NASS Vs IGP Idris:  Buhari and his dangerous precepts

By Ifeanyi Izeze

How did this country get into the current debased level of politics? It is okay to now shout and explain away all the misdemeanour of this government but the consequence is that people running this present administration, by default, are setting a very dangerous precedence.

It seem not to occur to them that no matter how long President Mohammadu Buhari is going to stay in office, one day it will end and a new driver, and definitely a “Pharaoh who does not know Joseph” will take over and then start building on the precepts already set by the current crop at the State House.

Still fresh in our memory, using the alternative media to insult and abuse the then President, Goodluck Jonathan and making caricature of his wife and the entire region he came from was the fashionable way to show loyalty to the then opposition. Today the table has turned and those who were at the receiving end are now doing a better and more sophisticated job at throwing darts at the incumbent. The same people who invented the tools are now on the ruling side and are bitterly complaining of the attacks against the president and disrespect of his office. Can you imagine that?

For every individual hailing this present style of governance, come let us reason together.

Since when did Police start releasing so much acquired information on an ongoing investigation and a very sensitive one for that matter? Sorry to say this: the police boss, Idris Abubakar, everyday shows that he is really not intelligent enough or rather lacks the capacity to head such sensitive infrastructure in our national security architecture. Was there no way the IGP would have pursue his clampdown on Saraki without dangling the name of President Buhari as giving him the nod to go ahead? Did the IGP consider the political implication of publicly saying the president approved his arrest warrant on the Senate President Saraki?

Is it a coincident that armed robbers are suddenly now confessing to sponsorship from Maleye, Saraki, Shehu Sani, Fayose, Wike amongst other staunch critics of the way things are run today in this country by the Buhari-led administration?

Suddenly, the Director of the DSS just realised that both the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives have more than enough security details and few hours after the police invited Saraki, decided to withdraw almost all the security aides of the National Assembly leadership. Haba! One thing Buhari and his people always count on, is that real Nigerians are stupid and also cowards, as they can be told anything, after all if they don’t believe, they can be coerced using the militant arms of the ruling party including the police, DSS, and the EFC.

What does this government exactly want to achieve by destroying all the institutions it met on ground? How do you explain that the government want to act a movie with the police and could not be smart enough to avoid using five people from Minister of Information, Lai Mohamed’s village? Is this the democracy Nigerians fought for and won? How can we open our eyes and watch the nation slide into despotism? Every appointee in this government is a law unto himself. The Customs Controller is on one side talking and threatening everybody as if he is no longer a public office holder; the DSS boss coerces whoever dissents to the opinion of the Presidency; the EFCC runs after whoever is in a position to challenge the claim that ‘Nigerians earnestly ask for Buhari.’ How can we continue like this?

As President Buhari and his Inspector General of Police continually pull the justice delivery system into the gutter, how long will the good men in Nigeria keep mute as the country is transformed into a sinister dictatorship? For how long will those who fought for our hard earned democratic freedoms tolerate these absurdities? Does anybody still doubt that our Police Force has transformed into a coercing wing of the president’s ruling party?

All those supporting this level of absurdity under Buhari may not live to watch the full story when the nation begins to burn. When state institutions like the police now become tools of the executive for settling and hounding real or perceived opponents there is sure going to be a blow up. With state institutions in the grip of one man and with such enormous powers to use them as he wishes, there will surely be a blow up. Nigeria has too many centres of influence. So the President and his men should know that their arrogance of power will lead to consequences that are far reaching.

Though not claiming to be a policeman neither a private investigator, the criminality trends around every known opposition to the present government leave much to desire and to take it at face value or uncritically is naive.  Let’s look at it: Dino charged for gun running; Shehu Sani for another criminality in Kaduna; Saraki and Governor Ahmed implicated in Kwarra (Offa) bank robbery; and the recent Ekiti shooting saga yet to be linked with anyone but be sure it will ultimately be linked to Governor Ayodele Fayose. Nyesom Wike has been shouting in Port Harcourt that the federal government wants to frame him up and at worst kill him through the police structure called SARS.

As aptly said by Innih Akpan in his comment on the social media, “Typical of the Nigerian political environment, those ‘Offa criminals’, are Saraki’s thugs but that does not suggest the Governor of Kwara or Saraki knew anything or sponsored the deadly Offa robbery. The police boss must be careful not to make the Buhari’s government look like being on a political vendetta mission.

“He (IGP) must equally not allow his recent personal altercations with the Senate becloud his sense of reasoning and fair play. History tells me that about a quarter of those that voted for Buhari in 2015; including myself were actually irked by the excesses and impunity of the PDP or rather the Jonathan government towards the opposition. This Inspector General of Ploice if not properly counselled may unwittingly create the same atmosphere in his blind quest to show his loyalty to the President.”

What other bigger threat do we have to our democratic experiment aside the abuse of criminal investigation process to intimidate and overawe all forms of opposition both within and outside the ruling APC?

The landing page is this. When the next government/President get installed, opposition would have gone into total extinction most especially if he honours tyrannical fireworks. Reasons being that all political gladiators today would have been at the other side and it would be their turn to be charged for gun running without an escape route. Remember law dwells on precedence. God bless Nigeria!

(IFEANYI IZEZE: [email protected]; 234-8033043009)