A Major General and a President By Simon-Kolawole – TheNigerialawyer

The first time I heard the name, “Major General Muhammadu
Buhari”, it was a compliment — as it were. That was on the evening
of December 31, 1983. Early in the morning, we had woken up to
martial music, followed by words that stuck to my head: “Fellow
countrymen and women, I, Brigadier Sani Abacha of the Nigerian
army, address you this morning on behalf of the Nigerian armed
forces…” I actually crammed the speech. It was fun. I was very
young — a tiny secondary school boy — and quite naïve. My step
grandfather explained to me that President Shehu Shagari had just
been overthrown and the military had taken over power. I became
happier.

Evening time, Major General Muhammadu Buhari appeared on TV and
announced himself as the new head of state and commander-in-chief
of the armed forces in a nationwide broadcast. Again, I remember a
famous quote from his address: “This generation of Nigerians, and
indeed future generations, have no country other than Nigeria. We
shall remain here and salvage it together.” Some 31 years later, he
would reveal to me that he — and not the speech writer — wrote
those particular words. Patriotism was his passion. What “Major
General Muhammadu Buhari” meant to Nigerians in 1983 was a clarion
call to discipline and love for fatherland.

One amazing thing about “Major General Muhammadu Buhari” was
that he did not promote himself, unlike Gowon and Murtala Muhammed
who jumped to the rank of full-star general after taking power.
Buhari remained a major general alongside his army chief, Ibrahim
Babangida. His second-in-command, Babatunde Idiagbon, was a
brigadier. More amazing was that when Idiagbon was promoted to
major general, Buhari remained on the same rank. The picture that
stuck to my mind was that of a man who cared little about
self-aggrandisement. “Major General Muhammadu Buhari” was, indeed,
a lovely compliment — at least before the tide turned against him
in 1985.

Let’s now fast-forward to 2019. Buhari is on his second term as
a democratically elected president. PUNCH, one of Nigeria’s most
respected newspapers, has written a stinging editorial on him,
concluding that at the rate his government has been violating the
rule of law and human rights, it was no longer going to refer to
him as “President Muhammadu Buhari”. The time has come, it said, to
revert to “Major General Muhammadu Buhari” — apparently to remind
us of the days of dictatorial military rule. In addition, it would
no longer refer to his government as a “government” but as a
“regime”. That is definitely not intended as a compliment, no
matter the spin.

To be sure, we have been battling with serious human rights
abuses and assaults on the rule of law since 1999. Under President
Olusegun Obasanjo, soldiers levelled up Odi, Bayelsa state, in
November 1999, killing everyone in sight. The death toll was
estimated at 2,500. The massacre was replicated in Zaki Biam, Benue
state, in October 2001. Obasanjo also unilaterally withheld Lagos
state council allocations. He gave state backing to illegal
impeachment of governors. At a point, the Insider Weekly magazine
did a cover story calling him “Abachanjo” — comparing him to Gen
Sani Abacha, the dreaded dictator who terrorised Nigeria between
1993 and 1998.

President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s government was not to be left
out. In May 2009, soldiers attacked several communities of the
Gbaramatu kingdom in Delta state, including Okerenkoko and Oporoza,
using helicopters equipped with machine guns. The death toll was in
hundreds. Yar’Adua also ordered the military crackdown on Boko
Haram members in July 2009. The toll for the extrajudicial killings
in Bauchi and Maiduguri was close to 1,000. This apparently
incubated the terrorism. Meanwhile, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu and Mallam
Nasir el-Rufai fled into exile alleging persecution. Cases were
filed against them in court but many of us deduced that it was all
politics.

President Goodluck Jonathan, perceived as the most “gentle” of
them all, did not smell of roses. Right under his watch, members of
the Bring Back Our Girls movement were harassed and tear-gassed in
Abuja in operations personally led by Joseph Mbu, the FCT police
commissioner at the time. The data offices of the opposition All
Progressives Congress (APC) were ransacked by the DSS. For
defecting from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to APC, Speaker
Aminu Waziri Tambuwal woke up one day to discover that his security
aides had been withdrawn. Soldiers also seized newspaper vans,
accusing them of transporting arms for Boko Haram.
Next came President Buhari. In December 2015, hundreds of Shi’ite
Muslims were mowed down by soldiers in Kaduna state. We have also
witnessed disobedience of court orders in respect of Sheikh
Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, their leader, Col Sambo Dasuki, former
national security adviser, and Mr Omoyele Sowore. As I write this,
Mr Mohammed Bello Adoke, the former attorney-general of the
federation, is being detained by Interpol in Dubai based on a
warrant of arrest that has long been vacated. While the Nigerian
government transmitted the warrant to Interpol, it has refused to
send the vacation order. This is nothing but an assault on the rule
of law.

