Obasanjo’s open letter to Buhari

POINTS FOR CONCERN AND ACTION. 

I am concerned as a democrat who believes that with faithful and
diligent practice of democracy, we can get over most of our political
problems and move steadfastly and surefootedly on the course of
stability, unity of purpose, socio-economic growth and progress for all.

Democracy becomes a sham if elections are carried out by people who
should be impartial and neutral umpires, but who show no integrity,
acting with blatant partiality, duplicity and imbecility. For all
democrats and those carrying out the process of elections, there must be
the redline that must not be crossed in tactics and practices of
democracy.

I personally have serious doubt about the present INEC’s integrity,
impartiality and competence to conduct a fair, free and credible
election. And if the INEC is willing, will the ruling party and
government allow it? From what we saw and knew about Osun State
gubernatorial election, what was conclusive was declared inconclusive
despite all advice to the contrary. 

The unnecessary rerun, if viewed as a
test-run for a larger general election, would lead people to expect
incidences of deliberately contrived, broken or non-working voting
machines or card readers, confusion of voters as to their voting
stations, inadequate supply of voting materials to designated places,
long line to discourage voters and turning blind eyes to favour the
blue-eye political party of INEC because the Commission’s hands will be
tied to enable hatchet men and women to perform their unwholesome
assignment. The transmission and collation of results are subject to
interference, manipulation and meddling.

If the INEC’s favourite
political party wins with all the above infractions, the result will be
conclusively declared and if not, there will be a ‘rerun’, the result of
which is known before it is carried out. I know that I am not alone in
being sceptical about the integrity of INEC and its ability to act
creditably and above board. But we are open to be convinced otherwise.

The joke about INEC would seem real. The INEC was asked if the
Commission was ready for the election and if it expects the election to
be free, fair and credible. The INEC man is reported as saying in
response, “we are ready with everything including the results!” God save
Nigeria! It is up to Nigerians to ensure that the redline is not
crossed in safeguarding our fledgling democracy. And if crossed,
appropriate action must be taken not to allow our democracy to be
derailed.

A friend of mine who is more credulous and who claims to be close to
the Chair of INEC keeps telling me that INEC will retrieve its image and
reputation by conducting the coming elections with utmost integrity and
impartiality. I am not sure as I believe more in action than in words
and in past record than in promise. 

The track record of the present INEC
is fairly sordid and all men and women of goodwill and believers in
democracy must be prepared for the worst from INEC and their encouragers
and how to get Nigeria out of the electoral morass that the Commission
is driving us into. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. A battle long
forewarned does not embroil the cripple nor catch him unawares. A word
is sufficient for the wise.

The labour of Nigerian democracy heroes must
not be in vain. Some men of God would hold President Buhari to his word
on free, fair, credible and peaceful elections. I am a realist and I
reiterate that I go by track record. Therefore, I am not persuaded by a
track record of hollow words, impunity, insensitivity and
‘I-couldn’t-care-less’ attitude, or by the sanctimonious claims of any
candidate and his campaign staff. I will only believe what I see. This
is a time for vigilance to fight to safeguard our votes and defend our
democracy.

The price of liberty and sustenance of our democracy is
eternal vigilance and appropriate reaction to ward off iniquities. We
must all be ready to pay that price and not relying on hollow words of
callousness. The derailment of Nigerian democracy will be a monumental
disaster comparable to the disaster of the Nigerian first military coup.

While Nigerians must not allow such a disaster to happen nor take
such an affront lying low, the international community who played an
admirable role in warning INEC, of course, to no avail on the Osun State
gubernatorial election and who have been warning all political parties
must on this occasion give more serious warning, send more people to the
field to observe and work out punitive measures against INEC and
security officials especially the Police and politicians who stand to
gain from INEC’s misconduct, which is obviously encouraged by the
Executive Arm of Government and who must be held responsible for the
violence that will follow. 

