In this 2 part series, I will attempt to show readers with a
open mind that many of the Allegations against the
Presidential Candidate of the All Peoples Congress (APC).
Gen. Buhari are Lies, these allegations have been repeated
on social and traditional Media.
Facts will be checked in a Question and Answer Manner.
Q: Did Buhari call for post election violence or ask his
supporters to kill?
A: No.
This is Propaganda from the Ruling Party. See Video for
details.
It should also be noted that the BBC carried out Buhari’s
condemnation of the violence http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
world-africa-13126839 as well as his Facebook
page https://www.facebook.com/votebuhari/
posts/10150155911827734
What about the Dog and the Baboon Statement?
“za a yi kare jini biri jinni: The Battle will be Fierce. The
parable of the Dog and the Baboon”
A fight between a dog and a baboon is highly unlikely,
unless inspired by a human being.
In Africa and particularly in Hausaland where this highly
unlikely idea was contrived as a proverb, such a fight can
only happen under the influence of man when in hunting he
sets the dog to catch the baboon or its baby. In that case,
that fight would surely be one to witness.
The dog uses its power of speed and strong canine teeth,
the baboon his powerful shoulders, limbs, claws, hands, and
under extreme conditions, his teeth. And this condition is
extreme – a fight for his life or that of his baby. So we
better assume that the baboon will deploy his entire arsenal.
As the proverb depicts, the fierce fight ends inconclusively
with both parties sustaining deeps cuts and innumerable
browses. Each contender was lucky to survive it and
returns to its shelter licking its wounds
When you tell your contender that za a yi kare jini biri jinni,
it simply means the battle will be fierce. In the case of
Buhari, he was promising his supporters from Niger State
that 2015 elections will be fierce; or put in another way, the
PDP wIll not have it easy. Simple.
How this simple statement translated into a political missile
that says Buhari is promising a bloodbath come 2015
remains one of those sad stories in our practice of
journalism.
Q:Did Buhari promise to make Nigeria ungovernable?
A: NO!
In 2010, as reported by various sections of the media, Lawal
Keita, a PDP chieftain stated that if a person from the North
did not win the 2011 elections, Nigeria will be made
ungovernable .
Below are links to that effect as reported by the press when
that statement was made.
http://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2010/10/08/group-wants-
kaita-tried-for-treason/
In April 2011, Reuben Abati slandered Buhari in The
Guardian about same statements of making Nigeria
ungovernable. Buhari sued Abati to court in 2011 for
damaging his name. President Jonathan begged Buhari on
behalf of Abati to settle out of court because Abati might
end up in jail. On 11 July 2013 Rueben Abati and The
Guardian published an unreserved apology to Buhari. HERE
Q: Did Buhari cancel the Lagos Metroline project due to any
malicious intent?
A: NO!
In January 1985 when the contract was cancelled, Nigeria
was in the middle of a recession, brought on by the
necessary belt tightening after the years of reckless excess
under the Shagari administration, especially in the election
year, 1983.
In October 1984 for example, Nigeria had unilaterally
dropped the price of each barrel of exported Bonny Light
crude by $2, thus putting her national interests ahead of
OPEC’s cartel interests. Such short term economic
pragmatism was the necessary order of the day. And even
though it flew in the face of their consensus on prices and
production, OPEC’s most important member, Saudi Arabia,
acquiesced to such an unprecedented behavior by a
member of the cartel because it was convinced of the
precarious nature of Nigeria’s public finances.
Hence, despite over 10% (N80m) of the overall N700m 16-
mile overhead railway project being already spent, the
cancellation of the contract went ahead as the governing
Supreme Military Council (SMC) accused the French
consortium leader, Interfina, of excessive project costs.
Interfina could not successfully defend such accusations.
The SMC was also quick to point out that despite Shagari’s
accelerated timetable for the move of the Federal Capital to
Abuja, new infrastructural spending would now have to
proceed at a slower pace.
References:
1. African Business, December 1984
2. Financial Times, 28 January 1985
3. West Africa, 4 February 1985
4. West Africa, 11 February 1985
5. African Contemporary Record, (1984-1985)
Q: Did Buhari say Muslims should only vote for Muslim
leaders?
A: NO.
In June 2001, Sheikh Sidi Attahiru Ibrahim launched his
book at a Dan Fodio University event. General Muhammadu
Buhari was invited to chair the event, where he spoke ex-
tempore. Buhari Later contested the Presidential Elections 2
years Later in 2003.
Later that month, Buhari granted an interview to Rev, Fr.
Matthew Hassan Kukah (present day Catholic Bishop of
Sokoto) confirming what he said at the book launch. Here
is the relevant portion of Kukah’s report on what Buhari
said during their June 23, 2001 conversation (which was
published in the Weekly Trust edition of July 6-12, 2001)
“During the course of my comments, I drew attention to the
fact that the introduction of Sharia had become one of the
main issues in this new dispensation. I explained that
Sharia, however, has been with us well before the British
colonized Nigeria. Now, Sharia has been introduced in
many Northern states and Sokoto is one of the states that
has already adopted Sharia. It must be pointed out however
that Sharia is applicable only to Muslims. Those elements
that have taken the law into their hands and use the
opportunity to molest other non-Muslims are not helping the
cause. What is amore, they are like bad policemen or
judges who are making the enforcement of justice so
difficult in Nigeria. Their shortcoming does not do the
police force or the judiciary any good, but these acts do not
detract from the imperative of both institutions. Midway
through our democracy, we have time now to assess the
situation on ground in terms of making our choice in the
next elections. Vote for good men whether they are in
Borno, Katsina, Sokoto or wherever. Vote for those who will
protect your interest. This, Rev. Father, is the summary of
every thing I said and the tapes are there.” (1)
At that time, there was actually no Controversy around the
statements.
