There is a harrowing story told by Adekoya Boladale, which
needs to be brought to the attention of Nigerians, especially
the people of the South-West. In the middle of the night of
4th January, 1984, heavily armed men of the Strike Force of
the Nigerian army invaded the Lagos home of Chief Olu
Awotesu, the Minister of State for Agriculture. This military
operation had one design, to put the minister under arrest.
However, Chief Awotesu was not at home, having gone to
his home-town in Iperu, Ogun State. On meeting his
absence, the soldiers descended on his family. His wife was
dragged from the bedroom upstairs through the staircase to
the ground floor, where she was kicked and beaten by the
men in khaki. Her assailants laughed at her while she
screamed and begged for mercy.
The children were not spared either. They were also slapped
and tortured in the bid to determine the precise
whereabouts of their father. This ordeal apparently went on
for over three hours. When Chief Awotesu returned from
Iperu to Lagos and learnt that he was now a wanted man,
he drove straight to Dodan Barracks, then the seat of
government in Nigeria, to give himself up.
He was not only arrested, he was detained without trial for
nearly two years. It was while in detention that he learnt
about the ordeal his family had been put through by men of
the Special Forces. Chief Awotesu was only released in
1985, even though the government found no evidence of
any crime against him.
South-West is not for sale
The man responsible for this injustice is Muhammadu
Buhari. He is now running for president and wants our
votes. Paradoxically, a number of the kinsmen of the late
Chief Awotesu are now charged with selling his candidacy
to us in the South-West; and yet Buhari himself has never
found it necessary to apologise to us for the human rights
violations his regime inflicted on us.
A unique opportunity was given to him by the institution of
the Truth and Reconciliation panel under Justice
Chukwudifu Oputa in 1999. However, Buhari showed his
contempt for us by refusing to appear before the panel.
Why then should people in the South-West give this same
man their votes in 2015?
The fault is not Buhari’s. The fault is that of the traitors
now charged with white-washing his image. These people
are obviously contemptuous of their Yoruba kith and kin.
They have told Buhari that all he needs is a bit of cosmetic
surgery. He should change from wearing an agbada to
wearing a suit. He should choose a Christian Yoruba pastor
as his running mate, and even attend a thanksgiving service
in Lagos where he pretends to sing Christian praise songs.
He should then mouth a few inane words about “change”
and “anti-corruption” and all will be forgotten.
Somebody is being fooled but it is not the Yorubas. It does
not matter how many curious onlookers are paid to come to
Buhari’s campaign rallies in the South-West; the Yorubas
will ultimately not succumb to this hogwash. Buhari has
been rejected in the South-West three times. He will be
rejected yet again. Out of over 4.7 million votes cast in the
six states of the South West in 2011, Buhari could only get
321,609. That is less than 7 percent. Nevertheless, some
Yoruba bigwigs in the APC have gone ahead to strike a deal
with Buhari on the grounds that they will deliver the South
West to him in the coming election. It is not going to
happen.
Charlatans
In the first place, who made these charlatans spokesmen
for the South-West? Who mortgaged South-West Yoruba
interests to the political ambitions of Bola Tinubu and his
henchmen? As a matter of fact, the 2015 presidential
election provides a unique opportunity for the people of the
South-West to break off the political shackles of Bola
Tinubu by rejecting his new-found ally of Muhammadu
Buhari. If for no other reason than the refusal of the
Yorubas to be sold into slavery, Buhari must be rejected
outright in the South-West and the APC must be kicked out
of Lagos State.
With all the noise currently being made about Buhari’s
candidacy, one important point is often overlooked: Buhari
is not even well-liked by his own people. A lot is made of
the 12 million votes he obtained from the North in 2011,
conveniently forgetting that Goodluck Jonathan also
obtained a sizeable 8 million votes from the same North.
Indeed, in 2011, Goodluck Jonathan won 428,392 votes in
Buhari’s home-state of Katsina; to Buhari’s 1,163,919. That
means Jonathan won 37% of the votes in Buhari’s
backyard. Compare that to the situation in Jonathan’s
home state of Bayelsa. Jonathan won 584,811 votes; while
Buhari obtained a miserable 691 votes. That gives Buhari a
measly 0.11% of Jonathan’s votes.
It is also instructive that in the primary election for the APC
presidential candidate, Northern delagates did not vote for
Buhari. Instead, they gave their votes to Kano State
governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso and former vice-president
Atiku Abubakar. Delegates from Buhari’s North-West voted
for Kwankwaso, while those from the North-East voted for
Atiku. Buhari’s delegate votes came primarily from the
South-West, as well as from the South-East and the South-
South. However, in 2011, out of over 38 million votes cast
in the entire country, Buhari could only obtain 391,933 from
the entire South-West, South-East and the South-South put
together; that is 1.03% of the votes.