Such measures can vary from denial and
withdrawal of visas from the people concerned and from their families to
other more stringent measures including their accounts being frozen and
taking them to International Criminal Court, ICC, if violence emanates
from their action or inaction. Nigeria must not be allowed to slip off
the democratic path nor go into anarchy and ruin. No individual nor
group has monopoly of violence or gangsterism. And we must not forget
that in human interaction, reactions are normally greater than action,
though opposite.

It is no use, at this juncture, to keep lamenting about the failure,
incompetence, divisiveness, nepotism, encouragement and condonation of
corruption by Buhari administration as there is neither redeeming
feature nor personality to salvage the situation within that hierarchy.
You cannot give what you don’t have. Bode George put it bluntly in his
statement of December 3, 2018 when he said:

“The other day, the Vice-President of Nigeria, Professor Yemi
Osinbajo – a learned man, an enlightened person in all parameters – was
seen at various markets in Lagos State and Abuja distributing N10,000
each to market women. What an absurdity! It was indeed an obscene
display of executive recklessness and abuse of office. Pray, where did
the money come from? Was it budgeted for in the appropriation law? In
more civilised nations, Osinbajo would have been impeached and
prosecuted for gutting our collective treasury.”

What an act by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria lawyer, number 2 man in
the Executive hierarchy; and what is more, a pastor of one of the
Christian movements led by a revered, respected and upright church
leader, Pastor E. A. Adeboye. Osinbajo must have gone for, “if you can’t
beat them, join them”. A great pity indeed and which makes people ask
the questions, “Any hope?” Yes, for me, there is hope. Osinbajo has
shown the human weakness and proved the saying that the corruption of
the best is the worst form of corruption. His explanation that it was
their government programme can only be construed to be very shallow and
lopsided, if not an outrightly idiotic programme.

Traders in rural and sub-urban areas of Nigeria are many more than
those in urban areas and they are much poorer than traders in Lagos,
Abuja and other cities. They need more attention and greater help. Are
they to be confined to the heap of perpetual poverty? What of those who
are not traders? They are not entitled to hand-out and they can languish
in penury? And what about millions who have lost their jobs in the last
three and a half years? The timing is also suspect. 

Those who criticise
the action are called evil but they are not evil as they know what they
are doing and saying, and they love Nigeria and Nigerians not less than
the likes of Osinbajo. They are not devils incarnate; they are
patriots.

What is the connection between taking the number of PVC (Permanent
Voters Card) of the recipient of the N10,000 doled out to ‘traders’ and
the forthcoming election? There is something sinister about it, and
Professor Osinbajo, of all people, should know that. With collusion of
the INEC officials and card readers not made to work, anybody quoting
the PVC number may be allowed to vote as the revised Electoral Bill was
not signed. And if that happens all over the country, it will be massive
rigging indeed.

The Chairman of INEC must stand firm and carry out his
duties with competence and unbending neutrality. Card readers must be
used without fail and accreditation must be completed and number
ascertained and made public before voting commences as was done in 2015.

Amina Zakari has become too controversial a figure to be able to give
assurance of free, fair and credible election for INEC. President
Buhari and her family have declared that there is no blood relationship
but there is relationship through marriage and that is more than enough
for the good lady to step aside. A judge does not sit in judgement over a
case once he or she becomes a cause for controversy or one side in the
case has strongly objected to the judge. Madam Amina Zakari should, in
honour, stay out and not be seen as a source of contamination of the
election. 

Otherwise, it will be difficulty to deny the rumour that she
is being assigned to Collation Centre for one duty only – to write out
figures that are not results of the voting in the field on fake results
sheets without water mark or on genuine results sheets which she will
have access to as a Commissioner. Amina Zakari is not the only
Commissioner that can be in the Collation Centre. Let the INEC Chairman
act boldly and impartially and prove his absolute neutrality and
responsiveness to contribute to make the election peacefully free, fair
and credible. His integrity needs to be transparently demonstrated.

