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Tilde: Rogue Writer or Jobber? By Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo
I feel obliged to join issues with Dr Aliyu Tilde on his article about the most corrupt government in Nigeria. I am doing this for many reasons. These include the nature of his attack, its timing, its monotony, Tilde’s obvious amnesia as a writer, his mischief or lack of principle or both, and his clear contempt for the fear of Allah. Reading through the article, one is left in no doubt as to its depth of advocacy. One of those who once read Tilde’s articles to be informed now confessed to me that he now reads them for amusement. This gentleman spends his hard-earned money to call me from far away Canada to rub minds on Nigerian issues. Worse still, he is disturbed by the haste to deliver the jabs that lead the Dr to commit unpardonable grammatical blunders. And then the deliberate amnesia.
In this profession, facts are sacred. To attempt to obfuscate this given is like trying to make pigs fly. Those who are most guilty of this crime are the many “bolekaja” writers who join the bandwagon of column writing from their primary vocations and a few fair-weather journalists here and there.
This particular article of Tilde’s comes at the most inauspicious time. It was badly timed. It ran parallel to a complaint by Reuben Abati (who needs no introduction) about the alarming population of people who think they know more than the trained pen pusher. Abati writes in his article that; ”the problem is that everybody in this country thinks he or she knows how journalists should do their job. Nobody tells a doctor how to hold their stethoscope. Nigerians don’t dictate to their lawyers. They don’t tell a dentist what to do. But every man out there thinks he is better than a journalist. Carpenters, housewives, fashion designers, bricklayers, vendors and even undertakers all try to teach journalism just because they too can read and write and they buy a newspaper in the morning.” As if to compound Abati’s worries, Tilde’s delivery gives away a man who would miss his way in an empty room.
Tilde condemned the current presidency without reservation. We know he is entitled to do so and no one can take that from him but, to cleverly exonerate the 20 months Buharriyya which began in January 1984 until IBB ended it on August 26 the following year is a cardinal crime both intellectually and journalistically. How does one take away 20 months of our national life when state might was used to silence even passive protests, and still expect to be taken seriously? This attempt to muscle ample evidence of Buhari’s junta’s abuse of human rights while chronicling Nigeria’s history is, to say the least, the apex of the lack of fear of Allah. Has Tilde never heard of decree 4? Or does he never dare to criticise Buhari ever in this life?
Since independence, Nigeria’s military rulers have used a variety of methods to curb dissent, from offering incentives to strategic constituencies to the use of brutal and harsh methods for crushing opposition. Today, Nigeria is far from its darkest days for personal freedom. We may also never know if corruption has reached its peak as Tilde’s jaundiced sense of history implies. But history also tells us that no Nigerian tyrant ever comes close to Buhari in the wicked art of abuse of human rights. Every town village or community has a thing or two to say about Buhari’s dark days. In my home town of Numan in Adamawa state, the mere mention of Buhari led a man to drink acid and end it all.
Hearing this, one would think Buhari himself lives his life without blemish. For all of Buhari’s professed love for democracy, he truncated one. Therefore no one needs to remind the bird that leaves the ground to land on an anthill that it is still on the ground. Besides, the democratic experience that Buhari truncated, believe it or not, that one was midwifed by Obasanjo.
Now Buhari would not have been the issue here but Tilde’s writing and endless attacks on this government come rain or shine. But Buhari slides into the picture because Tilde’s advocacy is aimed at perpetuating the rule of their senseless clan on us. Many people are perplexed by the self-righteous claim of this voodoo-cult that sees nothing good in any other Nigerian leader. They erase their own master’s crimes as easily as we press the delete key on our keyboards. They forget that Buhari authorised the injection of Umaru Dikko with morphine and attempted to transport him across the Atlantic in a crate, a treatment that not even animals are subjected to in civilised societies. No government in living memory has ever summarily executed drug traffickers but the Buhari government but Tilde tries to conveniently sweep this bitter part of our collective history under the carpet.
I would like to refresh his memory a wee bit, if by any chance it is failing him, and I am doing it “In Medias Res” just like his article.
With regards to the issue of corruption, this presidency has, like all others before it (and probably those that will come after it) a fair share of baggage. But we must acknowledge that this presidency is doing something unprecedented in what we generally refer to as a fight against graft but which was rightly diagnosed, by no less a man as Nasir El-Rufa’I as a fight against impunity. Perhaps, El-Rufai was making allusion to the Buhari era because the ugliest era of impunity in Nigeria is the Buhari era.
If Tilde’s veterinary sentiments permit him to cut his crap, he would seek explanations from his principal who was jailing people for up to 153 years for looting state treasuries, upbraiding their Royal Highnesses the Oni and the Emir of Kano, forcing others to part with as little as a hundred thousand Naira, while at the same time he looked the other way when 53 suit cases filled with minted foreign currency was brought in through the MMA by his then future in-laws, with impunity. It is not as if Buhari himself seeks the presidency to salvage Nigeria, but to settle himself.
