Enough Is Enough-- A Short Note to General Muhammadu Buhari By Adebayo Adejare
I read with concern your decision to
contest the election of Governor Umar Ya’Ardua at the Presidential
Election Tribunal as well as participate in peaceful anti-election
Protest on 1st of May 2007. Please think again.
You stand to gain nothing from the Presidential Election Proceedings but more humiliation more ridicule and more pain. An election Petition in these circumstances is unreasonable, profitless and suicidal.
This is not the time for such an exercise.
You already established a reputation as a man of his own mind. Don’t
allow any counselor to push you into the gutter. Save your immediate
family from further embarrassment.
Your decision to run was ab initio
erroneous. Wole Soyinka, our outspoken Noble Laureate did not recommend
you to Nigerians but tacitly endorsed Gov. Ya’Adua. He based his attack
on your record as a Military Dictator. I do not share all his opinions
but there is no gainsaying the fact that it is for human beings to
revenge but to forgive is divine. You acted with sincerity and 99 per
cent of the Recovery of Public Property (Special Military) Tribunals
were right but those on whom the axe fell are still alive although most
are dead. To date, no other administration recovered as much as yours
did. Your statement that this is the only country Nigerians have and we
must stay there and salvage it is still so popular and is almost turning
into a National Creed. You took popular but draconic steps to salvage
In you (and Tunde Idiagbon – RIP) laid the
hope of our generation indeed our country but you let us down. Those
whose careers, future and lives you ruined by this singular omission are
walking corpses today. The victims of your draconian decrees, official
acts and Tribunal Verdicts still hold you responsible (albeit sometimes
wrongly) for their travails and may not have forgiven nor forgotten.
Wole Soyinka was only saying the obvious. Can you honestly affirm in the
secret of your bedroom behind closed doors that Shehu Shagari, Alex
Ekwueme, Bisi Akande, Abubakar Rimi, Ibrahim Babangida would campaign
for you or endorse your candidature? Are you sure that electing another
Military ex-Dictator after General Olusegun Obasanjo is the way to go
for
Couldn’t you see that everything went awry
from the beginning? You, yourself complained that the ANPP Political
Party whose Presidential ticket you hijacked was a disorganized party.
Its Governors refused to support your candidature and the Party couldn’t
even fly you around the country! You lost the race before the election!
To compound it all you went and picked a Political liability as running
mate. (How many votes did he deliver?)
General Buhari, don’t forget that many younger Nigerians like my humble self look upon you for leadership and inspiration as an elder statesman but NOT for Presidency. You inflict great pain on us when you easily jump from your exalted office as MEMBER COUNCIL OF STATES made up of former Presidents to contest election. You have diminished the dignity and authority of that office and embarrassed your eminent colleagues. By your loss on April 21, you lost more that just a Presidential Election. Please, for Gods sake, do not go to the office of the U.S. Secretary of State to protest election this time around as you did in 2003.
And if you go out to protest on May 1, you
will lose even more. If and whenever a verdict is given by the
Presidential Election Tribunal or the Supreme Court you are a loser no
matter which way the verdict goes.
DO YOU DESERVE ALL THESE JUST FOR LUST FOR
POWER? Can’t you easily see that May 2 would come and Yar' Adua would
(INSHA ALLAH) still be there as President-Elect and that on May 29,
Your proposed Election Petition stands no
chance at the Tribunal save to embarrass INEC. Tribunal lacks
jurisdiction to declare anyone other that Umar Ya’Ardua nor will it
inflict injustice on
Your Petition is liable to dismissal with
costs as frivolous, unfounded and abusive. Assuming, I am wrong and you
win at the Tribunal then you will be in real soup because no Nigerian
will go out face the agony of another vote. It would then go on record
that you truncated our Democracy AGAIN! The day you succeed in upstaging
Ya’Ardua you cease to be a HERO in Katsina and the entire North. Fellow
Muslims will deal with you according to Sharia for stabbing your younger
brother in the back.
The accident you survived is an omen and a divine message. Don’t be a
tool in the hands of those who stand to lose nothing if a Constitutional
Crises occurs. Help our Military salvage its battered image rather than
confirm the falsehood that the Military helped rig election. Help
Nigerians lick their wounds and move on. Visit the families of every
Policeman (or Serviceman) murdered or killed on duty during election and
offer words of consolation. Send a Congratulatory Message to Umar and
offer help. Attend his INAUGURATION and SAY GOOD-BYE TO
PARTISAN POLITICS. This is positive leadership sportsmanship and
statesmanship and the only WAY TO GO.
GOD BLESS
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