We should remember that there had been reports of INEC sponsored
rigging in the past, and also with INEC officials through collation and
with officials being put in party coordinators’ dresses and working for
the political party favoured by INEC and also putting the dresses of
other parties on INEC-favoured parties and police uniforms on
INEC-favoured parties to rig all the elections for the favoured party.
Like all of us, INEC knows all these and it should devise means to make
sure they do not happen. But will they? One way will be to only allow
card readers to be means of authenticating voters and where there is no
such authentication, it should mean no voting. 

The second is to use only
identity cards with watermarks issued by INEC itself to party officials
only for identification of political party coordinators, officials and
agents and not political parties dresses or arm and wrist bands which
anybody can wear for purposes of identification on election duty or
function. Both the Presidency and the National Assembly must so far be
commended for adequately providing funding as confirmed by INEC, and
therefore funding cannot be an excuse for poor performance by INEC.

President Buhari and his hatchet men in the coming election think
that the judiciary must be primed in their favour. Hence, the Chief
Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen, has been
harassed and prosecuted for non-declaration of his assets without
following the Constitution and the law, just to make him conform or set
him aside for a Buhari man to take over or act, as President Buhari and
his people believe no stone should be left unturned to rig Buhari in. It
seems to be a ploy to intimidate the judiciary as a whole in
preparation for all election cases that will go before them. Where and
how will all these stop? Typically, with overwhelming outrage and
condemnation, we are told that the Presidency denied knowledge of the
action. 

But the Vice-President told us that the President knew of the
action on Saturday night for everything that has been prepared for
Monday morning. Haba VP, it doesn’t happen that way. Nobody should take
such measure against any of the four in hierarchy below the President or
any of his ministers without his knowledge and indeed his approval. 

But
if that can happen to the Chief Justice of the Federation, the fifth
man in the hierarchy of government, without the knowledge let alone the
approval of the President, then it speaks for the type of government we
have which means the President is not in charge let alone being in
control and no Nigerian must take anything for granted. We are all
unsafe and insecure under such an administration. And enough of it! 

Buhari’s apologists will not stop at anything to try to cover up his
administration’s inadequate performance and character. A constitutional
liberal democracy cannot thrive without an independent and insulated
judiciary from the executive and the legislature. Nigerians must wake up
and stop these acts of wanton desperation tantamount to mental
incapacity to run the affairs of Nigeria wholesomely.

Life and living are anchored on trust. But if I trust you and you
deceive, cheat or disappoint me the first time, it is shame on you.
However, if I allow you to do so the same thing for me the second time, I
do not only have myself to blame, I must be regarded as a compound
fool.

Buhari has succeeded in deceiving us the first time and we will be
fools to allow ourselves to be deceived the second time. Buba Galadima,
who knows Buhari very well as a confidant and National Secretary of
Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, the Buhari’s party before it
joined in forming All Progressives Congress, APC, has warned us this
time around that no matter what he promises, he cannot change his
character and attitude. 

He describes him as inflexible, insincere,
dubious, intolerant, never accepts responsibility when things go wrong
and impervious to reason and advice for change. If you cannot change
your mind, you cannot change anything is the assertion of George Bernard
Shaw. 

Even when figures, facts and statistics are made clear to Buhari,
he keeps repeating what is untrue, either because he cannot understand
or for mischief purposes and that places him on the level of a
pathological liar. He believes he can get away with impunity and deceit
as he seems to have done on many occasions in the past. 

Buba Galadima’s
position is well complemented by Dr. Auwalu Anwar on the APC, CPC, TBO
and Buhari’s character and attitude in his yet to be launched book,
“Politics As Dashed Hopes in Nigeria”. It is also a stunning revelation.
Anwar clearly pointed out, “the brazen display of incompetence,
insensitivity and irresponsiveness by delusional party, CPC, leadership
at all levels”. Buhari was the leader of the party. 

