Only an entrenched and implacable Buhariphobic
will work himself into unnecessary ecstasy over the comments of the President
of the World Bank that President Muhammadu Buhari urged the World Bank to focus
its efforts in the North, in the wake of the calamitous wreckage by the Boko
Haram terrorist group. It is only those that are permanently fixated on finding
faults with everything the president and the present regime do that will try to
build a noxious ethnic or tribal slant to the charge of the president, given
that apart from the World Bank, almost every other international development
attention has been focused on rescuing the bizarre damage Boko Haram inflicted
on the North before the coming of President Buhari. The task of rehabilitating
and rescuing the North-East had been a huge humanitarian case that had even
drawn extra governmental attention before President Buhari came, so what is the
problem with President Buhari requesting focus on the wasteland which Boko
Haram reduced the North, especially the North-East, to?
Let us get some facts clear. Before President Buhari came, Boko
Haram was ravaging unhindered and ceaselessly in various parts of the North.
While it captured and levied sovereignty over an area The Economist magazine
said was bigger than Belgium, it was pushing frantically to other parts of the
country and was fiercely challenging for the control of the Federal Capital,
Abuja, where it made numerous deadly and unfettered raids. What more, Boko
Haram was able to bomb the headquarters of the Nigerian police, the United
Nations office in Abuja as well as markets, schools and motor parks where
hundreds were killed. The entire North-East was a devastated and vanquished
region as Boko Haram took effective control of a bigger chunk of the region and
maintained constant fearful presence in the rest part. As a result of this egregious
calamity, millions of citizens of the region fled and became refugees in
various parts of the country where they were holed in makeshift camps.
Buildings, churches, mosques, markets, schools, hospitals and other public and
private infrastructures were razed down. Being a largely agrarian zone,
agricultural activities were halted which led to a huge crisis that attracted
worldwide attention. Hunger and famine so ravaged the internally displaced
peoples that spewed from Boko Haram war in the zone. Even the government that
preceded Buhari’s under which watch, the Boko Haram menace flowered had to
launch a special intervention fund to ameliorate the worsening plight of the
region.
So
with this humanitarian crisis, which leader would not charge any interested
developmental organization or agency to concentrate on the ravaged zone, even
if to ensure the other less affected zones are spared of the spillover of the
crisis? Which leader worth his salt would ignore this massive humanitarian
tragedy which spilled millions of homeless Nigerians to other parts of the
country? Which leader, wherever he comes from, will play deaf to the need to
recapture and rehabilitate the war-ravaged North-East which was a burgeoning
disaster when President Buhari came to power? Which leader would, in a bid to
appease hate-filled coyotes, veteran ethnic chance-takers and displaced power
hustlers, refuse to tap into any available opportunity to restore and recover a
region that had been totally laid bare by insurgency and terrorism? Which
leader would feign ignorance of the total disaster in the North-East, which was
one of the biggest liabilities President Buhari inherited from the past regime?
Was former President Yar’Adua a tribalist when he started the Niger Delta
amnesty program that became feeding trough for all manners of rogues from the
region rather than attend to the developmental needs of the area? Why was
former President Jonathan not tagged 'tribal' when he diverted trillions of
Naira in state resources to criminal warlords in the Niger Delta in the guise
of dealing with the Niger Delta insurgency? Why has the Nigerian leadership,
which makes a dedicated provision of 13% of its budget as oil producing
allocation and marks out hundreds of billions of Naira in its yearly budget for
programs to deal with the Niger Delta interests and indeed carved out a
ministry for the Niger Delta, not perceived as sectional?
We
have gotten further explanations from the video and audio recordings of
President Buhari’s request to the World Bank to put more efforts to restore the
North-East to what it was before Boko Haram came. The Presidency has come out
to clarify what the President said and has provided further proof that the
President, like every other Nigerian and every other international agency, was
concerned about restoring the North-East in his charge to the World Bank. Even
the President has got an unlikely defender in one of his critics, Oby
Ezekwesili, who herself was a former Vice President of the World Bank who
emphatically explained that the North-East and its gargantuan humanitarian
crisis fit very well into the core programs of the World Bank the world over
and rightly merits the focus the President demanded of the World Bank
President. She has even gone further to chastise those acute Buhariphobics who
want to twist the President’s request for political reasons. That should mark
the end of the story.
