Major-General Buhari: You Have Overrun Nigeria!

By Bayo Oluwasanmi

By his unguarded language, Nigeria’s tyrant, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, continues to plunge Nigeria into the depths of barbarism.

Monday, at a meeting with North-East governors on the insecurity in the region, Buhari boasts that he could have overrun his opponents if he wanted to. “… with the use of the army, the police and the rest of them, we could have overrun you. We just wanted to show that we are humane and we are Nigerians…”

Buhari’s statement was a metaphor that he would overrun Nigeria any time his Hitleric instincts dictate. Of course, he has overrun Nigeria! By dismantling our democracy, it goes without saying that Buhari is a brutal tyrant and extreme narcissist. He is not a charismatic person. An empty vessel with no inborn talent to propel him to the top, few names in our history inspire such immediate and emphatic revulsion as that of Buhari. However, he has succeeded in overrunning Nigeria.

 

How?

Buhari curtailed the civil rights of Nigerians. Our freedom of expression is no longer a matter of course. He embraced a language of violence, promotes a more punitive culture, takes over the courts, eliminates checks and balances, undo legislation that limits executive power, weakens protections for free and fair elections. He exerts control over the media. He exploits religion by appealing and appeasing Muslims and targeting Christians. He conflates national identity with religious identity.

Using divide and conquer, Buhari instigates Muslim fundamentalists to use hate speech and encourages violent actors to widen social rifts and use manufactured crises to seize more power. He erodes truth by attacking critics, activists, and the press. He dismisses negative reports as a rant of “wailing wailers.” He counters legitimate information with disinformation or “alternative facts.” He uses paid and unpaid propagandists and social media influencers of all stripes to spread misinformation both knowingly and unknowingly on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and other platforms.

Nigerians are being ill-treated, tortured, and killed. Buhari directs his destructive energy on activists and critics. Time and time again, he uses legal means to give his actions a semblance of legality. Step by step, Buhari managed to erode our democracy until it became a hollow facade. He creates a devastating and impoverished Nigeria. Buhari’s dictatorship is complete. Ours is nothing that resembles democracy. It is a dictatorship of the most primitive type.