Bola Tinubu’s
statement about Muhammadu Buhari in 2003 is fairly prophetic, “Muhammadu
Buhari is an agent of destabilisation, ethnic bigot and religious
fanatic who, if given the chance, would ensure the disintegration of the
country. His ethnocentrism would jeopardise Nigeria’s national unity.”

Junaid Mohammed was eloquent on the issue of nepotism. But if as we
were told that Buhari is nepotic because he does not trust others, why
should others trust him to continue to put their fate and life in his
hand. Trust begets trust. They cannot be trusted for ‘sensitive’
appointment but they can be sent out to campaign for his re-election.
Who is fooling who?

What is happening under Buhari’s watch can be likened to what we
witnessed under Gen. Sani Abacha in many ways. When Abacha decided that
he must install himself as Nigerian President by all means and at all
costs, he went for broke and surrounded himself with hatchet men who on
his order and in his interest and at high costs to Nigeria and Nigerians
maimed, tortured and killed for Abacha. Buhari has started on the same
path in mad desperation.

From available intelligence, we have heard of how Buhari and his
party are going about his own self-succession project. They have started
recruiting collation officers who are already awarding results based on
their projects to actualise the perpetuation agenda in which the people
will not matter and the votes will not count. It is the sole reason he
has blatantly refused to sign the revised Electoral Reform Bill into
law.

His henchmen are working round the clock in cahoots with security and
election officials to perfect their plan by computing results right
from the ward to local government, state and national levels to allot
him what will look like a landslide victory irrespective of the true
situation for a candidate who might have carried out by proxy
presidential debate and campaigns.

The current plan is to drape the pre-determined results with a toga
of credibility. It is also planned that violence of unimaginable
proportion will be unleashed in high voting population areas across the
country to precipitate re-run elections and where he will be returned
duly elected after concentration of security officials as it happened in
Osun State. We are monitoring them and we call on all democrats across
the world to keep an eye on the unfolding anti-democratic agenda of
President Muhammadu Buhari. This is the time for preventive measures to
be taken otherwise Nigeria may be presented with a fait accompli with
impunity and total disregard of all pleas.

His scheme bears eloquent testimony to this road similar to Abacha
whom he has praised to high heavens and as an arch-supporter and
beneficiary from Abacha, he has seen nothing wrong done by him. It is
clear from all indications that Buhari is putting into practice the
lessons he learned from Abacha. Buhari has intimidated and harassed the
private sector, attacked the National Assembly and now
unconstitutionally and recklessly attacked and intimidated the Judiciary
to cow them to submission.

I was a victim of Abacha’s atrocities against Nigeria and Nigerians –
high and low. At the height of Abacha’s desperation for perpetual
power, he did not brook any criticism because Nigeria was seen as his
personal property. You must go along with him or be destroyed. All
institutions for ensuring security, welfare and well-being of Nigeria
and Nigerians particularly the Police, the Military and the Department
of State Services (DSS) were abused and misused to deal with critics of
Abacha and non-conformists with Abacha.

Today, another Abacha Era is here. The security institutions are
being misused to fight all critics and opponents of Buhari and to derail
our fledgling democracy. EFCC, Police and Code of Conduct Tribunal are
also being equally misused to deal with those Buhari sees as enemies for
criticising him or as those who may not do his bidding in manipulating
election results. Criticism, choice and being different are inherent
trade mark of democracy. If democracy is derailed or aborted, anarchy
and authoritarianism will automatically follow.

Today, as in the day of Abacha, Nigerians must rise up and do what
they did in the time of Abacha. Churches and Mosques prayed.
International community stood by us Nigerians. I was a beneficiary and
my life was saved. Well-meaning Nigerians took appropriate actions and
made sacrifices, some supreme, some less than supreme but God had the
final say and He took the ultimate action.

