Buhari and rumour mongers
In the build up to the 2015 elections, then APC presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, made a quotable remark. That ‘unless Nigeria kills corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria’. And so the war on corruption got kick-started and set in motion with Buhari’s historic victory at the presidential elections and his swearing-in on May 29, 2015. But […]
In the build up to the 2015 elections, then APC presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, made a quotable remark. That ‘unless Nigeria kills corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria’. And so the war on corruption got kick-started and set in motion with Buhari’s historic victory at the presidential elections and his swearing-in on May 29, 2015.
But did President Buhari impetuously declare a ‘war’ atypical of a former army general that he was; without necessary reconnaissance, surveillance and fool-proof strategies of war? Evidence weigh heavily in support of a ‘yes’ than they do for a ‘no’ as answer to this vital poser! For PMB obviously ventured into a crucial but dangerous war without a watertight Marshal plan detailing his roadmaps, strengths, weaknesses and those of the enemy—the powerful Nigeria’s corruption industry and its powerful captains—he set out to fight. The repercussions today are in the multiple injuries Nigeria, Nigerians and PMB are currently nursing in excruciating pains and agony!
In his ‘The Art of War’, Sun Tzu argues that: ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.’
As PMB succumbs and attends to his health challenges abroad, all kinds of rumors abound about the state and possible cause(s) of his ailment. The villains of the piece in the rumors are powerful, corruptly rich and influential Nigerians whose corrupt ways of living have come under lethal threat from PMB’s administration’s anti-graft war. And hence, the rumor has it, they conspired to poison PMB! True or false, the producers, wholesalers and retailers of this rumor seem to me to have just a message to send across: that is, with regard to Nigeria’s anti-corruption fight, there is a ‘Daniel’ and there are ‘lions’! This is not far-fetched!
Perhaps the ‘lions’ in the senate, the judiciary and elsewhere clandestinely lying in ambush might have wounded or mauled or even ‘poisoned’ our ‘Daniel’ but through the ‘poisonous’ substances of frustrations and worries. What poisons are more lethal than these two in a man as old as PMB? Read Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Stop Worrying and Start Living’ to see how poisonous worries/frustrations are to our health and general well-being. And remember, few days to PMB’s latest medical trip, AGF Abubakar Malami echoed the president’s frustrations and worries induced by the senate (for non-passage of important anti-corruption bills) and the judiciary (for total lack of co-operation)! So the hypothesis that PMB was ‘poisoned’ could be true because poisons are not just limited to physical substances but psychological states of worries and frustrations which a man could be subjected to by enemies ala Dale Carnegie!
And what’s more frustrating and worrisome for Nigerians with even the minutest sense of patriotism than seeing that immediately our ‘Daniel’ set out, allegedly corrupt elements tamed or tried for their various iniquities got unleashed unconditionally with some heading straight to the bar and the bench to unconscientiously hand out sentences to ordinary garri-and-sugar thieves or oles! Not only that, corruption even found a voice and the temerity to taunt and mock the rest of us by launching a book where majority of attendees(if not all) had (yes, ‘had’ because they no longer have with ‘Daniel’s sick leave) one corruption case or another pending before a court! If this is not ‘poison’ to PMB and the rest of us sympathetic to his cause of ridding Nigeria of the scourge of corruption and its custodians stalling our progress and development with shameless impunity, then tell me what it is?!
Hamisu Hadejia, Lokoja, Kogi State([email protected])