In November 2018, APC and its government warned the United States government not to issue a visa to a Nigerian citizen, former Vice President and PDP presidential candidate, Waziri Atiku Abubakar. Lai Mohammed told the US to be wary so that “an impression must not be created that the US government is endorsing one particular candidate over the other.” But the US ignored a government it has increasingly become fed up with, damned their childish entreaties and issued Atiku the visa. This then means America supports Atiku, going by government’s fears and theory.
With less than 30 days to the election, Atiku demystified APC/PMB/Lai Mohammed propaganda machinery and landed in America. Ordinarily, a candidate’s trip to America should not have been an uproarious issue, but a private one. However, it is the APC and federal government themselves that elevated it on the front burner for over one year, arguing that Atiku would never dare step on American soil for fear of arrest over alleged pending bribery and corruption case against him in the US. APC’s obsequious mobs dared Atiku to try visit America as a major sign that he genuinely seeks to govern Nigeria. They thereby shot themselves in the foot. It did not occur to them that America would never be dictated to. Atiku belittled them by travelling discretely to the US without making any publicity capital out of it. Even the Nigerian Embassy in America said it was not aware of Atiku’s arrival. Caught flat-footed, flabbergasted and deflated, the APC and president’s spokespersons peevishly alleged Atiku travelled as an aide to Bukola Saraki, Senate President! They then shifted the goalposts and said he would only land New York, and not Washington D.C., the seat of power. Don’t these people know when to shut up for once and halt verbal diarrhea?
Atiku not only landed in New York, he proceeded to Washington D.C. And, wait for it, he rubbed pepper on to their injury by staying with his entourage at Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. This hotel is actually owned by President Donald Trump. He met with Congressman Christopher Smith, a bi-partisan delegation of many Congressmen, businessmen, operators in critical sectors of the US economy, high-ranking US government officials, Nigerians living in the D.C. metropolis and diaspora, leaders of thought, etc. What will APC, Lai Mohammed and PMB’s spokespersons say now? Oh, they still had something. They claimed Atiku “bought” his visa with huge sums and heavily paid his way into America! God, let some people know when not to treat us to hogwash, balderdash, gibberish and poppycock.
IGP Idris and the ephemerality of power
Ibrahim Kpotun Idris, former IGP, may end up as Nigeria’s worst and iconoclastic IGP so far. While in office, he behaved like a monarchical emperor, perhaps worse than Louis XIV of France, who once stood in front of Parliament, beat his chest, and imperiously declared, “est ‘tat ce’st moi” (I am the State). Idris serially refused to honour invitations by the National Assembly to account for his stewardship. He lightly violated Buhari’s instructions to relocate to Makurdi, to stem the human carnage and murderous orgy by herdsmen. He showed up there briefly and quickly flew back to Kaduna, where he ensconced himself for the duration of the blood-letting, against clear presidential directives. IGP Idris had then shocked Nigerians when he arrogantly ascribed the atrocious mayhem and death visited on innocent Benue people by herdsmen to Governor Ortom’s implementation of the anti-open grazing law, arming of Tiv militia, public display by Ortom of corpses of those slaughtered in their farms and houses by the herdsmen, and alleged inciting speeches by Ortom before and during the mass burial of the slain.
Hear President Buhari blame Idris for the massacre: “the problem in Benue started worsening because the IGP refused to follow my instruction. It is wrong to think I have abandoned the people of Benue State.”
But, he wringed his hands and lacked the liver to sack such an errant officer because he needed him for more dirty jobs.
The “transmission”, “transfusion”, sorry, “confusion” ex-IGP resisted Senate’s several invitations over the gruesome killings across Nigeria. He ignored Senator Isa Missau’s allegations in October 2017, that he had collected N120 billion bribes from VIPs to provide them with police escort. Idris ran to court. He lost. Even when Justice Abba Bello Muhammed ruled that Idris’s suit lacked merit as the NASS was empowered by sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution to carry out oversight investigations and summon any person, including the IGP, he refused to budge. Till date, no one knows the outcome of the investigations. At least, I don’t know.
Upon assumption of office, Idris falsely accused his predecessor, Dr. Solomom Arase, of leaving the police force with 24 vehicles. He also accused DIGs who retired with Arase of same. The accusation was later discovered to be false. That was how Idris commenced his reign of terror and subversion of the Constitution and police ethics. He never looked back.
When the mace of the NASS was violently snatched by hoodlums in broad daylight in a botched attempt at impeaching Senate President Saraki, the IGP’s police was found to be deeply involved and complicit in subverting the Constitution.