On the basis of evidence, Buhari is not the worst violator of
human rights in this democratic dispensation, but that is beside
the point. This is not a competition. We are discussing the rule of
law here, not a pageant where beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
It is about what is right and what is wrong. Another debate is
about what PUNCH can achieve by calling him “major general”. Will
that make Buhari instruct the Department of State Services (DSS) to
release Sowore (and other detainees) from custody as ordered by the
courts? Will calling him “major general” make him mellow or worsen
matters by toughening him up? It is too early in the day to
conclude.

The truth, of course, is that calling Buhari “major general”
carries a subtle message: that he is a military dictator in
civilian garments. We can argue over this for the next 100 years,
but if I were Buhari, I would prefer not to be cast as a dictator.
I remember Obasanjo did not take kindly to being called “General
Obasanjo” by a Ghanaian journalist in 2012. He quipped: “My friend,
I don’t know why you address me as General Obasanjo. In Nigeria
where I am the former president, it is my political opponents that
address me as General Obasanjo when they want to show me as a
dictator. My party calls me Chief Obasanjo. It now depends on which
side you belong.”

Therefore, if I were President Buhari, I would sit down and take
a critical look at the key issue before me: respecting court
orders. Let’s not forget that the immediate trigger for the “major
general” tag was the way the secret police handled Sowore,
publisher of Sahara Reporters and convener of the Revolution Now
movement. After detaining Sowore for 124 days despite several court
orders for his release, DSS operatives rearrested him — without a
warrant — at the premises of a federal high court in Abuja. Any way
we look at it, the Sowore case has become a massive PR disaster for
Buhari. Or, if I may ask, what has Buhari’s government gained from
the Sowore fiasco?

PUNCH has been praised and equally attacked for “taking a
stand”. I am on professional journalism platforms where journalists
and journalism teachers are debating if this violates ethical
standards. For me, though, the issue is not ethics. That is neither
here nor there. It can easily become an academic exercise. Some are
also saying calling Buhari a “major general” is immaterial since he
earned it. Once a general, always a general. But we all know words
have connotative and denotative meanings. True, you can decide to
turn a tag into something positive just to shame your opponents
but, in the end, how you are perceived lasts longer than how you
perceive yourself.

My central argument, then, is that rather than spend the whole
day debating the importance and implications of calling Buhari
“major general”, we need to ram home the point that this government
urgently needs a course correction. Even if past democratic
administrations urinated on the rule of law and spat at court
orders, there cannot be any justification for Buhari to continue
along that path. No matter what the security agencies say,
disobeying court orders or detaining people without court approval
can never be acceptable in a democracy. At the end of the day,
enforcement of the rule of law is the last refuge for all of us —
no matter whose camp we belong.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…
HOUNDING HADIZA
Ms Hadiza Bala Usman, the MD of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA),
recently came under attack from hoodlums who waylaid her at the
premises of the national assembly. She had just attended the senate
hearing on the troubled secure anchorage contract between the navy
and Ocean Marine Solutions Limited (OMSL), owned by the ‘almighty’
Captain Wells Okunbo. The security agencies must investigate those
behind the attack. The thugs and their sponsors must not go
scot-free — except government wants to leave its courageous
officials at the mercy of the powerful guys. That would be too bad.
This attack must be probed and the perpetrators punished.
Imperative.

KALU IN JAIL
The sentencing of Senator Orji Uzor Kalu to 12 years imprisonment
by a federal high court surprised many Nigerians. The case had been
on since 2007 and seemed to be heading nowhere. When Kalu crossed
over to APC, the assumption was that this cup would pass over him.
But it didn’t. There is an impression that needs to be corrected
though: Buhari did not jail Kalu. A court of law did. We must
commend the EFCC for becoming more diligent in its prosecutions.
Many former governors are now prison tenants — previously
unimaginable in a country controlled by buccaneers. Other big
politicians on trial must be shivering by now. The wheel of
justice! Progress.

BUDGET SPEED
The national assembly has done the unprecedented by passing the
appropriation bill for the next year before the current year runs
out. It has never happened in this democratic dispensation; to the
best of my knowledge, neither did it happen in the second republic.
President Buhari presented the budget quite early — on October 8 —
and it was passed less than two months later. I disagree with the
jacking up of the budget by N260 billion as well as the benchmark
from $55 to $57 per barrel, but we can at least celebrate this
small progress and the fact that we can start implementation from
January 1. Next question: where are we going to get the revenue to
fund the budget? Headache.

HARD BORDER
Nigeria has closed its land borders with neighbouring countries for
months, alleging violations of trading rules and conventions. Like
all policy choices, there will be winners and losers. Government
officials are celebrating the fact that local rice farmers will
benefit — even though consumers will pay more, at least for now.
President Buhari says fuel consumption has reduced by 30 per cent.
However, I still maintain my earlier position: that this is
unsustainable. One day, no matter how long it is, we will reopen
these borders and smuggling will resume at breakneck speed. We are
only treating the symptoms. Focus must be shifted to tackling the
disease. Vital.