WHY IS BUHARI JITTERY OVER COUP PLOTTING?
BY DONS EZE
Why is Major General Muhammadu Buhari, a man who shot himself into limelight as a result of coup plotting, who had benefitted too much from coup plotting, be complaining about a plot to overthrow his regime? Why is he jittery? Why is he afraid? It is like a man who kills with a knife, but who will never allow a knife to come close to his neck.
Femi Adesina, Media and Publicity Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, claimed that some religious leaders and politicians were plotting to forcefully overthrow the Buhari government. In a statement, Femi claimed that the Department of State Services (DSS) had alerted of sinister moves by misguided elements to wreak havoc on the government, sovereignty and corporate existence of the country.
According to him, the move to overthrow Buhari was “championed by some disgruntled religious and past political leaders, the intention is to eventually throw the country into a tailspin, which would compel a forceful and undemocratic change of leadership”.
He claimed that “unimpeachable evidence shows that these disruptive elements are now recruiting the leadership of some ethnic groups and politicians round the country, with the intention of convening some sort of conference, where a vote of no confidence would be passed on the President, thus throwing the land into further turmoil.
“The caterwauling, in recent times, by these elements, is to prepare the grounds adequately for their ignoble intentions, which are designed to cause further grief for the country. The agent provocateurs hope to achieve through artifice and sleight of hands, what they failed to do through the ballot box in the 2019 elections”.
The Presidential Spokesperson told us what we already know, that is, that Nigerians had opted for democratic rule, and that the only accepted way to change a democratically elected government was through elections.
While warning of grave consequences that awaited any participant in such devilish act, he alleged that “the discredited individuals and groups” were in “cahoots with external forces to cause maximum damage in their own country”, but pledged that the Presidency, would keep the country together, “even if some unruly feathers would be ruffled in the process.”
We thank the Presidency for such revelation, which we believe is not true, but hope that President Buhari was not looking for excuse to begin to clamp down indiscriminately on innocent Nigerians on allegation of coup plotting. Why is Buhari now flying the kite of coup plotting, when everybody is assailing his administration for poor performance? We hope that our President was not being pursued by his shadow, and haunted by his past.
In 1999, we all bade farewell to any form of undemocratic change of government, call it coup making. Nobody is interested in coup anyone. For the twenty-two years of the present political dispensation, nobody has talked about coup plotting, not even during the sixteen years of the so-called “misrule” by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
President Muhammadu Buhari has now hardly been six years in office, when they begin to talk about people plotting to overthrow his regime. We cannot believe the allegation. Only a person who is conversant, or who knows about coup plotting would be telling such an infantile story, tales by the moonlight, aimed at attracting sympathy for the administration, or at descending on some perceived enemies of government.
We hope President Buhari would not misconstrue the regular meetings of different ethnic based sociocultural organizations in the country, as part of such alleged conference where a vote of no confidence would be sought against his administration? But let him be told that nobody would need any conference to agree that the present administration has lost the confidence of the people.
Many Nigerians are no longer comfortable with what is happening in the country, and they have been saying so openly. Everybody is tired of complaining about the level of insecurity, about economic mismanagement, corruption and unemployment. They want the President to either rise to the challenge or to honourably bow out for another person to takeover the mantle of leadership.
No Nigerian is interested in coup making anymore, or asking the military to stage a comeback. We have had enough of military rule. We don’t want them in government. It was the military that bastardized the political and economic structures of Nigeria, and plunged the country to a civil war.
We only hope that President Buhari would not be using the excuse of a phantom coup plot to descend on innocent Nigerians, the press, and vocal voices in the country, to order for their arrest, prosecution and incarceration, or send them to untimely graves?
But why would someone who is familiar with the game of coup plotting be jittery over an alleged attempt to overthrow his own administration? President Buhari had actively participated in coup plotting, and had enjoyed the spoils of office arising from coup making.
Muhammadu Buhari had staged a coup that overthrew an elected civilian President. He was Petroleum Minister under one military administration; and Chairman of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), under another military administration. So, for him, there was nothing wrong with coup making.
What we expect Buhari to be telling us therefore, is how he would give Nigerians good governance, how he would better the lot of the country entrusted into his care, and not the cheap story that there was a plot to overthrow his administration. We are not going to be fooled
Dr. Dons Eze, KSJI
