By Charles Okoh
President Muhammadu Buhari is a despotic leader. He is anything but a democrat. Those who packaged and presented him in traditional attires preparatory to the 2015 general elections knew that altering the package of a product does not have any effect on the product itself. In their desperation to return power to the north, the northern hegemony sold Asiwaju Bola Tinubu a dummy and he bought into it hook, line and sinker.
*Buhari
In
six years, it has become clear to all that you don’t at old age teach a
right-handed person how to begin to use the left hand. The only difference
between a military rule and our current quasi-democratic arrangement is that
agbada, babariga and ishiagu have taken the place of military uniforms.
President Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) rode on the power of the social and traditional media to get to office. They encouraged civil unrest, protest, organised mass mobilisation through the media to get to office. Now in power, they have suddenly realised that the same media they once put to maximum use to serve their purpose as an opposition party, can no longer be tolerated and must be stopped at all cost.
Last week, the Federal Government not only placed a ban on Twitter, the micro-blogging social media platform, they also threatened to jail whoever is caught using Twitter. There is nothing about these actions to suggest that we have a democracy in Nigeria. If you believe the reason given by the government for the action to be the reason for banning Twitter, then you can believe anything.The
government said its decision, announced on Twitter on June 4, was due to the
“persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining
Nigeria’s corporate existence.”
This
is coming few days after Twitter deleted tweets by President Muhammadu Buhari
for violating the platform’s policies. The deleted tweets referenced the
1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War and discussed treating “those misbehaving today in
the language they will understand.”
The
Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, on
Saturday, a day after, said it would arrest and prosecute anyone who tried to
get around the block, and directed government agencies to cooperate with
prosecutors “to ensure the speedy prosecution of offenders without any further
delay.”
Every
public office holder under this administration issues instructions and orders
with military dispatch. No place for wide consultation; debates are not
tolerated and public opinion counts for nothing. Are you still insisting that
we are in a democracy?
President
Buhari’s tweet was only removed and his account was not suspended. Imagine what
would have happened had Twitter suspended his account outright as they did to
Donald Trump, Buhari’s new found ally.
The
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, also directed the National
Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to commence the process of licensing all OTT and
social media operations in the country. NBC as part of implementing the
directive has also asked all broadcast stations to suspend usage of their
Twitter accounts with immediate effect.
Last
Wednesday, Lai Mohammed also said Twitter had reached out to the Federal
Government seeking “high-level discussion to resolve the issue.” Ego trip, if
you ask me.
He
said this after the meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), at the
presidential villa, Abuja, just as he insisted that the micro-blogging platform
was suspended because it provided an avenue for people that are threatening the
corporate existence of Nigeria.
According
to him, the owner of Twitter helped to fund the recent #EndSARS protest while
allowing the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, to
use the platform to call for the killing of policemen.
It’s
open secret that the Federal Government has been seeking ways of muzzling the
press, even before the #EndSARS protest, the outcome of the protest only
further accentuated the need to suppress the increasing opposition against the
floundering government that continues to take one wrong decision after the
other.
The
bringing down of Buhari’s tweet by Twitter was just a ploy to carry out the
long orchestrated plot to check the mounting negative narratives about the
government. Now, moment after Nnamdi Kanu shutdown the entire South East, a
bruised government is again seeking a way to whittle down the effect of the
social media.
Why
will a government that thinks it is doing well be afraid of its own people?
What were the real issues that gave rise to #EndSARS protests? What real effort
did the government take to check the activities of the police while our youths
were lamenting their ordeals in the hands of the police? Why would a government
voted mostly by youths order the shooting of defenceless people just because
they were expressing their fundamental human rights by protesting the inhuman
treatments they get for just being youths? The Federal Government also hunted
some youths accusing them of sponsoring the protests, yet we still do not know
who the real sponsors of insurgency, banditry and killer Fulani herders are.
How did the government unravel this and yet it is not able to hunt those
benefitting from the diverse conflagrations threatening the very existence of
the nation?
The
only wide spread dividend of democracy under this regime is the even
distribution of devastations, killings and abductions across all geopolitical
zones and regions across the nation.
The
APC government of President Buhari has promoted and taken more divisive and
discriminatory policies that have consistently put the nation on the edge. The
fear of Kanu has pushed the government into taking rash decisions that are
completely avoidable. A government that consistently skews its appointments to
favour one region and religion in a complicated nation like ours cannot be
looking elsewhere for the causative factors leading to agitations and unrest
but within its ranks.
While
the rest of the democratic world is aghast by the censorship, a Donald Trump
from nowhere is urging the government not to stop at Twitter alone but extend
the ban to Facebook and the rest.
Meanwhile,
the same Trump’s Twitter account was suspended and he did not lift a finger.
Trump issued a statement congratulating Nigeria for blocking Twitter on Friday
while incorrectly claiming Buhari was “banned” by Twitter. He also said “more
countries should ban Twitter and Facebook,” while also predicting competitors
to the two companies will “emerge and take hold.” Meanwhile, he practically ran
his four-year tumultuous regime on social media, specifically Twitter.
Suddenly,
Trump is looking up to the same shithole African countries to help him achieve
what he could not achieve while in the White House. His claims that the reason
he didn’t ban the social media platforms during his presidency was because of
the outreach from Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was a blatant lie. He could
not have done that because the existing structures in the U.S. could not have
allowed him have his way; the very same institutions that prevented him from
truncating the democratic process that led to his ouster.
Do
the social media require some regulations? I think so. It can be done. All it
requires is for the government to openly discuss this and all parties would
know their bounds and stick by them, because given the power they possess an
unregulated medium can spell doom for any nation.
It’s
also a powerful tool that has destabilised oppressive governments and saved
lives. Bringing down the tweet of President Buhari cannot be taken to mean an
affront on Nigeria. To say Buhari’s interest must constitute national interest
at all times, I do not agree. Buhari as president has been insensitive to the
diversities and sensitivities of Nigerians.
In
a democracy the president’s powers cannot be absolute. If the presidency felt
aggrieved there are channels open to it to complain to Twitter to explain its
disappointments or quit it and opt for Koo as it has done but the government
must allow us have a freedom of choice. That is the very essence of democracy.
We are either practising democracy or we are not. The rule of law must be
supreme at all times.
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