MYSMALLVOICE

Nigeria: Time to belittle the remaining coup plotters
By Hakeem Babalola

Playing chess with Nigeria's life

Nigeria and Nigerians will never know peace until certain people are banished or get rid of or put to death. This is no joke. Neither is it a kid stuff. This reality has been deliberately avoided by all Nigerians. I repeat there will be no peace or even justice in Nigeria unless certain people especially the coup plotters who have ruled this nation are eliminated one by one. How this is going to be achieved I don’t really know now. But it must be done. Anything apart from this is a mere waste of our precious time – physically, socially, economically, politically and spiritually.

Murtala & Obasanjo

Apparently, coup plotters who managed to succeed in their morally reprehensible and cruel acts have done excessive damage to the inner being and spiritual value of Nigerians more than any group in Nigeria. They are still doing it – with lawlessness and pride of a locust. Everything about them is offensive to the mind. Yet, gullible ones among us would rather continue to live under such unintelligible and repugnant atmosphere. That is exactly what you have done by either endorsing or voting for Buhari. So why are you crying now?

It’s time for payback for their fiendishness. And there shall be no mercy; for these juntas have been merciless in a conspiringly manner – towards fellow Nigerians. If at all there would be mercy or grace to abound, these military cabals must publicly confess and repent in a genuine sober mood.

Coups have been an integral part of Nigeria’s history and different governments have accused certain people of plotting one coup or another. And by the decree of coup plotting, this heinous act carries the death penalty. Therefore, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari, the present Nigerian president, should have been dead by now; even Olusegun Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo. If the coups that ushered them in were to fail, Buhari and Babangida especially would have been executed like Lieutenant Colonel Buka Suka Dimka and Major-General I D Bisalla in March1976; Major-General Mamman Jiya Vatsa in January 1986; Major Gideon Orkar in April 1990; Major-General Shehu Musa Yar’adua and General Olusegun Obasanjo were sentenced to 25 and 15 years jail term respectively in 2007.

In recent time, Buhari’s coup seems to me the cheapest and at the same time wildest and menacing in the sense that Buhari and his gang toppled a civilian government which was democratically elected. When a bunch of gun loving soldiers overthrew one another, perhaps there should be no cause for alarm. But when sleazy and opportunist soldiers overthrew a democratically elected government, there is the need to worry.

But then Nigerians are funny people – very funny “animals” – when it comes to choosing their

leaders. I remember Nigerians actually expressed great joy when that lanky Major-General Muhammadu Buhari and stone-faced Major General Tunde Idiagbon truncated the elected government of Alhaji Sheu Shagari. In my opinion, that was the saddest day in the life of the people of Nigeria. The day Major-General Muhammadu Buhari suppressed the elected government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was a catalyst for the fall and eventual dissolution of the political, social and economic progress of Nigerian people. 

The arrival of these two generals brought tears and sorrow to many Nigerian homes. I think it should have been a moment to send a stern warning to all soldiers of misfortune; a moment to have told them point-blank that the army has no business in the political affairs of Nigeria. But Nigerians welcomed them with open hands even though these unpatriotic elements insulted our intelligence and slapped our faces on that memorable December 1983 when they struck and terminated the voices of Nigerians. No wonder Babangida said in an interview with “Straight talk with Kadira” that frustration in the society always provides vital ground for a coup d’état or whatever. Talking about every Nigerian has a price.

Till today only a few Nigerians take it as an insult for a group of adventurers; even lunatics to destroy the foundation being built gradually. If the primary duty of the army is to protect the country against external aggression, why then did we condone its deviation – through politics? Even one of them had the effrontery to call himself a military-president and everyone accepted the gap-toothed hostility.  Why didn’t we stand up to these sick generals? What were the Nigerians intellectuals doing? Who among our intellectuals collaborated with the army making it so easy for these jackals to invade our lives? In my opinion, it is a betrayal of trust for any civilian to have received awards from a military government, or even served under such myopic regime.

Babangida & Buhari

Let me ask you this question: Is the army supposed to be in the business of running a nation? The nature of this group is basically to protect the nation from external aggression but our soldiers were so useless in those days even now. That’s why a Buhari or Idiagbon or Babangida or Sani Abacha had an impudent aggressiveness to slap the nation’s face by killing the Second Republic. Whatever weaknesses the civilian government might have – and there are many – the army has no right to seize power by force. My goodness, to be calling coup-plotters elder-statesmen! Where is our sense of belonging? In fact, where have our senses gone to? How on earth are we so insensitive to have honoured juntas with such dignity!

Buhari and his co-adventurers supposed to be the past, but then, everybody: pastors, evangelists, apostles were seeing diluting visions projecting Buhari’s second coming. Can you blame them? If not because of Jonathan’s inefficiency and absolute weakness as a leader, who would have clamoured for a bloody soldier like Buhari in a democratic dispensation! The point I am making is that the army has done irreparable damage to our psychic as a people. The typical example is how Jonathan’s government was voted out. A people with a sense of history would have understood that no matter what, never a soldier – again. For by each successive coup, the army had hijacked our voices and our votes.

Now tell me, what is the difference between Obasanjo, Buhari, Babangida, Sani Abacha on one hand and Dimka, Bisalla, Gideon Orka on the other hand for example? The former group succeeded in coup planning while the latter group failed. If Major-General I D Bisalla was executed for the coup against Murtala Mohammad or Major-General Mamman Jiya Vatsa against Babangida’s cunning regime, then Babangida and Buhari should also be executed for carrying out coups; most especially that coup against the elected civilian government of Sheu Shagari.  

 

But unfortunately, I doubt if this step of justice could be taken in a system where soldiers have become peacemakers and Bishops war mongers. Presently, Nigeria lacks men and women of the bench to make things work without fear or favour. Every man and woman in the land has been bought. All we have now are pseudo-intellectuals. Babangida may be cunningly right, after all. Every Nigerian has a price. What is your own price?