By
Arthur Nwankwo
"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on
retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no
direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained,
as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot learn from history are
doomed to repeat it"— George Santayana
One thing you cannot take away from most Nigerians is their
penchant for collective amnesia. Despite the lessons of our history, we seem to
learn nothing. On several occasions, especially in times like this, most
Nigerians find themselves in a state of apparent exhaustion, as though drained
of all their physical and mental energies; in a kind of torpor from which we
are aroused only by difficulty and hardship. I have come to appreciate the fact
that of all human institutions, none is as pervasive and inescapable as the
state.
As socio-political beings, God has destined man to live
together; to form groups for physical and emotional sustenance. In forming such
groups, the most powerful group, which man has formed is the state. In line
with the principles of “social contract”, it is to the state that we grant,
explicitly and implicitly, willingly and unwillingly, powers that affect every
aspect of our lives. History has shown that when the state exercises its
coercive powers without restraint we have little choice about this grant, and
we may find ourselves with hardly anything beyond the hope for survival. In
such circumstances, we can only take recourse to history to raise society’s consciousness
to prevent the birth of tyranny; to avoid finding ourselves with no choices
except suffering oppression and brutality.
The present government of Muhammadu Buhari is a direct threat to this country.
Make no mistake about this – the lessons
of history weigh heavily in this direction. I have in one of my earlier
articles drawn attention to the activities that heralded the collapse of the
ancient Mali Empire. In about 1203, Sumanguru (the Sorcerer King) took over
what was left of old Ghana Empire. He was cruel and killed all that challenged
his power. He killed many Malinka people but did not kill one of the crippled
princes named Sundiata. In 1235, Sundiata crushed Sumanguru's forces. This
victory was the beginning of the new Mali Empire. Sundiata took control of the
gold-producing regions and became Mali's national hero.
Sundiata’s first major assignment was to eliminate all those who
helped him to power; introduced a regime of monster and brutality comparable
only to the monstrous Maghreb warrior, Samouri
Ibn Lafiya Toure of the infamous ‘earth-scorch” policy – much in the mould of
modern day Boko Haram attacks. A few years in power, the people of the ancient
Mali Empire would actually come to realize that he was more brutal and sadistic
than Samanguru.
History is coterminous with the fact that brutal leaders all over the world
have always emerged under the veneer of changing the status-quo in favour of
the society. This trend sign posted the emergence of Adolph Hitler in Germany,
Benito Mussolini in Italy, Joseph Stalin in former USSR, Nimiery in Sudan,
Jean-Bedel Bokassa in Central African Republic and Mobutu Sese Seko in Congo.
This was also the trend that greeted Buhari’s jackboot dictatorship in 1983.
Despite the euphoria that greeted the emergence of his military junta, his
colleagues booted him out on August 27, 1985.
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| *Buhari |
In his national broadcast on 27th August 1985, Brigadier-General
Joshua Dogonyaro remarked that “Nigerians
were unified in accepting the intervention of December 31st 1983 and looked
forward hopefully to progressive changes for the better”. Then most
crucially, he noted that “almost two
years later, it has become clear that the fulfillment of our expectation is not
forthcoming. Because future generation of Nigerians and indeed Nigeria have no other country but Nigeria, we
could not stay back and watch a small group of individuals misuse power to the
detriment of our national aspirations and interests”.
In his own broadcast on the same day, General Ibrahim Babangida threw more
light on why Buhari had to go. According to Babangida, “when in December 1983, the former military leadership of Major-General
Muhammadu Buhari assumed the reins of government with the most popular
enthusiasm accorded any government in the history of this country, with the
nation then at the mercy of political misdirection and on the brink of economic
collapse, a new sense of hope was created in the minds of every Nigerian. Since
January 1984, however, we have witnessed a systematic denigration of that
hope…Regrettably, it turned up that Major-General Muhammadu Buhari was too
rigid and uncompromising in his attitudes to issues of national significance.
Efforts to make him understand that a diverse polity like Nigeria
requires recognition and appreciation of differences in both cultural and
individual perception only served to aggravate these attitudes. Major-General
Tunde Idiagbon was similarly inclined in that respect”.
