The
entire national day broadcast by PMB on the occasion of Nigeria’s 57th
independence is quite disappointing in all ramifications. It was very unpresidential
and unreconciliatoty.
PMB
left the real issues and pursued triffles.
The
speech was bereft of nobility of statesmanship, and devoid of a calm grasp and
appraisals of the dire straits Nigeria is currently in.
The
broadcast was rabidly narcistic, parochial, nepotic and clanish, as it failed
to see anything wrong with the blatant and well reported threats by the Arewa
youths to quit fellow Nigerians from their domains.
The
speech followed his now well worn out fixation of perceived hatred for the Igbo
race, whose leadership he needlessly and needlessly scurilised and lampooned, for
allegedly being behind IPOB and other agitations.
I
doubt hear him mention anything about gun wielding herdsmen that literally
vanquish citizens in their own homesteads across Nigeria.
The
president celebrated mediocrity and edified his government’s nonperformance two
and half years down the line.
I
genuinely wondered if he was discussing the same country, Nigeria, that I am
in, or another utopian planet Mars.
The
beautiful picture of a peaceful country he painted so glowingly and
artistically with the paintbrush of breathless satisfaction is quite different
from the stark reality on the ground, which every beleaguered Nigerian labours
under.
His
speech writers either wallowed in utopian mystic of redemptive mesianism, or in
crass fraud and grand deception. But, Nigerians are no fools.
Did
I hear PMB say this is the first time a government at the centre is losing the
governorship, senatorial and Houses of Assembly’s elections to the opposite at
the state level?
No
sir, wrong. Whoever gave M.r President this false electoral history has done
him incalculable disservice and great damage and ridicule.
Few
examples: Remember Ondo state (Labour Party), Osun and Edo states (AC), Anambra
(APGA), etc? Not only did the ruling PDP party lose the elections to those
opposition parties, the then president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan actually rolled
out the drums and congratulated the new governors, Senators and House members.
Peter
Obi won the Anambra state governorship election in 2010 for the second time,on
the platform of APGA. Obasanjo was president at the centre under the PDP party,
just as Bola Tinubu won the Lagos state governorrship seat twice under AD and
ACN, with Obasanjo as president under PDP at the centre.
Buhari
lost yet another golden opportunity to balm bruised nationalities’ ego and
cement Nigeria’s yawning cleavages, hate and divisiveness.
Must
everything be predicated on falsehood, force, threats and gun boat diplomacy,
viet armis? It didn’t ever work. When he applied such excessive force and
threats to the Niger Delta militants, i counseled then it would not work.
The
marginalised youth picked up the gauntlet, serially blew up oil pipelines, tore
up Nigeria’s oil jugular into smithereens. Crude oil output plummeted to about
700 thousand barrels per day from 1.5m barrels. It took the then Acting
president Yemi Osibanjo’s shuttle diplomacy to the Niger Delta region to quell
the strife. It was Napoleon Bonarparte, a French General and Emperors
(1769-1821), who was famously declared: ”Do you know what amazes me more than
anything else?
The
impotence of force to organise anything”. PMB sir, allow Nigerians enjoy the
full bloom of democracy and its inbuilt mechanisms for conflict resolution.
Chief Mike
Ozekhome,SAN,Constitutional Lawyer and Human Rights Activist.
Source: lawyard.ng
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