NIGERIANS are hopelessly partisan, despite the gbaro (suffering) weaved on their heads, by the hands of the career politicians they spend a lifetime defending. It is easy to seek mote in others’ eyes, but who amongst us, is without his/her own beam. Adept tricksters know politics is an emotional business and our being is largely emotions and emotive. Play it right, locate the right spot and you have a “heart-trick” with people who may never know your real intents or even ever bother about finding them out. You can hardly find a Nigerian today, without a deep feeling about President Muhammadu Buhari. It’s either demulcent or murderous. Both ways, are dangerously extreme. If in doubt, check with early-morning professional political debaters and self-canonised experts at newsstands or bar-joints. You ask about social media? That is a no-go area. But the tirade on social platforms may not be reliable. Some commenters are purchased and their arguments, mercantilism.
I know the headline here is enough sulphur for an Armageddon. Reason, the intendment would be fully spread for fire-brands on both sides of 2019 aisle, to reason it as neither a curse nor a blessing. Did I just say reason? Won’t reason take immediate flight, by just sighting the headline? Yet, I will attempt what appears an impossibility; getting many Nigerians to reason again.
That President Buhari is a polarising figure in the nation today isn’t a bad idea on its own. Attaining such emotional height is a kind of an encore for career politicians. Fanatical supporters, fanatical dissenters. Trump is “enjoying” such status today. Such “height” could also be a yardstick such a leader is standing for some fundamentals and giving another set, a wide possible berth.
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Gbogbo ero (popular jingo) leaders hardly endure. They want to be so pleasing to every interest, that they always end up, displeasing their own memories.
Mark this, regardless of CNN’s extreme anti-Trump reportage, the see-it, say-it man in the White House today is likely to end shifting grounds in American societal issues like abortion funding, illegal migration, transgender service in the military, gay issues, et al, in an irretrievable manner. Those against the sensitive issues he’s getting into, including getting America to fully have the back of Israel, may never recover from the distance he has gone, going against their desires.
Trump came in divisive; he will remain divisive, because his own elected him to confront and subdue the Left and their politics of relativism, including trying to re-create God in their own image. On this, I’m, unapologetically a Trumpist.
If my memory serves me correctly, it was Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai that made the coinage Buharists popular, in their days in opposition. Same he did with Jonathanians’ profiling. So, if anyone helped significantly to divide the nation behind two personality cults three years ago, the top APC chieftain should take significant credit. The party’s bristling media did the rest of the job. In America today, there are Trumpists as defined by the Left (both media and Democrats) but unfortunately for the Left, they have no matching cult figure, maybe Senator Elizabeth “Potahoncas “ Warren. Who wanna be Potahoncanians. Today, a divided America is into ideological ascendancy contest.
The unending gripping blood-letting in Nigeria is also believed to be ideologically-angled. Nearly all the Christians (conservatively 100 million) hold dear the theory of systematic but crude Islamisation agenda, being responsible for the fatigued genocide on-going in the country, by blood-hungry jackals who are incidentally mostly ethnically-related to the supreme head of the nation’s security, elected to protect all citizens. Being the national life patron of the killer-group, is also a crucifying fix for the president.
Despite his very strong denials, either directly or by proxy, in the public opinion court of millions of Southerners, Middle-Belters and Christians everywhere, except those thinking politics ahead of sanctity of blood , President Buhari is guilty as charged, on domestic terrorism against a section of the country and a rival religion. The Sunni/Shia’s dichotomy in Islam, has equally robbed him of a bloc religious support, as he’s mostly seen as apparently hostile to one.
The international community is also convinced “something extraordinary” is happening in Nigeria under Buhari’s watch. Disgraced US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson was said to have been fired the next day he visited the Nigerian leader, because security reports indicted him for alleged refusal to deliver the exact message from the American political authorities, due to his oily interest, in Nigeria. The American trip our president made after the Tillerson saga, was said to be more of a summons to the White House than a courtesy visit. Then, to the hearing of the whole world, Trump said to Mr. President what Tillerson was being diplomatic about because of Mobil and oil rigs.
The international call-out has since marked a major shift in the battle to get the president and his core team, profile the genocide in the land appropriately and designate the culprits for commensurate decisive routing actions. The vacillation and zig-zag official gazette; slinging between Ghadaffi terrorists to neighbouring amateur killers and home-grown petty bandits, is the first major burden the president must discharge. Barack Obama, one of the international programmers of the Buhari presidency, as president, was famously heckled for stone-walling on calling-out Muslims involved in bombing, terrorists. Dubbing them extremists didn’t go well with the rest of the world. He eventually buckled. Until President Buhari agrees with the rest of the world that the killer Fulani herdsmen are the new terrorists in town, his pleas, denials and excuses, regardless of sincerity of heart, will continue to be a splash.
…To be continued.
…and SARS apologised
Tuesday evening, before the Argies broke Naija’s heart again, my friend Bode called in from Ilesa with rhythm in his voice. A SARS delegation came to apologise to him, hours earlier. He said he was momentarily dazed when grown men sprawled on ground, asking him to jebure (sheathe sword). He had not seen last edition of this column on his ordeal in the hands of the guys whose vice-grip on Ijesaland, is now near fatal. It was the officers who fished Sunday Tribune out like a contraband, flagging Gibbers in his face. Police aren’t known for humble-pie, except when inescapably cornered and lies would be useless. Maybe, sometin don do them before seeking armistice. Whatever it is, it is hoped the thing do dem sotay, dem no go shit for awo tanganran (porcelain plate) again. They can go and sin no more, at least for now.
and then