peacefully against any wrongdoing by the government. However, when and where double standards of selective justice and selective outrage are employed, equality before the law has been violently violated.
President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s maximum leader, is guilty of both selective justice and selective outrage. Nigerians will forever be indebted to Buhari for dismantling our justice system. Under Buhari, we witness the inconsistent application of legal due process, contradicting the principles of equality before the law. Through selective justice, Buhari destroyed our justice system because selective justice serves no justice. Rather, it sponsors injustice. It contradicts the principle of equality before the law. It makes the application of the rule of law difficult. It impairs the efficiency of the criminal justice system.
Under Buhari, the rich, the powerful, the corrupt, the well-connected, and political party stalwarts evade the rule of law. The interference of Buhari (the executive) in the working of the judiciary results in selective justice. As for selective outrage, Buhari taps into his “moral” outrage when it is politically expedient to do so, and he becomes curiously docile when it is profitable for him.
When Omoyele Sowore the AAC presidential candidate, protested against the electoral fraud of the 2019 presidential elections, Buhari dispatched his attack dogs – DSS, police, and the army – to arrest Sowore. Sowore was hunted and detained for months in the DSS dungeon. He was accused of planning a revolution against Buhari’s regime capable of disrupting the peace and tranquillity of the country. Sowore was in and out of court fighting legally to regain his freedom. When he was eventually released, he was granted partial bail by restricting him within Nigeria.
When the outspoken and prominent Shiite Muslim leader, El-Zakzaky protested the tyranny of Buhari, he was arrested alongside his wife and slammed into prison forever! Acting on orders of Buhari, the police and the military killed #EndSars protesters. Chief Sunday Adeyemo Igboho escaped death by the whiskers when his home was invaded by the killer squads of Buhari. Some of his aides were killed. Igboho’s offence was defending Yoruba farmers being killed and Yoruba women being raped by Fulani herdsmen. Nnamdi Kanu was brought to Nigeria through a rendition on the orders of Buhari. He has been in the DSS gulag ever since. His crime was fighting the tyranny of the Buhari regime against the Igbos. In contrast, Gumi and other notorious Fulani terrorists and violence instigators were untouchable and above the law.
Why was Buhari not provoked and outraged by the protest led by Atiku? Why was Atiku not arrested by the DSS, detained, and charged with inciting revolution against Buhari’s regime as they did to Sowore? Why was the protest allowed in the first place? Is it because Atiku is a fellow Fulani? Maybe if Atiku was arrested, it could cause a northern revolt. Why has Buhari become deaf, and blind to Atiku’s protest in Abuja? Why isn’t what is good for the goose not good for the gander? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Atiku should be arrested for protesting the 2023 presidential election results.