Buhari or Jonathan: The Time ToDecide - Femi Fani Kayode

Article written by former Minister Femi Fani
Kayode. Read and tell us what you think...
Major General Muhammadu Buhari has
emerged as the APC flagbearer for the
2015 Presidential election and President
Goodluck Jonathan has emerged for the
PDP. The battle for the soul and future
of our nation now begins.
Let us consider Buhari. On 22nd July
2014 he told The Nation Newspaper that
"our country has gone through several
rough patches, but never before have I
seen a Nigerian President declare war
on his own country as we are seeing
now.
Never before have I seen a Nigerian President
deploy federal institutions in the service of
partisanship as we are witnessing now. Never
before have I seen a Nigerian President
utilize the common wealth to subvert the
system and punish the opposition, all in the
name of politics. Our nation has suffered
serious consequences in the past for
egregious acts that are not even close to
what we are seeing now. It is time to pull the
brakes''.
One may have been prepared to accept the
general's words as being those of a genuinely
concerned and committed patriot who simply
wanted our President and his Government to
do a better job and who was worried about
the unfolding situation in our country if he
had not consistently exposed his true colors
and his obvious soft spot for Boko Haram.
Permit me to share just one example of the
expression of that soft spot in this
contribution. On 3rd June 2013, Thisday
Newspaper led their newspaper with the
following headline: ''The military offensive
against Boko Haram is anti-north- General
Muhammadu Buhari''.
The headline was followed by these words:
''Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, has criticised
the declaration of state of emergency in
Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States and the
subsequent military offensive against the
Boko Haram Islamic sect. Buhari, who
featured on the “Guest of the Week,” a Hausa
programme of the Kaduna-based Liberty
Radio, yesterday said the federal
government’s action was a gross injustice
against the north. According to him, unlike
the special treatment the federal government
gave to the Niger Delta militants, the Boko
Haram members were being killed and their
houses demolished. He said he was not in
support of the declaration of state of
emergency in the three north-eastern states
because President Goodluck Jonathan had
failed from the outset in addressing the
security situation in the country''.
The implications of these shameful and
indefensible comments, coming from a former
Head of State, are obvious and self-evident. If
the truth be told Buhari's peculiar affinity
with the terrorists and his fawning about
their safety and welfare is as unbearable as it
is nauseating.
Yet that same General Buhari who said these
unacceptable things one year ago is now
busy pontificating about his concerns for our
nation. Many would argue that that is pretty
rich coming from him given his past
comments about a ruthless group of terrorists
who, more than any other, merit the award for
the greatest ''troublers of our nation''. Given
this I regard Buhari's comments to the
Nation Newspaper on the 22 July 2014 as
nothing but self-serving and belated clap trap
and balderdash.
Yet this clap trap and balderdash is worthy of
a little attention. Of particular interest to me
were the following words: ''never before have I
seen a Nigerian President declare war on his
own country as we are seeing now''. Really?
Correct me if I am wrong but I thought that
the war that President Goodluck
Jonathan had declared was against
terrorism and Boko Haram and not against
the Nigerian people.
Does General Buhari find it difficult to make a
distinction between the jihadists and the
Nigerian people? Does he see them as being
one and the same? Does he actually equate
members of Jama'at ahl as-sunnah li-d-
da'wa wa-l-jihad with the Nigerian people?
Does he regard the military offensive against
Boko Haram as being an offensive against
OUR people? Does he honestly believe that
anytime that a Boko Haram terrorist is killed
by our Armed Forces and security agencies or
that his house is blown up that it is an
attack on the Nigerian people or an assault
on the north? Are those people that Boko
Haram slaughtering, terrorising, abducting,
pillaging, robbing and raping on a daily basis
all over our country not the real Nigerians?
Does he honestly believe that Boko Haram is
representative of the thinking of our people or
even the majority of the people in the muslim
north? Has this man not lost touch with
reality? Does he really belong to the 21st
century or is he nothing more than an old
relic from the distant past who secretly
craves for a return to the norms, ways and
values of 6th century Saudi Arabia? Is such a
man really fit to be President of our country?
Is he still insisting on having another muslim
as his running mate in order to establish his
strange dream of a muslim/muslim President
and Vice President for our country or has he
shelved that idea due to political pressure
from President Olusegun Obasanjo, public
resentment and bitter outrage?
Has he beat a tactical retreat from the
muslim/muslim adventure and finally opted
for Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Professor
Yemi Osibajo, Governor Kayode Fayemi or
some other yoruba christian to be his running
mate as my sources are suggesting?
I must confess that all three of these
individuals are profoundly good men and are
eminently qualified for the job but does this
latest concession come from the heart or is it
just a ruse and an attempt to appease the
christian community? Is it an attempt to lure
them in and make them drop their guard?
