.By Franc Utoo, Esq
We are witnessing, currently, a vicious dictatorship clothed in a democratic garb but we seem not to care. The events of the re-arrest of Sowore and Bakare by the DSS yesterday at the vicinity of the Federal High Court in Abuja are just a confirmation of little of what we are grappling with.
The “rule of law” has been suspended with the “rule of their mindset.” The constitution and constitutionalism have been placed in abeyance. The primordial dictates of the federal government have been mistaken for the system while President Buhari is now equated to the state. One ‘good’ thing about abuse of power is that it makes everybody a victim, including those who initiated and/or supported it, now or in the future. When power corrupts absolutely, the system is doomed.
All over the democratic world, precincts and chambers of the Parliaments and Courts are sacred and that’s why they are called ‘Hallowed” and “Temple of Justice.” Under Buhari’s Nigeria, these two institutions have suffered vicious rape by state security agents. The National Assembly premises was cordoned by the DSS two years ago and members denied access. Yesterday, criminal contempt was perpetrated in the face of the court leading to a sitting Judge scampering for safety! And we all think things are normal?
We have a government that flexes big muscles and exudes so much strength in fighting and crushing little, harmless and armless citizens. Lawyers, Judges and indeed the NBA are still looking helpless in the face of continuous desecration of the sanctity of her precincts and that of the rule of law. Another sort of craze that demoralized one from the practice of law.
What was Sowore’s offence? That he called for “Revolution Now” and gathered a handful of protesters in Lagos to clamour for a system change. For that, he was slammed with charges of treason, money laundering and harassing the president! Imagine! He was ‘armless’ and ‘harmless’ but was arrested, detained for more than a hundred days and charged just for invoking the provisions of Section 39 of our constitution which states that, “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions …”
To President Buhari, his supporters and apologists, Sowore couldn’t have staged a protest asking for ‘change in the system’ because he just contested an election against the incumbent few months earlier. How preposterous! Take a good look at the attached pictures, they were taking during the Occupy Nigeria protest in January 2012, just few months after the Presidential election of 2011 where Muhammadu Buhari contested and lost. I initiated and led the one in Benue alongside the likes of David Habba, Collins ‘Maestro’ Uma, Desmond Oogwu, Ukan Kurugh Ukan, Gurgur Japheth MP, Austin Agada.
General Buhari also participated in the one held in Kaduna and he sent a message of goodwill all over. His cronies like El-Rufai also featured in the one in Abuja. We asked for the bringing down of the Goodluck Jonathan government. We said “Jonathan Out.” We insisted we must Occupy Nigeria until there was a shift in the system. The democratic regime of Goodluck Jonathan never charged anybody with treason or “insulting/harrasing the President” then. Imagine that now.
After the Presidential election of 2003 and subsequent inauguration of President Obasanjo for a second term, the losing candidate – Buhari led other of his party faithful in a protest rally over the ‘rigged’ 2003 election and called for the dissolution of the government. The most unfortunate tragedy in the whole scenario of the “Buhari led protests” and the “protests against Buhari” is the infallibility syndrome built around him by mentally enslaved supporters to the extent that he is doing Nigeria a big favour and we all owe him the biggest gratitude. Therefore, he reserves the sole right to call for protest and revolution and no other person possesses similar rights to call for such against him.
Throughout history, some of the most horrible dictators came in civilian clothes. The worst of them were the ones that transformed from military to civilian garbs. Check the likes of Pinochet in Chile, Saddam in Iraq, Hitler and his Nazi regime, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire (DRC). But the good thing is that the world has seen through them all and their names have gathered dust in the halls of infamy. For those who thought dictatorship is only synonymous to military regimes, this may help.
Like the blind Buharists in Nigeria who applaud every flout of the rule of law and entrenchment of tyranny by their idol, so were the aforementioned dictators encouraged by their supporters during their inglorious, injurious reigns. In the end, they all took the back seat in the annals of history. This may not be different.
These shenanigans, like other shenanigans, will fizzle out when the winds of history come blowing.
“Resigning oneself to oppression is more immoral than oppression itself”
~Ayatollah Khomeini.
God Bless Nigeria!
