By Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu
What does President Barack Obama do when a hate-drunk man enters a
school building and shoots American kids dead?
The
busiest and most burdened leader in the world suspends his routine and moves
quickly to own the carnage as the ultimate guardian of the United States .
He goes on air soon after the news breaks. He comforts the bereaved families
and calms a shaken nation. He swears that America would visit the runaway
killer with a condign punishment. He changes his itinerary and visits the
devastated neighborhood as soon as possible.
*Buhari |
What did
our own Obama do after Fulani herdsmen destroyed farmlands, butchered forty
eight human beings, and burnt down a church in Nimbo, Uzo-Uwani, in a
three-in-one violation of the people’s livelihoods, lives and religion?
President
Muhammadu Buhari, the sentinel of our homeland, did something that illustrates
the age-old inhumanity and irresponsibility of Nigerian rulership: He observed
the umpteenth terrorist attack on a peaceable Nigerian community and did
nothing!
He waited
for the governor of the depopulated state of Enugu to contact Aso Rock and request for an
audience.
When
Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi reported for the appointment, the Nigerian media styled his
visit as an occasion for the governor to "brief" the president.
The spin
emanated from reflex factory of the Nigerian press. It was their salute to
tradition.
A
tradition in which order works in reverse. A setting where, in the aftermath of
a humanitarian disaster, a healthy commander-in-chief rests easy in his office
and waits for the governor to fly to Abuja
to confirm the fairy tale.
The
‘briefing’ is a reverse condolence visit; the quest of a traumatized citizenry
for the sympathy of the aloof leadership of their own country. It is an
aberration. But it had to happen because Nigerian rulers are strangers to
empathy. They are incapable of breaking out of the bubble they live in to
acquaint themselves with the distress of the street.
Buhari
received Ugwanyi with imperial condescension. The President hoped to earn
praise for deigning to see the governor. Of course, a photo-op with his lowly
caller would telegraph that he was magnanimous enough to pay precious
presidential attention to the incident.
But Buhari
failed to exude passable seriousness. The honesty inherent in his
constitution foiled the attempt of his politician persona to enact a convincing
make-believe reality. The pictures of his encounter with Ugwuanyi showed Buhari
jesting with his awkward-smiling visitor. They looked as jubilant as
if they had met... to celebrate the success of the massacre!
The
pictures of an exultant Buhari and Ugwuanyi, people who were supposedly meeting
for a ‘briefing’ on the bloody mayhem, were most incongruous. The pictures
strongly suggest that State House photographers did not find Buhari possessed
of the sobriety appropriate for the situation. So the media team was
constrained to select from all the shots taken the ones in which the two men
appeared to be least euphoric!
As a token
meant to represent a presidential reaction to the nth mass murder executed by a
roaming franchise of equal opportunity killers, the pictures were as
provocative as the massacre itself.
For a
president who, on day one made clear that in relating with the Nigerian people,
he would be frugal with spoken words and extravagant with body language, the
pictures speak volumes. They portray ghoulish humor, uncouth unconcern, and
levity in the hour of national bleeding.
The images
sick up the spectacle of his predecessor, Goodluck ‘I-Don’t-Give-A-Damn’
Jonathan, dancing
'azonto' at a political rally in Kano, less than 24 hours after a
terrorist bombing killed scores of Nigerians and injured many others in Abuja.
Buhari, an
otherwise business-minded man, looked so exhilarated in the pictures that it's
fair to guess that he may have proved a better dancer than Jonathan if a DJ was
in that room playing ‘Godwin’!
For his
part, Ugwuanyi looked like a fool laughing in spite of himself. As the face of Enugu people, the
governor misrepresented the prevailing sepulchral mood of the home front. He
sold the impression that Nimbo was a joke!
His coarse
laughter was clearly a tribute of flattery… as his togging out in Babariga, the
trademark dress of his host, for the ‘briefing’.
His
response to Nimbo has been dictated by fastidious care for political
correctness.
Before he
rushed to Abuja , Ugwuanyi
had dashed to the scene. His arrival coincided with the recovery of
the mauled body of Ugwu Ogbu, an NYSC teacher serving in the village. The
governor bore witness that the predation bordered on cannibalism. He shed
tears.
But when
it came time to speak, Ugwuanyi walked on eggshells. He kept his remarks
anodyne. He neither condemned the attack in strong terms nor denounced the
perpetrators. He played a milquetoast to escape the political consequences of
being profiled and blacklisted as an adversary of the President’s tribesmen.