In short, Buhari was imposed on the North as the APC
presidential candidate by delegates controlled by Tinubu. It
was out of gratitude for this that Buhari gave Tinubu the
sole responsibility for choosing his vice-presidential
running-mate. Tinubu’s first instinct, of course, was to
reserve the vice-presidency for himself. But the political
pressures against a Muslim/Muslim APC ticket, led him to
concede it to his political surrogate, Professor Yemi
Osinbajo.
Buhari’s crimes
It is contemptuous of Tinubu and his Yoruba acolytes in
APC to presume that they can deliver the South-West to
Buhari in the 2015 presidential election, in spite of Buhari’s
antecedents. Of all the people they could form an alliance
with, Buhari is by far the least acceptable to the Yorubas. In
over 30 years of being a fixture of Nigerian politics, Buhari
has been decidedly and unapologetically anti-Yorubas and
anti-South-West. It is a matter of public record that Buhari
has never done anything for us. On the contrary; he has
done so many things against us.
When he assumed power in 1984, he established a 16
member Supreme Military Council (SMC) to rule the
country. In spite of the fact that the Yorubas are the largest
ethnic group in the country; larger according to every
statistical index than the Hausas and the Fulanis; Buhari
could only find room for one solitary token Yoruba man:
Brigadier Ola Oni. Buhari’s SMC had 11 Northerners to 5
Southerners.
Buhari locked up South-West politicians like Bisi Onabanjo
and Michael Ajasin even though no case was found against
them. Even after they were discharged and acquitted by the
kangaroo courts he set up, he still kept them locked up and
refused to release them. He pressured a judge to jail Fela
Anikulapo Kuti for failing to declare foreign –exchange he
had legitimately procured for the up-keep of his band on a
foreign trip, while allowing the Emir of Gwandu to smuggle
back into the country 53 suitcases during the currency-
change exercise.
He did not just brutalise Chief Awotesu and his family. He
did the same to Tai Solarin, who was denied medication for
his asthmatic condition while in Buhari’s gulag; Ayo
Oyewumi, who became blind in Buhari’s detention; and
Busari Adelakun, who died of chronic ulcer, complications
developed in Buhari’s jail. Buhari even seized Chief
Obafemi Awolowo’s passport for no just cause, and thereby
denied the old man visits to his doctors at Mayo Clinic,
Rochester Minnesota, USA during the years when he ruled
Nigeria.
He frustrated Lagos’ attempt to build a metro-rail system
and, as PTF chairman, he discriminated blatantly against
the South-West. It is pathetic that, rather than insist he
should apologise for these and other infractions, the Yoruba
politicians that have decided to pitch their tent with Buhari
are now trying to pull the wool over our eyes by trying to
give him a cosmetic political makeover. It is just not going
to wash.
Tinubu’s agenda
The question needs to be asked: what is in it for Bola
Tinubu and his henchmen? Don’t buy the hype. While
Muhammadu Buhari and the APC lieutenants are busy
making suitable noises about fighting corruption at the
federal level, the godfather of Lagos State is busy trying to
replicate at the federal level structures similar to the ones
he has used to milk Lagos State dry.
Running for the PDP ticket for governor of Lagos State,
Musiliu Obanikoro noted that the cost of governance in
Lagos State has gone up astronomically: “because every
business transaction must factor the emperor of Bourdillon
into it. That has become a burden on our families. Lagos
belongs to all of us, we are going to put an end to an era
where Lagos belongs to one man.”
This godfather has yet to occupy a federal position, yet his
holdings are in the tens of billions because he has the
finances of Lagos State in his pocket. He is now gunning to
replicate this at the federal level by proclaiming himself the
presidential kingmaker. To do this, he intends to enslave the
Yorubas to a North-West cabal that insists it is its divine
right to rule Nigeria.
Quite apart from the fact that the godfather himself is
deluded in thinking that Buhari will be a docile Fashola
replica as president; or in assuming that those clamoring
for power in the North will have any consideration for him
once they use him as a ladder to get to power; he is equally
deluded in thinking the Yorubas are fools who will readily
mortgage their future in order to instal Bola Tinubu as the
godfather of Nigeria. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL AND TOUCHING NIGERIAN CELEBRITIES BIOGRAPHY AND SCANDALS
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