On the ‘lie-gend’ of Buratai

Abimbola Adelakun

Since he became the Chief of Army Staff, a pattern of narcissism
has followed the pronouncements and actions of Lieutenant General
Tukur Yusuf Buratai. Even the military under him comes up with
funny ideas such as setting up zoos and parks in barracks,
establishing cattle ranches, and producing military vehicles.

Buratai’s latest offering is the book, “The Legend of Buratai,”
a project of self-admiration billed for a public presentation on
May 17. Written by one Dr. Abubakar Mohammed Sani who claims that
his agenda was to transform “the Buratai narrative” into a legend,
the book will be publicly presented before the children and young
adults they will shepherd out of their schools to be a witness to
what is essentially a moral travesty. The design of the book
itself, a pencil sketch of Buratai against a background of army
green colour patterns, screams propaganda. They are going to push
it to schools to start the brainwashing of hapless kids early
enough. The remarkable gist about the book is that it is packaged
as a work of fiction. This barefaced subterfuge, this monstrous lie
would, ordinarily, have fetched a laugh or two if it were not an
unfolding tragedy.

This is not the first book about Buratai that is out there.
Recently, the University of Lagos Press published a book titled,
“Terrorism and Counter Terrorism War in Nigeria: Essays in Honour
of Lt. Gen. T.Y. Buratai.” The book is edited by two professors of
sociology in UNILAG, and it is on the reading list at the National
Defence College in Abuja. A couple of weeks ago too, Ebonyi State
University named its newly established Institute for Peace and
Strategic Studies after Buratai. The university leaders, led by the
Vice Chancellor, Professor Chigozie Ogbu, even carried their legs
to Abuja to pay Buratai a courtesy visit at the Army Headquarters.
Just a few days before that, Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo
State too named its Centre for Contemporary Security Affair after
Buratai. Add all of that to the growing list of “Buratai is the
best” articles by faceless beings that are being currently
published in the media and you can tell that someone somewhere is
helping this man curate his legacy.

We should be curious about why Buratai, self-absorbed, is
invading educational institutions and planting seeds of his ersatz
legacies? Why is he using professors to put his name on either
buildings or books? One answer could be because the academia is one
place where enduring archives that will outlast him can be
guaranteed. There is a lesser probability that a vengeful successor
can upturn the things named in his honour. The fact that academic
institutions are active participants in this project of vanity is a
sad irony. Ideally, the university is where the antics of a
politician desperate to write himself into history as a legend
should have met the stiffest resistance. Instead, the
intelligentsia is a collaborator, its firewall having long been
breached by rampaging politicians desperate to inscribe themselves
within the academic culture.

Buratai’s gentrification of educational institutions is straight
from the playbook of Nigerian politicians and their obsessive
relationship with the world of the academia and all that it
symbolises. One of the many paradoxes of our political class is
while they have sat back and watched our educational institutions
implode, they also love the trappings of the university culture.
They are forever organising colloquiums, symposia, and workshops
where they get to deliver fancy speeches that have been inelegantly
scribbled by those possessing PhDs on their payroll. They validate
their emptiness with multiple honorary degrees. More than any other
project, they love setting up universities even when such projects
are more likely to starve to death from lack of funding. Even Mrs.
Aisha Buhari has hinted us about the possibility of a university
being set up in her husband’s name. Nigerian politicians do not
boast of reading books, but they write a lot of them especially
when they leave office! Those books typically contain details that
degenerate into controversies and fierce media exchanges. Any
outsider witnessing them bark at each other would be forgiven for
assuming that our leaders read or take an intellectual exchange
seriously, but nothing else about them suggests they do. You cannot
trace policy or the projects they carry out to their
pretend-intellectual activities.

Buratai has taken his fascination with intellectualism up a
notch. Now you can expect that stories that valourise all kinds of
mediocre politicians will now be the next level of the Nigerian
madness. They will build false narratives that cut from the fabric
of reality and fantasy to sow fictitious accounts that legendises
them, and then tries to pass off the hagiographic creation as just
“fiction.”

Precisely, what is this Buratai narrative that makes him a
legend? Yes, indeed, the man has been at the helm of affairs in the
fight against Boko Haram. While there has been some victory against
Boko Haram (and part of it preceded Buratai in office anyway), the
battle is far from over.

The security situation in Nigeria is at an alarming level with
the cases of mass killings by bandits and herdsmen in places like
Zamfara, Kaduna, and Benue states. Then, the sporadic rate at which
kidnappings have risen in states like Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna, and
Abuja, should be sobering. We are not yet at the point where those
tasked with the responsibility to guarantee collective security
should be engaging in a self-glorifying enterprise to raise
themselves to an undeserved level of apotheosisation. No
serious-minded general pauses in the middle of a war to award
himself a medal, or even accepts a meaningless celebration that
confers a dubious honour such as “legend” on him.

In another world where human lives are taken seriously, Buratai
will be answering hard questions on the fate that befell the
Shiites when they stood on his way and ended up being massacred. We
know from official accounts that 350 of them were mass-buried, but
up till this moment, the soldiers have not been made to account for
that cruelty. Then, there are the pro-Biafran protesters who were
killed by soldiers but whose murderers have not been called to
judgment. In January, soldiers raided media houses in a manner
reminiscent of how they did under the military.

The army under Buratai has been operating under an illusory high
of power, and that is why their activities have been more about
brawn than brain. In November, when the army was taken up on their
decision to fire live ammunition at the Shiite protesters in Abuja,
they had no moral compass with which to think through their
actions. The only defence they could plea was to latch on to the
rambles of Donald Trump whose lack of knowledge on anything is
itself another stuff for legends. Yes, the Nigerian Army officially
justified its acts of inordinate brutality and it has zero remorse
for it. In which universe is the kind of cowardice that makes
soldiers turn deadly weapons on unarmed folk legendary?

The soldiers that Buratai leads have been so brutalised and
dehumanised they have no empathy left to stick to the rules of
engagement. These soldiers have dispensed with courtesies to
narrate how much they suffer at the warfront where they perish due
to lack of provision of amenities for basic sustenance. Yet, the
top brass grows fat.. The Boko Haram maniacs have killed hundreds
of these soldiers, but the army will not even permit a decent
burial for them. They do not want to puncture their official
narratives of victory that have been padded with lies. To make the
ultimate sacrifice for your country should be a thing of honour but
under Buratai, those soldiers are secretly buried as if it is a
shame to give your life for your country. He is no legend, just a
lie-gend.

If Buratai is confused about his true legacy, here is a list:
violence, brutality, and brigandage. He will not rewrite this
history.

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