But
because they are petty and obviously pursuing very notorious agendas, the
Buhariphobics whose lives now revolve around nit-picking every word or action
from President Buhari and his government, scavenging same for faults to ply
their jaded wares, are not consoled by the obvious intents of President Buhari in
making this patriotic request. They ask why the World Bank President never said
that President Buhari requested them to focus on the North but on the
North-East. Can you imagine such silliness? Can you imagine such pettiness? Can
you imagine such mischief? Can you imagine such avarice?
Because
they are fixated on finding faults to bolster their political permutations,
they forget that the North-East is a subset of the North. Because they are
condemned to the frustrating project of nailing Buhari and his government at
all costs, these nihilists have refused to submit to simple common sense. We
should not forget that this was the same arrow the erstwhile PDP and its
sympathizers who are fanning the present sectional embers, used to shoot itself
on the foot during the last election when, in a desperate bid to win election,
they criminalized and tagged the entire North as Boko Haramists who wanted to
remove their Southern/Christian candidate. Not knowing which battle to take or
leave, these bristling Buhariphobics have plunged themselves into this as they
have done to other collapsible straws that have failed them in the desperate
and deadly project to nail Buhari and his government by every means. These
bitter Buhariphobics which is an amalgam of various interests that are
threatened by the present government’s reform process, do not know that such
weapon they are using is a double-edged sword and the aftermaths may rebound n
due season.
Strangely,
the purveyors of this bigoted mischief against Buhari and who trash and twirl
to hurl ethnic, tribal and sectional label on him were disciples, lackeys,
cronies, beneficiaries and sympathizers of the previous regime which diverted
trillions of Naira from the Nigerian treasury to sundry criminals in the Niger
Delta as amnesty payout and other illicit patronages. They are the same people
that benefited from the egregious acts of corruption that saw trillions of
Naira stolen in the guise of rebuilding the Niger Delta region while the Niger
Delta remains a scrambled sore point today. They remain the same disciples of
the erstwhile regime that excelled in allowing gargantuan purloining of state
resources by all manners of militants, ethnic and religious leaders that
happened under Jonathan’s watch. This was even so bad the former President,
Olusegun Obasanjo had to write an open letter to Jonathan complaining against
this, among all other malfeasances. By then, Jonathan was not a sectional
leader but Buhari has become a sectional leader just by appealing to the World
Bank to focus its activities on the humanitarian crisis in the North-East! What
bland hypocrisy! What deliberate mischief!
But
even if we stretch the argument further, lets us assume President Buhari meant
that the World Bank should focus on the North and leave the rest of the
country, as the Buhariphobics are trying to twist, did he also order the World
Bank to do his bidding? Is President Buhari in control of the World Bank and
its decision-making process? Is President Buhari in a position to decide what
project the World Bank decides to embark on or not embark on? Does President
Buhari’s request carry the force of command or authority on the World Bank?
Does President Buhari have any instrument to coerce World Bank to do his
personal biddings? Do we agree that the World Bank has a prerogative to carry
out its projects in line with its policies and objectives? Most importantly,
have the Buhariphobics tried to do an analysis of the concentration and spread
of World Bank project in the period the World Bank President spoke of to know
whether they reflect the humanitarian sore in the North-East or tilted to favor
the North over the rest of the country because President Buhari wished so?
Let us be reasonable. The whole hoopla is a
mish-mash of ethnic cum partisan project to blackmail and demonize the
President. It fits into an extensive project by those that feel aggrieved by
the actions of the present government to run it down and the project is nearing
the point of fatal addiction. I know that Buhariphobics are immune to such
little inquest that will unravel their mischief but they should know when best
to stop playing mischievous politics with every issue because they want to get
at Buhari. That they continue failing in this nefarious intent should inform
them that Nigerians are not the dummies they take them to be. I think 2019 has
still more lessons to teach, if 2015 never taught the Buhariphobics the folly
of playing silly politics with every issue.
Peter Claver Oparah writes from Ikeja, Lagos. You can reach him at peterclaver2000@yahoo.com.
Peter Claver Oparah writes from Ikeja, Lagos. You can reach him at peterclaver2000@yahoo.com.
Source: saharareporters
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