Thursday, 18 December 2014

Wanted: Maximum Security for General Buhari - by Joe Igbokwe


I am shouting from the rooftop, I am screaming from Mount Everest, I am speaking to anybody who care to listen that maximum security should be provided for General Muhammadu Buhari, the Presidential candidate of APC to avoid the tragedy that struck us in 1998 when Chief MKO Abiola was poisoned and his June 12 1993 mandate crushed after a bitter struggle. This country and leaders of APC must not take things for granted as there are unrepentant and murderous thieves at the door. PDP and its heartless handlers can never go down without a fight...
I want APC leaders to manage the little gains we have to prepare for the worst. Whatever we can do to protect Buhari, let us do it. If it means hiring Security personnel from America, Israel, France, UK and Germany, let us do so. I repeat PDP and its reckless leaders cannot give up without pulling the house down. Once GMB is taken out of the way, the predators and cultural savages will return and this time, they will become more ferocious and dangerous.When General Abacha died suddenly in 1998 my friends celebrated and celebrated and even drank themselves to stupor. I did not join them to celebrate because my mind told me that something sinister may happen to Chief MKO Abiola. I told my friend that the killing of Abacha is to prepare ground for physical elimination of Chief MKO Abiola. I have read many books on the struggle for power in other climes especially in the South Americas in the 70s. I knew then that the killing of Abacha is to gauge the feelings and reactions of the people of Nigeria especially from the South knowing that they will celebrate. Their calculations and permutations then was that they will go for Chief Abiola and consequently settle the matter.

Bearing this in mind I went to a prominent Newspaper in Lagos to alert them. There, one of the Editors threw two sheets of paper to me to state my case. I filled the two pages and left. Now, was it published? No! As I left the Newspaper House, I guess they threw the papers into the waste basket. A month later, Chief MKO was poisoned by those who felt that the only way to solve the June 12 1993 saga is to kill both the offender and the offended. They succeeded and the era of the bonafide winner of June 12 1993 presidential election, adjudged as the freest and fairest election ever conducted in Nigeria, ended abruptly. We were shot in the legs and we cried and cried. The agitation for the June 12 mandate died down when the symbol of that hope was killed.We lost everything. Hundreds died, including Chief Abiola’s wife Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, Alhaja Suliat Adedeji, Admiral Babatunde Elegbede, Ogoni 9, Alfred Rewane, Bagauda Kaltho, Dr Sola Omatshola, Commodore Olu Omotehinwa, Alhaji Shehu Yar’Adua, Toyin Onagoruwa, and many others. We did not only lose these prominent Nigerians including the symbol and hundreds of other unknown Nigerians, we lost in the struggle to reposition Nigeria for the better. Hope 1993 became hopeless and unrealistic with the murder of Chief MKO Abiola.

Today, 16years after 1998 we are still paying the price of killing Abiola and his mandate. All the gains we made politically were totally decimated, desecrated and rendered desolate and the centre could no longer hold as forces of darkness took control once again even till date. From 1993 to 2014 is now 21years. 21 years of Barbers Chair Syndrome, 21 years of beating about the bush, 21 years of political corruption, mediocrity and impunity, 21 years of idiocy, 21years of mass murder, 21years of retarded growth, 21years of waste, 21years of reckless plunder and pillage of our common patrimony and 21years of shame.After 21years the agents of change are gathering again to rework the knocked engines of Nigeria. After so much pains and division the agents of change in Nigeria are at work again to re-fix a battered, plundered, sucked and bled nation. They are gathering again to check where the rains started beating and to take stock.

God in his infinite mercies has given us General Muhammadu Buhari once again to see if we are now wiser. We have been given a second chance to redeem our subdued and humiliated country and if we bungle this, woe betide us. I submit that we must not be foolish again as we were from 1993 to 1998. I believe we have learnt sufficient lessons of history and shed enough tears to know that opportunities do not come all the time. We have to grow up now before history which neither personal wealth nor power can suppress passes terrible judgment on us.Imagine what would have happened if Chief Abiola had been alive. Imagine where this country would have been today if Chief Abiola had been allowed to rule Nigeria. Imagine what would have been that state of our economy if this world class chartered Accountant had been allowed to rule Nigeria. We lost Chief Abiola and lost 21 years to brigands and nitwits.This is decision time. This is our chance. General Muhammadu Buhari must live to deal with Nigeria’s pandemic problems. GMB must live to clear the Augean stable. GMB must live to fight corruption and impunity in Nigeria. He must live to do what he is known to have done before. GMB needs to live to restore hope and confidence in Nigeria. Protect him now!


Joe Igbokwe

Lagos

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