To
compensate for his moral cowardice, Ugwuanyi victimized the victims: He
directed them and the broader Enugu
populace... to fast and pray for two days for God to rid us of the evil
phenomenon!
In Aso
Rock, his eyes were clean of tears. He was all smiles.
For
Buhari, the pictures effectively branded him 'comedian-in-chief'. They support
the baked-in notion that he is unconcerned because he is a Fulani native and
cattle farmer. He shares ethnic and vocational affinity with the bloodthirsty
pastoralists. His sympathy lies with the vampires, not the victims.
And truly,
Buhari has comported himself as if the rampant, routine, and ritualistic
slaughters mean nothing. He has largely treated this recurring carnage as
a non-issue. He has not expended a gesture of outrage on the conquistadors like
he did for Sambo Dasuki, Nnamdi Kanu, the
budget riggers, and pipeline
vandals.
He has
been unable to muster anger as
he did in response to the sporadic assassinations that seized Nyesom Wike and
Rotimi Amechi’s Rivers state in the buildup to the last elections.
Any triage
of Nigeria ’s
current condition will easily confirm that the spread of the brutality of the
herdsmen all over the map is the most serious threat to security of lives and
property of Nigerians. But Buhari has declined to address it boldly.
The same
Buhari, who as candidate, just a year ago, toured all parts of Nigeria ,
soliciting for votes, has refused to visit one of the many scenes of carnage.
He has only made himself available to be ‘briefed’… in his place of comfort!
Incidentally,
Nigeria ’s
seat of power is called Aso Rock. That accursed name validates the Nigerian
presidency as an immobile, impervious, and insensitive edifice. And ‘Aso Rock’
seems to make human rocks out of its tenants, leaving them hard,
impenetrable, unfeeling.
The
killings have not moved Buhari, in body or spirit.
The
killings of Udeni Ruwa, Nasarawa State on Januray 4, 2016
(between 12 and 38 people died). The killings of Demsare, Wunamokoh, Dikajam
and Taboungo, all in Adamawa state on January 23, (between 30 and 60
people died). The killings of Agatu, Benue
State on January
10 (45 people died).
The repeat
killings of Agatu on February 2 (7 people died). The killings of Tom
Anyiin, Benue State on February 7 (10 people
died). The killings of Abbi, Enugu
State on February
11 (19 people disappeared). The third slaughter of Agatu on February
24 (between 300 and 500 people died). The fourth slaughter of Agatu
on February 28 (9 people died).
The
killings of Logo on March 7 (8 people died). The killings of
Mbaya-Tombo on March 8 (12 people died). The repeat slaughter of
Mbaya-Tombo on March 13 (2 people died). The third slaughter of
Mabaya-Tombo on March 17 (15 people died). The killing of Ohali-Elu, Rivers State
on March 29 (between 7 and 16 people died).
The
killings of Angai, Dashole, Dori and Mesuma, Taraba State ,
on April 10 (between 15 and 44 people died). The killings of Moor, Benue State
on April 18 (18 people died).
Here’s a
scandalous irony, though: Between the start of this orgy of bloodletting and
now, Buhari has visited eleven countries. Benin
Republic , UAE, Kenya , and Ethiopia
(January 2016); Britain , Egypt , Saudi
Arabia and Qatar
(February 2016), Equatorial Guinea ,
United States , and China (March
2016). But the compulsive junketer –with ten usable planes at his disposal and
penchant for week-long state visits–has yet to visit ONE of the assaulted
villages in his country to see things for himself!
Even as
the terrorism tourism continues, with more being slaughtered in more places,
and sorrow mixing with panic and race-baiting, Buhari has not so much as
publicly acknowledged that Nigeria
is facing an existential threat. He has yet to deem the national
emergency worthy of his utterance. He is content to have Lai Mohammed say that
the government was working ''silently'' to end the insurgence!
Buhari
cannot afford to recuse himself from combating the killer cowboys. His
nativity, soldierly experience, and reputation as the conqueror of the
Maitasine violent sect, make him most qualified to stop this egregious
subordination of human lives under the hooves of cows.
After he
announced that he has achieved the technical
defeat of Boko Haram, President Buhari should not relax and watch
its itinerant twin waste human beings like a legitimate blood sport.
It's not a
laughing matter that Nigeria
has devolved into a vast abattoir!
*Emmanuel Ugwu could be reached at immaugwu@gmail.com
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