We know for a fact that Buhari squared against Obasanjo in 2003 because Obasanjo scrapped his PTF. To many Nigerians, the PTF roads if truth be told, is like the pie in the sky. The best PTF road leads to Buhari’s house while the others have failed the test of time. No one is fooled by that any more.
Buhari cares only for himself and the cabals that surround him feast on us “with impunity”. Shehu Yar Adua lifted Buhari to become petroleum minister where 2.8 billion is alleged to have evaporated into thin air but he returned to serve Abacha who incarcerated Yar adu’a without as much as showing sympathy for the latter. Similarly, while Muhammed Abacha languished in jail under Obasanjo, Buhari cared no less. Any father figure will chip in a word for his friend’s ward. Buhari’s legendary vindictiveness kept him totally alienated from IBB but he would later seek rapprochement with the same man when it was expedient for his political jamboree.
Buhari’s tenure at the PTF may go down in history as the most nepotistic because of the way he threw the PTF open to his cronies. While many genuine companies could not get paid for work done, sometimes even butchers were literally begged to travel to Abuja from Adamawa to be awarded contracts worth millions of Naira which they sold to agents to make a quick buck. There is no record of anyone being called to order during that bazaar. All these are just a tip of the iceberg in the history of “Saint Buhari’” that Tilde would rather have us forget.
What is so saintly about these people who profess invincibility from Nigeria’s pool of thieves and robbers? Take Buhari’s attitude towards the media. Will it be any better than what we have today were Buhari to return to power?
There is little left for the public to know about the Obasanjo presidency and too much to explore in the Buhari organisation. As an insider, Tilde should tell us what it is that makes his man Buhari tick. Why it is that people who serve him are sidelined because they do not share the same faith. Sam Nda Isiah raised very fundamental questions about the clique that clings to Buhari. Please tell more about that and let those who will criticise this government objectively carry on in this jungle that we find ourselves.
Cowards don’t make good writers but jobbers. Tilde is not the first and may not be the last of jobbers who have their parameters of what journalism is or should be; who avoid the heap of dirt in their camp and attempt to hoodwink the general public looking away from their camp. But it does not take long before the reader discerns patronising advocacy. Journalism comes with enormous responsibility. It is a combination of well-scripted prose, well-articulated thoughts, the courage to say it as it is no matter whose ox is gored and much more. There are many things that journalism is and many of these things Dr Tilde’s writing is not.
The likes of Chief Sunday Awoniyi and Comrade Osita Okechukwu are there to tell us enough about why we should be cautious in our praise for Obasanjo. But even they have had differences with the man, which compel us to take their word with a pinch of salt. However, that is not to say that we have a government that is infallible. What we are saying not all Nigerians are called Thomas. Some of us have the courage to give people, even those in government, the benefit of the doubt because if we don’t, we may never edge our leaders into positive action. Nigerians must discard their doubting attitude and idiotic sentiments which is like an ill wind that blows nobody any good any way.
Yes this government did not attain its mandate in the right manner. So what? Is the case not in court? Yes this government has not been fair to the north. So what? Have northerners not ruled Nigeria for the most part of the 45 years of our independence? Have they been fair to the north themselves? There are probably more down-trodden people in the north of Nigeria than there are in any part of the world today and there is no clear cut evidence, empirical, scientific or attitudinal that shows that if the north “takes back its power” better life will come to the northern masses. All we see is bread and butter advocacy and it is nauseating, for crying out loud.
This presidency, like any other one before it, does carry its baggage of official corruption, no doubt, but it only conforms to the advancement in societal decay where rogue writers bleach the dirty human rights records of their benefactors just to sling mud at others. Both Buhari and Obasanjo have at one time or another paid glowing tribute to each other, as men of sterling qualities. Today one of them is living in Aso Rock and the other is banging at the door. Tilde and I and many Nigerians like us may never know why these people think that the kingdom of the Villa is theirs to inherit. Tilde can only continue his advocacy which is wrapped mostly in cowardly and tainted conjecture aimed at shoeing Buhari in. When he gets there, what next?
For the avoidance of doubt, the answer to this rhetorical question is that we shall all return to square one. That is why those of us who have the fortunate standing of neutrality and not belonging to any camps, not shedding crocodile tears on any so-called “stolen mandate” and simply believe that salvation comes in small quantities agree that in the last couple of months positive things have happened in Nigeria. That is why we clap when members of the Chris Uba fraternity tow the path of honour and withdraw from Abuja. That is why we cheer when two ministers lose their jobs in as many weeks for glaring evidence of graft; and the senate president returns to the floor of the senate. If he has any shame, he would make the final journey home to his only child. Knowing that there is no honour among thieves, we also wish that Tafa Balogun will be chained all over his body. As Inspector General of police he chained Nigeria’s N13billion in a chain of phoney personal accounts so what is wrong bringing him to court in handcuffs? Anyone who does not acknowledge that the road to easy self-aggrandizement is becoming paved with small thorns and spikes let him quietly do us a favour and save his breadth.
razaque |