The Guardian
By Lillian Okenwa
“With all the happenings in Nigeria, if the president, his friends, and spokesmen believe that Nigeria is doing well, it’s either they do not live in Nigeria or perhaps reside in another realm.” On the morning of Thursday September 2, 2021, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina said Nigerians should be grateful to President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. The Presidential spokesman on a Channels Television morning show remarked that Buhari is on top of the security situation in the country and that things are a lot better under this government than they used to be.
Last year, Adesina on the same station told Nigerians during the Sunday Politics programme to be grateful to President Buhari for his fight against insecurity in the country. He proclaimed that Buhari has done well in ensuring the security of lives and properties in Nigeria, despite evidence of widespread insecurity in the country. On account of the President’s goodness no doubt, Adesina on another occasion professed that Buhari is the most loved politician in Nigeria’s history— more popular than Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Mallam Aminu Kano, and others.
Weeks ago, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed announced that terrorists could have achieved their aim of declaring an Islamic State in Nigeria if President Muhammadu Buhari had not acted decisively.
Totally ignorant of the President’s accomplishments, London-based news magazine, The Economist in its October 23, 2021, issue, described Buhari’s government as inept and high-handed, stressing that he, had also failed to tackle corruption. The 178-year-old magazine made this assertion in an editorial titled, ‘The Crime Scene at the Heart of Africa.’ The Economist noted that due to Buhari’s mismanagement of the economy, food prices had soared while life had become more difficult for Nigerians.
The Presidency did not hesitate to react. Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu in the press statement declared that of all the country’s past leadership, his principal is the only one with the political will and determination to tackle all four threats of ISWAP/Boko Haram terrorism in the North-East; kidnapping and crime in the North-West; herder-farmer disputes in the central belt; and IPOB in the South-East concurrently.
Earlier, the Presidency warned the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), to stop what it described as divisive, irresponsible, and barefaced publicity stunts and follow through with its legal claim in a Nigerian court of law. The Presidency in a Press Release signed by Garba Shehu told SERAP to challenge the Federal Government publicly, legally, and transparently. Part of the statement read: “Nigeria is comfortable that its record as Africa’s leading democracy and largest economy speaks for itself. Nigeria is amongst the top five countries in Africa for quality of life, and our ranking in the Human Development Index has steadily risen for a decade. This success is testament to the rights, rule of law, and strong, independent institutions enjoyed by all Nigerian citizens and others who live there.”
SERAP stoked the government’s anger by its lawsuit of November 26, 2021, in which it asked the court to “compel President Muhammadu Buhari to take immediate steps to ensure the arrest of soldiers and police officers indicted by the Lagos #EndSARS panel report for the shooting of peaceful protesters at the Lekki tollgate, and police brutality cases.” Prior to this action, SERAP unnerved the government with a different lawsuit over “(its) failure to publish the names of those indicted in the alleged misappropriation of over N6trn in the running of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) between 2000 and 2019, as documented in the recent Forensic Audit Report on NDDC.”
Notwithstanding the Presidency’s claim on security, Bandits have continued to abduct, slaughter, and roast scores of travellers alive on various highways in northern Nigeria. Less than an hour to the arrival of President Buhari in Maiduguri, Borno State, last week, suspected Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists fired rockets into the city. The proximity of the attack was less than five kilometres away from Maiduguri International Airport and Air Force Base. Three persons were reportedly killed and the IGP has expressed concern over the ability of the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) to fire rockets in communities in Borno state.
Yet, Sometime in May 2021, Alhaji Lai Mohammed in his usual ‘rousing’ speech assured that the government in the days ahead “will confront the challenges headlong and restore law and order, peace and security.”
As the storm raged unabated, rights activist and a former Chairman of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Prof. Chidi Odinkalu on December 1, 2021, tweeted via his Twitter handle (@ChidiOdinkalu): “In the last 13 weeks, @MBuhari has been in 9 countries outside Nigeria, including Turkey, UAE, South Africa, France, Scotland, USA, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia. Over that period, over 1,000 #Nigerians have been killed in #MassMurder. He is #NotAware.” But as Dele Momodu said in his article: “President Buhari and His Love of Global Stage”, President Buhari “loves the global stage and craves being under the spotlight of the klieg-lights and the flashing bulbs.” International matters are of more consequence.
Days ago some protesting youths, who came out en masse in Zaria, to…