Does Buhari have any respect for Christians?
Does he have any empathy with the christian
community in northern Nigeria for the
immense suffering, degradation,
humiliation,contempt, shame, indignity,
persecution and mass murder that they have
been subjected to in the north for the last 54
years and particularly in the last few years?
Does he regard christians as being human
beings? Does he accept the fact that Boko
Haram are nothing but beasts? Does he
recognise the fact that no-one has the right
to take the life of another human being in the
name of religion? Does he know that
compulsion has no place in any civilised
religion and that each human being has the
right to exercise his or her free will to
determine which religious faith he or she
wishes to espouse?
Does Buhari understand the meaning of the
words ''secular state'' or the concept of the
secularity of the state? Can he possibly
accept the virtues and comprehend the
wisdom of such an equitable and reasonable
constitutional arrangement which guarantees
the rights of all faiths and which does not
allow one faith to laud it over another
anywhere in our country?
Does he recognise the fact that Nigeria is in
actual fact a secular state in which the rights
and dignity of the members of every faith,
including the christian faith, are guaranteed
by the constitution? Does he accept the fact
that in this day and age it is a heinous crime
against humanity and particularly the girl-
child and that it is a complete violation of
the laws of our land for little girls of the age
of 5, 6, 9 13 and even up to 16 to be married
off and subjected to rape in the name of
religion and marriage?
Does the General support paedophiles, sexual
predators, sociopaths, sadistic perverts and
the criminally-insane like the Boko Haram
leader Abubakar Shekau who are sexually
attracted to innocent and defenceless little
girls and who believe that they can be ''sold
in the market'' and ''forced into marriage and
slavery?'' Does he honestly believe that Boko
Haram are human beings? Does this man
that wants to be President of our country not
recognise a heartless and callous beast when
he sees one?
Does the wanton and relentless shedding of
rivers of innocent blood, including the blood
of children, not move his heart? Does the
open abduction of almost 300 little girls,
each of whom is young enough to be his
grandaughter, from the sanctity of their
school dormitory in the dead of the night not
evoke pity in him and not stir him to rage?
Does he have any compassion and does he
feel no pain for the suffering of the victims of
Boko Haram? Does he know that Boko
Haram has killed as many muslims as they
have christians in their insane attempt to
establish an islamic fundamentalist state in
our country?
Is his inability to make a distinction between
Boko Haram and the Nigerian people
informed by the fact that he is a closet
Haramite whose stated desire is to ''spread
sharia throughout the whole of the country''
as he said in 2001? Does Buhari still believe
that ''muslims should only vote for
muslims’’ or ‘’for those that will protect
their interest'' as he said in 2001?
Does he still believe that ''christians should
not worry when muslims chop off their own
arms and hands in the name of sharia
because it is none of their business'' as he
said in 2001? Does he still believe that Boko
Haram members should be forgiven, granted
amnesty, pampered, sent abroad to learn and
given monthly allowances ‘’like the Niger
Delta militants’’ as he suggested in 2013?
Does he still believe that , if he is not elected
as President in 2015, ''the dog and the
baboon shall both be soaked in blood''?
The questions are legion. Given his views
about Boko Haram does General
Muhammadu Buhari have the moral right to
condemn anyone, least of all the President
and the Federal Government, for the
challenges that we are facing in this country?
Never before have I seen a former Nigerian
Head of State openly express sympathy and
covertly support a murderous and bestial
terrorist organisation that has killed well over
30,000 innocent Nigerians in cold blood, that
has abducted and raped our little girls and
that has slit the throats and drained the
blood of our young boys.
Never before have I seen a former Nigerian
Head of State openly defend a bunch of
cowardly, uncouth and barbaric jihadists that
have bombed and burnt alive the weak, the
vulnerable and the elderly in our country and
that have slaughtered our soldiers, policemen
and intelligence agents at will and with such
callousness and glee.
Never before have I seen a former Nigerian
Head of State openly canvass restraint and
mercy for a bunch of bloodthirsty, cold-
blooded mass murderers and criminals that
have turned our country into a pariah nation,
that has made the north the home of the
most callous, ruthless, hateful, vile and evil
terrorist organisation in the world and that
has transformed our nation into a horrendous
haven for ruthless islamic fundamentalists
and bloodthirsty islamist militias.
If the truth must be told the only thing that is
worse than Boko Haram are those in the
Nigerian political class that secretly support
and covertly assist them. A Buhari
Presidency would be a disaster for our
country, a danger to the Christian community
and clear evidence of the final victory and
triumph of Boko Haram and the jihadists over
the Nigerian state. It would also represent
the end of Nigeria as one nation.