Then came Idris’s pet prey, the cerebral, courageous and bold Senator Dino Melaye, whom he harassed, harangued, intimidated and chained to a bed like an animal at the intensive care unit of the National Hospital, Abuja, in April/May, 2018. He fully supported the Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, whom Dino alleged was after his life (before and after his failed recall bid). The last act of a drowning man was the 10-day siege and lockdown mounted on Dino’s house with over 50 vehicles and 300 operatives, between the last week of December, 2018, and January 4, 2019, when Dino voluntarily submitted himself to the police in my company and under my guidance. I was incredulous to fathom how such manpower could be wasted in an attempt to trap a serving Senator (whose passport had already been seized by the same police). This is the same police that cannot stem the tide of crimes across Nigeria, wasting such manpower and logistics just over one unarmed Nigerian.
Entered Deji Adeyanju, a well-known human rights activist and die-hard critic of the PMB government, who is today firmly locked away in a gulag in faraway Kano. Idris’s gun-wielding police had plucked him away from the front of Police Headquarters, Louis Edet House, Abuja, where he had gathered peacefully with members of his “OurMumuDonDo” (Enough is Enough) NGO. The patriots were there to protest the ills of the society. Idris believed Adeyanju was too audacious to protest in front of the “almighty” police. He was locked up and taken to a magistrate’s court.
Other lawyers joined me and we got him released on bail. Adeyanju went back to the police to ask for his passport and personal effects that had been illegally and unlawfully detained by the police. Pronto, they grabbed him again and hauled him into their Abuja detention camp. I went to court in a fundamental rights suit, to argue for his release pro bono. The FCT High Court granted my prayers and ordered Adeyanju’s immediate release. Not satisfied, the police quickly whisked Adejanju off to Kano, where he was arraigned before a magistrate’s court in Kano that has no jurisdiction, on an illegal “holden charge,” a concept since abolished from Nigeria’s jurisprudence by the Supreme Court. He was now charged with attempted culpable homicide, a charge on which he had been tried, discharged and acquitted 10 years ago in 2009, in the same Kano State. The game plan is simple: Keep Adeyanju away from circulation at this critical election period.
For the record, Idris was a mere commissioner in Kano State when Buhari “won” a landslide and moonslide election in Kano State in the 2015 presidential election. Over 28 police officers, including IGP, DIGs, AIGs and CPs had to be forcibly and prematurely retired to accommodate this man. He, therefore, saw it as a presidential favour, which he must repay, even if it meant trampling on the Constitution and the fundamental rights of Nigerians. By the way, Idris had dismissed as originating from an “electrical fault,” the blazing inferno that completely razed down the house of the then Kano State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Makaila Abdulahi, April 3, 2015. Makaila and his entire family were burnt death in a most grisly, horrifying and hideous manner. All because of election. Idris never caught the culprits. He was rather rewarded with quadruple promotions to IGP. Idris, during his time, wantonly betrayed his oath of office, stood police work its head and literally renamed the “Nigeria Police Force” (NPF) as “APC Police Force” (APF). All to please his appointor, Buhari. He is, perhaps, the worst IGP to have emerged in Nigeria.
When the cookies finally crumbled before him, when the chickens finally came home to roost, IGP Ibrahim Kpotun Idris learnt one grave lesson too late: that power, though awesome and intoxicating, is ephemeral. It eventually evaporates like the dew of the sky. Idris could use arms and coercion to fight opponents while he held sway but he could not fight mother nature. “Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul,” said Douglas MacArthur. Both inexorable phenomena of age and quitting hit Idris like a sledge hammer. Age came calling, knocking at Idris’s ironcast door. End of service came calling. He clocked 60. He had also served for 35 years. By both biological age and effluxion of service period, he had outlived his usefulness. He must go. And go he did. Buhari could not save him in spite of covert and overt attempts to. APC could not save him either. Even God ignored Idris. At his dire hour of need. He carried his burden, his cross. All alone. He was forced out of office, lonely, deserted, dejected, humiliated, with his tail between his legs. Lesson: the ephemerality of power. Let other power-drunk czars learn from Idris’ tragedy.
Said Abraham Lincoln, the great American President whose picture adorns the five dollar bill, “nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
When two Nigerien governors campaigned for Buhari
Hello, Nigerians. Two governors from Niger Republic, Issa Moussa of Zinder State and Zakiri Umar of Maradi State, on January 31, 2019, openly campaigned for President Buhari in Kano. I thought Buhari and APC just warned America, UK and the EU countries to stop meddling in Nigeria’s internal electoral affairs? These countries had merely issued damning statements against government on the CJN Onnoghen, whom the government desires to mob-lynch. But here is the same President allowing foreign governors to physically campaign for him on Nigerian soil. What is the interest of foreign governors in Nigeria as to involve physical campaigns? Is anyone still in doubt that the elections are already being rigged? Nigeria Customs, Immigration, military, police, NDLEA, etc, will turn a blind eye when these same governors and more from Chad, etc, export their citizens to vote for Buhari in northern states in an election that is less than two weeks away. God help Nigeria.
Thought for the week
“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.” (Charles de Gaulle).