God of Nigeria is a living God and a prayer-answering God. Nigerians
must cry out to God to deliver Nigeria. Here again, I have been
threatened with arrest and extermination but I will not succumb to
intimidation or threats. Maybe I should remind those who are using probe
as a threat that I have been probed four times by EFCC, ICPC, House of
Representatives and the Senate and Buhari has access to reports of these
probes. But I have also challenged Buhari and the criminals around him
to set up a probe on the same allegations and I will face such probe in
public. But I know that these criminals cannot withstand a Police
inquiry let alone clinical probe on the past public offices they held.
My fervent prayer is that President Buhari may live to see the will and
purpose of God for Nigeria. 

My final appeal to him is to desist from
evil with manipulation and desperation because evil has repercussion
especially as man who should watch and be mindful of his self-acclaimed
and packaged integrity. At the end of the day, those who goad you on
will leave you in the lurch. You will be left alone, naked and
unheralded. In defeat, which must be Buhari’s fear leading to
desperation, he and his co-travellers can still maintain modicum of
decency, and exhibit fear of God in their actions. 

We have been told
that governance has been abdicated to a cabal. Now, campaigning has been
abdicated to ‘jagaban’. And it is being authoritatively stated that he
would not join any presidential debate. Nigerians will not allow the
elections to be abdicated to INEC and Police to give us false and
manipulated results.

I personally commend the President for yielding to
popular outcry to let the former Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim
Kpotun Idris, go when he is due as he had the track record and history
of being assigned to rig elections for the incumbent. It was alleged
that he was sent to Kano for that purpose in 2015.

He was already
deploying his Commissioners of Police on similar mission before his
exit. We must all encourage the new Inspector-General of Police,
Mohammed Adamu, to tread the path of professionalism, even-handedness,
respect and new image for the Police.

While Nigeria must appreciate Buhari for the little he has done and
allow him to depart for home in peace if he allows free, fair, peaceful
and credible elections, we must also tell ourselves that Nigeria
deserves better at this point in time than what Buhari is capable of
offering. History will note that he has been there. Nigeria now needs a
man with better physical and mental soundness, with an active mind and
intellect.

Let me say again that Nigeria belongs to all Nigerians and exists for
the benefit of all Nigerians and non-Nigerians who desire to live or do
business in and with Nigeria. The attitude of “it is my turn and I can
do what I like” with impunity will not last because Nigeria is created
by God and it will outlive all evil machinations and designs against the
overall interest of Nigeria.

Before I conclude, let me assert that the security situation has
deteriorated with kidnapping everywhere and Boko Haram more in action
and nobody should deceive Nigerians about this. With the teaming up of
Boko Haram and Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP), Boko Haram
is stronger today militarily than they have ever been. Boko Haram has
also been empowered by the Nigerian government through payment of ransom
of millions of dollars which each administration disingenuously always
denies. 

With ISIS being liquidated in Iraq and Syria, Africa is now
their port of concentration. Soon, they may take over Libya which, with
substantial resources, is almost a totally failed state. When that
happens, all African countries North of Congo River will be unsafe with
serious security problems. The struggle must be for all West African,
Central African, North African and most East African States. Nigeria has
to play a vanguard role in this struggle as we have much to lose. This
administration has reached the end of its wit even in handling all
security issues, but particularly Boko Haram issue, partly due to misuse
of security apparatus and poor equipment, deployment, coordination and
cooperation.

Finally, those Nigerians that are being intimidated or threatened by
this Administration must trust in God and stand firm. Tough times do not
last forever, but tough people invariably survive tough times. This is a
tough time for almost all Nigerians in different respects, but the
people’s will shall triumph. All people who have registered to vote with
their PVCs must never allow anybody or anything to deny or deprive them
of the right of performing their fundamental civic duty of voting and
sustaining democracy. Establishment of democracy and its sustenance is
second to attainment of independence in our political life, leaving out
the victory of the civil war. We shall overcome.