As we count down to 2023, some friends and colleagues are asking how I will vote, giving that I have written favourable opinions on Peter Obi in the past and also praised the Atiku-Okowa balanced ticket. I have also criticized the APC Muslim – Muslim ticket for being insensitive. Though, I have not made my final call on which party will carry the election because events are still unfolding, I am certain about the party that is not in my voting options because it has successfully created the worst humanitarian crisis by not protecting the security of lives and property.
Since 2015, our security situation has only grown worse. Last week, some aggrieved lawmakers issued an ultimatum to the president demanding that he takes immediate action on insecurity or be impeached. The aggrieved lawmakers claimed they have the required number to impeach. It’s not only the lawmakers that are angry by the state of insecurity in the country, millions of indigenous people who were displaced from their homelands with their means of survival destroyed are angry.
No one is safe in the country, not even the President who travelled to Liberia to lecture that country on insecurity. Governor El Rufai of Kaduna State – an advocate of taking strong actions against terrorists confirmed that the president was unaware that the terrorists had threatened to also kidnap him (the president), and that he was the one that informed Buhari of the threat level which was shared in a video that went viral. Who is briefing the president on the security situation and why are they withholding information from him? Are there fifth columnists in action?
I know the threat against the president cannot happen without huge consequence but it shows the monsters that we romanced have become more confident. It’s not impossible that they may try to dare to abduct the president. It’s possible they may have their collaborators on the inside. After all, if they can successfully attack members of the Guards Brigade, attack the president’s advance convoy, break into the Kuje Prisons where they freed hardened criminals, then they can dare anything.
Whether you think the terrorists are simply blowing some hot puffs or not, the truth is that the enemies are now in our backyard. People living in the capital city of Abuja are literally living in fear. A legislator who ought to know alleged on the floor of the parliament that the DSS sent 44 actionable intelligence before the Kuje jail break yet no action was taken to beef up security and prevent the attack. Perhaps, the Commander-in-Chief wasn’t aware of the DSS report. Or if he was aware, maybe he refused to issue appropriate orders or his orders were no longer being obeyed by the security chiefs.
Not only the legislators who threatened to impeach the president are tired, majority of those that voted for him, the Christian Hausa populations from the North, the Muslims, the Yoruba people, the youths and five per cent South Easterners who voted to elect him president in the 2015 presidential election now suffer from buyers remorse, each with unique reasoning.
‘I feel like I have been lied to by the media telling us that Buhari is the answer to all our problems’, Khadija Usman whom I met on a trip to Kaduna told me. ‘That’s what I saw him as when I voted for him’. ‘And they made former President Jonathan kind of a corrupt and clueless leader’ said Friday Okeke.
Ajayi, a Yoruba and father of five, who was a staunch Buhari supporter, said his party has broken all of its promises; to end insecurity, end corruption, strengthen the Naira and bring it at par with the dollar, reduce the cost of petrol, make the refineries work and end strikes by university lecturers. As soon as they won the election, they looked at the list of their promises and said ‘forget it’ or ‘they outright denied those promises’.
‘They disarmed us and yet will not provide us with security. Now Abuja is also under siege, I don’t know where else to go.’
The security threat in Abuja is real. The terrorists have attacked villages and communities within the city and abducted hundreds of people. They successfully bombed the city’s largest correctional centre and freed all the hardened criminals held in the facility. All the public and private schools in the city were ordered to be closed down and exams suspended
During his inaugural speech, President Buhari projected that he would run an all-inclusive government. He famously declared that ‘I am for nobody, I am for everybody.’ But that is the furthest thing from the truth. Nigerians were soon to find out the hard way that their new president is not who he says he is.
Under his watch, you find gunmen and bandits carrying sophisticated weapons, almost similar if not superior to the guns carried by our military, and they are willing to use those guns indiscriminately and in total disregard for human life and a total disrespect and disregard for authority and the law. They indiscriminately attack police stations, military formations while the security high command seem too weak to take action. The weak response of our military to take the battle to the bandits, their inaction to defend themselves and the excuse they make consequently have resulted in the growing suspicion of the public that there must be interwoven relationship between government and some of the criminal elements.
Nigerians are sickened that after all the promises made in 2015, this insecurity plague continues to grip the nation. Every senseless violence results in several lives lost. To end this cycle of violence and deaths, we need to hold the government accountable.
All the spins to label every past administration as being part of the problem is a rationalization of evil that will fail. We lived through past administrations and we are now living through the most turbulent and challenging period in our nation’s history. When they asked for our vote in 2015, they promised us change and they have successfully changed Nigeria beyond recognition. All we demand is to be returned to where we were in 2015. That’s all!
I am nevertheless concerned that the 2023 election will be influenced by religious sentiments, and the aftermath will further divide our already polarised nation and politics, not just on tribal lines but on religious lines. I wish we could slow down on the influence of religious politics as the consequence will be too huge to bear.