A Dictators ‘Democracy Day’ Broadcast.

by Eze Eluchie,

By his failure, in his maiden ‘democracy day’ address (whatever this is supposed to mean in a country where vestiges of totalitarianism reign supreme), to apologize for the mass murders and other atrocities committed by troops under his overall command against members of the Shiite Islamist sect in Zaria (Northern Nigeria) and in ongoing efforts against the people of the oil producing regions of Nigeria’s delta and his non-mention of any plans of addressing the mass murders and other atrocities committed by the acclaimed 4^th most deadly terror outfit in the world, the Fulani Herdsmen, across virtually all parts of Nigeria; and choosing rather to continue on a path of wailing over what had transpired, focus on spurious gains of a partisan and skewed ‘anti-corruption war’ and celebrate the highly questionable and doubtful  release-cum-arrest-cum-capture of supposedly 2 out of as yet unknown number of students ‘abducted’ from Chibok over 700 days ago, Muhammadu Buhari has merely broadcast to the world that in Nigeria, we are stuck with business as usual, and the following will continue:–

a. The lies will continue with increasing ferocity;

b. Impunity by the military will be condones and covered;

c. Blaming past administration for present failures will continue;

d. The killings by Fulani Herdsmen will continue with increased frenzy;

e. The Chibok ‘abductions’ charade will continue to serve propaganda and political purposes;

f. The lust for cheap petro-dollars, even at the expense of human lives, will continue;

 Inadvertently, the Presidential address revealed that rather than address systemic corruption which had for decades crippled the Nigerian system, efforts were merely being focused on targeting individuals having opposing political views and creating new, ‘more loyal’ beneficiaries for the corrupt system. The announcement that over 43,000 ‘ghost workers’ had been discovered in the Federal workforce, without any person being prosecuted for receiving salaries {on behalf of these ‘ghost workers} amounting to billions of Naira for this workers and cataloguing drain-pipes in the system without mentioning any concrete efforts or plans to plugging such loop-holes only indicates that at the end of the current junta, Nigeria, Nigerians and the international community will likewise be regaled with ‘stories’ of monumental fleecing of the national treasury.

Towards the end of a lacklustre ramble, and desperate to show that something positive has accrued to the Nigerian State as a result of his thus far 1-year stewardship, Buhari ventures to throw thank-you’s to all manners of agencies and countries, including to the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescents which he terms ‘a UN agency’, to “France, the US, UK and China” for contributing to efforts at tackling the Ebola Virus, a feat which was attained long before the emergence of the present junta; finally seemingly spicing up the drab performance with a potpourri of phantom undebated, ill-thought white-elephant ‘promises’ to Nigeria’s poor and vanquished masses, promises which like many sundry promises of the junta will be soon be denied and thrown into the junk-bin of lies severally told to Nigerians.

A monumental mistake of historical proportions was made in Nigeria on 29^th May 2015 when the present junta was (s)elected into office. It will be unhealthy to wait till 29^th May 2019 to reverse the mistake, and I doubt if the country can survive the delay, to correct same. Efforts, within the ambit of legality and our Constitutional framework, should be hastened to salvage our contraption from the unfortunate direction it is headed under the present junta.

Picture: Nigeria’s lackluster and clueless ruler, Muhammadu Buhari.