Yinka Olujimi

The enemies are back in action, shooting from the hips. Their plot must set all lovers of democracy and patriotic Nigerians on the edges of their seats, thanks to the timely disclosure by our hyperactive and supremely effective secret Police, otherwise known as the Department of State Security (DSS).

Some disgruntled elements – pardon the recall of that military rule lingo – are planning to unleash weapons of mass destruction on Nigeria during the coming Yuletide, the DSS has alerted the nation early this week.

The weapons – words, spoken and written words, no doubt lethal – will be used by the bad people to rouse Nigerians from sleep with the aim of staging simultaneous protests against our hardworking, people-oriented, government in different parts of the country.

Peter Afunaya, the spokesman of the secret Police, who made the disclosure in a press statement, added that the disgruntled elements plan to execute their unpatriotic desire “in the coming weeks.”

Showing uncommon magnanimity, the DSS chose not to arrest the evil minds, but settled for simply informing the public of the disconcerting discovery and warned the plotters to desist from their course.

Afunaya who noted the “implications of these (dastardly plots) on public safety and national security” warned the “anti-democratic elements responsible for these heinous plots to desist forthwith from their inglorious acts.”

No mass arrests, no breaking down of the homes of suspects by men in hoods? Awww! So sweet, so considerate, and so human! How more responsible can a security organization be?

According to the DSS, the miscreants who name themselves human rights activists have perfected a sinister plan, nay plot, to destabilize our dear country with the weapons – their mouths! They want to lie to Nigerians that their lot has been bad under the Muhammadu Buhari administration, a plot designed to push the people to anger and street protests, the very reason for the arrest and continued detention of that disrespectful boy, Omoyele Sowore and his starry-eyed youthful accomplice, Olawale Bakare.

Since the arrest of Sowore and that inconsequential boy Bakare, as well as the consequent show of power by our government subjecting judicial order to executive review, the so-called human rights activists were cowering under their beds.

Until now!

The lethal Boko Haram, which has killed fellow citizens in hundreds of thousands and abducted several hundreds has been technically defeated, but we are prepared to negotiate with them anytime they unleash terror. Equally, herdsmen mass killers have been brought under control, and we will continue to exercise patience and understanding in dealing with them.

But the purveyors of lethal words – either spoke or written – are an extremely dangerous people. They carry the most lethal weapons – words – which have always set our government on edge.

Did you not observe how we responded to the verbal sabre-rattling of Nnamdi Kanu and his agitators in the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)? What weapons did the IPOB agitators carry that got our government angry and resulted in the unleashing of pythons to dance in the southeast? Words.

We hate words. We dread words. We are agitated by words.

Just as the world was digesting the disturbing DSS disclosure, the grandmaster of big, big grammar who calls himself a Professor, Wole Soyinka, threw an intercontinental ballistic grammatical missile. In a press statement he issued on Wednesday, Soyinka described our government as the worst ever in the area of disobedience to court orders, just because we have continued to detain Sowore after meeting steep bail conditions.

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Is self-preservation no longer the first law of nature? Which weapon did Sowore carry that led to the collapse of the Goodluck Jonathan government? Words, written and spoken!

If we consent to releasing the disrespectful boy, has he not been further lionized already by the detention and trial?

Do you expect us to toe the path that led the Jonathan administration to ruins, by not responding decisively to lethal words?

Another purveyor of lethal words that we may have to deal with decisively is the Amnesty International. In a November 20 statement, the busy body global body named Sowore and Bakare prisoners of conscience.

It stated in part: “The Nigerian authorities at both federal and state levels have repeatedly targeted human rights defenders, activists and journalists including by stifling dissenting voices and passing repressive legislation to restrict the civil space”!

It also cited the arrest and ongoing trial of a journalist, Agba Jalingo, for criticizing the equally hardworking government of Ben Ayade in Cross River State.

Describing the development as “a matter of shame to Nigeria,” Amnesty International stated further: “Their cases show just how far the authorities in Nigeria can go to silence their critics.”

In the same manner, Soyinka likened our administration to thuggery. He asked: “So, finally what do thuggery and court disobedience have in common? Everything!”

Haba!

“It is extremely difficult to imagine a further lowering of the bar of disdain for law than we have witnessed under the present regime,” he added.

Is there any further doubt that the misguided activists, nay plotters, are bent on making our government squirm during this Yuletide?

Why would any reasonable person engage in street protest against our government after all the incredibly good things that we have done for them?

Is it the electoral promises that we have fulfilled to the letter, or the fuel prices that we have brought to an all-time lowest level? Or the jobs that we have created, yanfu yanfu, leading the country steadily to opulence?

Or the prudence of the President, a man of unparalleled integrity, who loves the nation more than life itself?

If these anti-democracy elements cannot praise us, they should at least not add to our problems. Not now, not ever.