The controversy began when Ahmed Oyerinde, a long time
Sokoto correspondent for ThisDay and other Newspapers,
(who was not at the venue of the book launch when Buhari
spoke) made up the false quote and reported this as fact in
ThisDay. In the aftermath of his report, the tape of the event
was played and no such statement was found there.
Oyerinde later confessed to his Editors that he was not at
the event and did not hear Buhari say any such thing. I was
told that ThisDay later published a retraction of the report.
(2)
For the record, Oyerinde, sadly now late, had been the
subject of a disciplinary investigation by Nigerian Press
watchdogs for allegations of taking money to write false
and mischievous stories. The allegations were confirmed
and he was reprimanded. One of these investigations dates
back to 1990. (3)
Yet, despite Buhari’s many denials, and the defence of
neutral observers like Fr. Kukah & Garba Shehu the
peddlers of this lie keep repeating them maliciously.
REFERENCES:
1. Kukah, Matthew Hassan, Weekly Trust Newspaper,
Abuja, July 6-12, 2001
2. Private conversation with a Senior ThisDay editor with
close knowledge of the 2001 incident on Dec. 30, 2014
3. Shehu, Garba, Premium Times, http://
www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/106982-not-accepting-
to-negotiate-with-boko-haram-could-hurt-buhari-by-garba-
shehu.html
Q: Does Buhari like democracy, and does he deserve to
govern in one (since he overthrew the Shagari government
in 1983)?
A: Yes
While the December 31, 1983, coup ended the rule of
Shagari’s National Party of Nigeria (NPN), the
overwhelming view of the Nigerian populace at the time was
very welcoming of the military’s intervention.
The Shagari regime had in four years run the economy
badly and turned Nigeria into a civilian, dictatorial “one
party state”.(1) Hence, it was no surprise that when “news
of another coup reached the public, there was jubilation.
People drank, danced and sang all over the country that the
decadent, corrupt and directionless politicians had been
wiped off the face of Nigeria’s political life. People called
for ‘military rule for ever’. Others called for war on
politicians, the execution of legislators, ministers, governors
and top party men. Yet many remarked that ‘unless we do
like Rawlings (who killed corrupt Ghanaian rulers in 1979),
Shagari and his men will come back'”.(2)
Just before the 1983 elections, fear pervaded the land as
senior NPN officials went around “boasting that there were
only two parties in Nigeria – NPN and the Army”.(3) And
even inside the other “party” (The Military), fear of the NPN
wasn’t unfounded. The “police was equipped with Armoured
Personnel Carriers, reinforcing suspicions that the NPN was
not merely maneuvering to sustain its political ascendancy,
but was also preparing to bully its way through the August
1983 elections, while furnishing itself with alternative
defence in the event of a direct conflict with the armed
forces.”(4)
Having now overseen a wholesale rigging of the elections
across the country, with attendant bloodshed and violence
by a Police Force doing the bidding of the ruling NPN, some
of the Army’s leaders ousted the political class to prevent a
bloody cleansing of the stables by junior officers. Such was
the rot in the polity.
Buhari himself was later ousted by a palace coup in August
1985. After years of house arrest, and the eventual fall of
the Soviet Union in the late eighties, he became a convert to
the idea of liberal democracy.
At his Chatam House Speech, Buhari said:
"Permit me to close this discussion on a personal note. I
have heard and read references to me as a former dictator
in many respected British newspapers including the well
regarded Economist. Let me say without sounding
defensive that dictatorship goes with military rule, though
some might be less dictatorial than others. I take
responsibility for whatever happened under my watch.
I cannot change the past. But I can change the present and
the future. So before you is a former military ruler and a
converted democrat who is ready to operate under
democratic norms and is subjecting himself to the rigours
of democratic elections for the fourth time."
The following image is a news report from The Times of
Saturday, January 7, 1984.
http://factchecki.ng/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/
image.png
Lagos honeymoon for soldiers and civilians
REFERENCES:
1. ‘Season of Anomy’, Editorial, The Guardian (Lagos), 24th
August 1983
2. Falola T, Ihonvbere J, ‘The Rise and Fall of Nigeria’s
Second Republic’ (1985), p 228
3. Falola & Ihonvbere (1985), p. 226
4a. The Guardian (London), 11th January, 1984
b. T.Y. Danjuma, The Guardian (Lagos), 20 July 1986
[Both cited by Othman Shehu, Chapter 8 on ‘Nigeria’, in
‘Contemporary West African States’ (1989) by Cruise
O’Brien and Others, pp 134-135] CLICK HERE TO READ FULL AND TOUCHING NIGERIAN CELEBRITIES BIOGRAPHY AND SCANDALS
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