Let’s Thank Buhari For Breaking Up Nigeria! By Bayo Oluwasanmi
Though “elected” as democratic president, General Muhammadu Buhari is a dictator defined. He employs force and fraud to gain despotic power. He maintains his tyrannical rule through the use of intimidation, terror, and the suppression of basic civil liberties. He relies on techniques of mass propaganda in order to sustain his public support.
Under Buhari, Nigeria has moved from a failed state to a collapsed country. He failed to provide tangible political goods. He failed to meet the expectations and demands of the Nigerian people. He failed to honour the social contract between ruler and ruled, the core of regime or government and citizenry interactions. But of all the hierarchy of political goods, none is as critical as the supply of security, especially human security.
In this regard, Buhari successfully renamed Nigeria Somalia. The delivery of a range of desirable political goods – jobs, education, infrastructure, farming, industries, etc., becomes impossible when a reasonable measure of security cannot be guaranteed.
Another political good that Buhari failed to provide is essential freedoms: the right to compete for office, respect and support for national and regional political institutions like legislatures and courts, tolerance of dissent and differences, and fundamental civil and human rights. Other political goods expected by Nigerians that Buhari failed to give include medical and healthcare, public housing, schools, roads, harbours, and other physical infrastructures.
Buhari created, encouraged, and sponsored deeply conflicted, dangerous and contested bitterly warring factions. On his watch as Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces, government killed defenceless protesting civilians, murdered/arrested/jailed critics, and abducted dissidents. Insurgencies sprout up like mushrooms all over the country. Varieties of civil unrest, different communal discontent, and a plethora of dissent are directed at the Buhari administration for its anti-people and nepotistic practices. Ethnic and religious enmity is now a part of Nigeria’s civil strife. Buhari propels antagonism and stimulates and fuels hostilities against other ethnic groups in favour of his Fulani kinsmen. He legitimised greed and avarice in the guise of fighting corruption.
Buhari cannot control and secure our borders. He has lost authority over sections of the country. He is primarily responsible for flawed institutions. He turned National Assembly into a rubber-stamping machine. He converted the judiciary into an annexe of Aso Rock. Overall, he did a good job breaking Nigeria up. Indeed, “there was a country.” Let’s thank Buhari for breaking up Nigeria!
