Buhari And The Hand Of God

Buhari And The Hand Of God

Mustapha Shet Shehu

Ask any Buhari basher why he doesn’t like Buhari and you would be surprised at his reasons. I have tried it many times. The latest was recently when I visited a pounded yam joint somewhere in Garki village, Abuja. After my meal, I engaged the proprietress in political discussion centering on the now dead third-term agendum. The woman didn’t seem to like the idea of another four years of Baba-Iyabo but could not think of a better Nigerian who could take over. When I suggested Buhari to her, she said she would never vote Buhari. And when I asked her why she wouldn’t want to, since it is an undisputed fact that the Buhari/Idiagbon regime was one of the most purposeful Nigeria had ever had, she claimed that the credit being attributed to Buhari when he was Head of State was actually supposed to be attributed to his late deputy Gen.Tunde Idiagbon. I then asked her whether Idiagbon was at PTF when Buhari headed it. Not having an answer to give me, she said she just wouldn’t vote Buhari. I left her at this juncture feeling pity for her. I felt pity because it is a pitiful thing to see someone live a life of opinions formed without reason.

But my pity could probably have been misplaced. This woman might have had a reason she could not fathom to give. Such reason could probably be centered on the news item carried by Thisday newspaper on General Buhari on the eve of the 2003 political campaigns alleging he asked Muslims not to vote non-Muslims in the coming elections. I think this is the crux of the matter with the common man who says he doesn’t like Buhari. I hold Thisday newspaper liable for this deliberate falsehood by its Reporter against the General and I think they need to make amends if they were ab initio not acting the scripts of some exploitative elitist forces in the polity. For it is only among these forces that I think there is iron-cast dislike for the General and even this is on selfish survival grounds. This group dislikes the general because he represents the opposite of the totality of the crassness it stands for.

I doubt if there is any person living that can build a case of indolence, vice, deceit, immorality, lies, corruption, ungodliness and what have you against the General. Even the most morally bankrupt Nigerian, when he pontificates, doles out the right qualities that are expected of a president in the present day Nigeria. And you would think he is referring to Buhari. Yet it baffles me when I hear the common man says the kind of things my pounded yam woman said against Buhari. If it was a conspiracy by the forces of darkness as characterized by some of our politicians, the media and the clique that holds the national economy by virtue of the less than transparent privatization programme, to paint Buhari a religious bigot, then they have, to some extent, succeeded. However, it must be clear to the kin observer that this conspiracy was solely due to the fear by this clique, of the qualities in Buhari, that have set him apart from the typical Nigerian politician, that make him truly a man of the people. If this were not so, how could one explain why Zamfara State Governor: Alhaji Sani Yarima the progenitor of “political” sharia and now an ANNP Presidential Aspirant is not regarded a religious bigot by this clique?

Those, whose base instincts on religious sentiment have been inflamed by this clique that have held us hostage since 1999, should be wiser by now. They should have by now seen through the deceit, greed, insensitivity and ungodliness of this clique. It is a truism that lies, deceit, greed and their siblings do not bear fruits. It is now self evident that the contradictions between what this ungodly clique espouses and what they say are now manifest in their ever increasing dislike among themselves. They are at each others throats and knowing that God does not play dice, those of us who have reported to Him, their transgressions against us, are now content that there is an Omnipotent design unfolding which is akin to what happened in the hallowed chamber of the Senate when the third-term Senators could not open their mouths during the voice vote. For those knowledgeable in the Holy Qur’an, there are portions which stated something like: “Allah had sealed their lips”. It is my belief now that God has equally caused commotion among their ranks such that they cannot unite to cheat us like they have done in 2003.

Nigerians are living witnesses to the campaign trails of General Buhari before the 2003 presidential elections. They have seen how popular the General is among the ordinary and not so ordinary Nigerians. They have equally witnessed the sham called the 2003 elections and the subsequent court case that spanned over two years with a culmination in the political judgment given by the Supreme Court. What is of interest is that General Buhari has shown his stoicism and strength of character to the eternal shame of his detractors. He has shown he is a democrat per excellence, highly disciplined, meticulous and principled. Above all, he has shown he is a man of peace. Had he wanted, he could have ignited an upheaval of unimaginable proportions in the national body polity. All he needed to do was ask the masses to troop out onto the streets and make the country ungovernable for those who stole the polls. He, in stead, chose to leave the matter in the Hands of God and now God has started manifesting His Omnipotence in ways the polls and treasury looters cannot understand.

Since 2003 these marauders in government have not known peace. And surely peace will continue to elude them until they pay for the sins they have committed in their transgression against the Nigerian masses. They will continue to be bereft of the wisdom of how to maintain the power they have so glaringly stolen. They will continue to fight each other till the day they finally see the Hand of God at play. That would be the day they would stand stupefied and open-mouthed just like the day the third term agendum was killed in the Senate. It would then dawn on them that all their scheming, their pride, their arrogance was allowed by the Omnipotent just so they could be roped in by their ever-ballooning vanities. And it would be too late and impossible for them to do anything about the Buhari phenomenon because if they try it, they would be wrestling with the Hand of God.

Therefore, for those who stand by the truth and those who feel repentant about their past, standing behind the General in this crucial times when only an exemplary leader suffices is a duty to their conscience. If they ponder hard and long enough, they would know who amongst the multitude of Presidential Aspirants that have emerged or about to, has the truest of all the qualities Nigeria currently needs as a Leader.