Love in a season of death threats

This is a good time for Nigeria. A time it is besought of all and sundry.

The nation has become a beautiful bride. Emperors, landowners, democrats and despots alike are showing love to the vastest black nation in the world. The river of love flows from within and without.

Nigerians love Nigeria. Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, the diminutive governor of Kaduna State, is a patriot. He loves his country to a fault. He had served the country meritoriously at various levels in the past. He is underlining his love for the country at this time with his unapologetic support for President Muhammadu Buhari to get reelected as the nation’s leader. To him,

Buhari is the best thing to have happened to Nigeria’s brand of democracy.

Ditto for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. His love for Nigeria made him begin his service to the nation from the very crucial and dangerous security sector.

He has also served the nation in many capacities, the last being the number two in the driver’s seat.

Indeed, the Bola Tinubus, Ayo Fayoses, Olusegun Obasanjos, Theophilus Danjumas, Amina Zakaris, Gbenga Daniels, Kingsley Moghalus, Oby Ezekwezilis, Femi Fani-Kayodes, Lai Mohammeds, Nyesom Wikes, Rotimi Amaechis, Abba Kyaris, Mamoud Yakubus, Adams Oshiomholes, Abubakar Malamis, Ibrahim Magus, Uche Secondus, Yekini Nabena and other big players on the canvass love Nigeria to a fault. They love the people of Nigeria too. It is evident in their place of abode being tagged the world’s capital of poverty. Nigerian leaders love power. Perhaps, that is why the leaders fixed the presidential election for the month of love –February.

But we live in a dangerous time. This is a period when most Nigerians are perpetually in apprehension. Tension rose to high pitch on Friday, February 15, as the presidential election was anticipated before it was eventually postponed. It is not certain if the tension has abated as we speak. The big players in Nigeria have a way of determining the political temperature.

They turn it up or down like the cooking gas regulator, at will.

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The Kaduna governor, obviously in his deep love for Nigeria, gave a chill warning to nosy foreign powers who might want to play the adulterer with his beloved Nigeria, a few days ago. Those who interfere in Nigeria’s presidential election of Saturday, February 16, would go back in body-bags.

Fortunately or otherwise, that election did not hold on that day. How much more would a citizen love his country? If in doubt, ask the Presidency that said Mr el-Rufai did not mean harm; he only made the statement in public interest.

Bu Patriot Muhammadu Buhari would later regulate the heat that the body-bag combustion generated by distancing himself from it. That move also speaks volume of the love Mr President has for the country. However, he wouldn’t condone the snail-speed process of the nebulous rule of law a pproach of the judiciary in his self-imposed onerous task of ridding the nation of the scourge of corruption. In certain instances, you need to bypass those humongous money swallowing National Assembly members to take decisive actions, even if appropriating huge funds is involved. After all, who is that person that would wait for a sluggish doctor’s diagnosis before administering the herbal concoction on a child dying of furnace-hot feverish feeling? That is how much the love of a father for his nation.

Nabena, Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), reiterating what many have now recognised as the ‘hypocritical stand’ of the APC, also on Monday, February 18, showing his love for Nigeria, told the United States, United Kingdom and member countries of the European Union to face their own challenges and leave Nigeria alone. You cannot be too protective of your beautiful bride, he probably thought. However, it is advisable not to let your spouse seek assistance, monetary or otherwise, from another suitor. Besides, many Nigerians have argued that those in the APC hailed the international community to high heavens over their interest in the nation’s election in 2015. The party became the major (or only) beneficiary of that election.

Citizen Buhari, smarting from boiling-point temperature the postponement of the presidential election generated last week, left his Daura polling unit for Abuja, got into some meetings and came out again to shoot another arrow of love right into the heart of Nigeria. On Monday, he declared that he had given the security agencies order to be ruthless during the rescheduled election on Saturday, February 23, adding that anyone that would snatch ballot boxes or commit electoral malfeasance should be ready to pay with his life. Does anyone attempt to blame the president? Death, summary death, is the gain of iniquity. Yes, there are provisions in the Electoral Act, the constitution and other extant laws regarding the punishment an electoral offender is deserving of. But remember those untrustworthy advocates of the sluggish rule of law: Who has the patience to wait for the system to do justice? That is how you know those who truly love their countries.

Come to think of it, it doesn’t even matter if the security agencies had been secretly given instruction on where, how and on whom such ruthless order should be carried out, the president must be right. He can never be wrong. He takes his decisions in national interest. Sometimes, individual laws operate better than institutional laws. After all, national interest takes preeminence over the rule of law. The government that would clean the Augean stable must be firm and ruthless. It must seem to have (not actually o) suspended the laws of the land, that are getting too permissive, to get all manners of sinners caged. That is the way true patriots, lovers of the nation, must think.

When the rule of an individual or a few supersedes the rule of law, danger lurks around the corner. When a ruler comes with the mandate of a messiah, a dictator might be in the making. With the rescheduled presidential election expected to hold in a few days, may God (the Supreme Being to whom we usually shove all our faults) help Nigeria.

Gbadamosi is a journalist with Nigerian Tribune.