Muhammadu Buhari And The Tragedy Of The Long Grudge

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

On December 31, 1983, Sani Abacha, then an unknown brigadier in the Nigerian Army, went on radio to announce the overthrow of the elected civilian administration of President Shehu Shagari, claiming that the military had done so “in the discharge of our national role as promoters and protectors of our national interest” because of “the great economic predicament and uncertainty, which an inept and corrupt leadership has imposed on our beloved nation”.

*Buhari 

The following day, Nigerians learnt that the new military regime was to be led by Muhammadu Buhari, a wiry major-general with a reputation for asceticism, serving as the general officer commanding (GOC) the Third Division of the Nigerian Army in Jos. Commissioned into the Nigerian Army in January 1963 following training at the Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot, England, Buhari was not just the most senior among the officers involved in the coup, he was also the most experienced. His contemporary and would-be nemesis, Ibrahim Babangida, who emerged as the chief of army staff, was commissioned eight months later, in September 1963.

Everyone’s Obituary Is Inevitable

 Chuks Iloegbunam tells Sam Omatseye to cleanse his journalism 

*Peter Obi

 Some have called you foolish, dear Sam Omatseye. Others insist that you are plain stupid. There are those who hold you to be beneath contempt. Their howls of execration upon you are in reaction to your August 1, 2022 article entitled Obi-tuary. For me, however, you are a dear friend. Our friendship started in the 1980s at Newswatch magazine where both of us practiced journalism before you travelled to the United States for further studies.

 

It continued upon your return and strengthened to the point that, sometimes, you get the producers of your TV Continental programme to connect me to field questions live. Besides, living in different states, we often chat by telephone. I demonstrated our amity again last May when I was in Nigeria’s commercial capital for the Lagos International Book Fair. I phoned you and, within the hour, you were at my stand where we spent quality time reminiscing about the good old days and prognosticating on the future of our dear fatherland.

 

Armed with this handle of friendship, I have just the one advice for you: Be careful. It is in elaboration of this counsel that I write all that you read hereon. Please look back to the time of the Nigeria-Biafra war of 1967 to 1970. You will find that, military or civilian, none of the political actors of that era is still in a position to fight elections today. The final curtain long fell for most of them. Of the lot that remains, some have become vegetables, or are propped up with a suffusion of drugs or would not find their way to the loo unless hired attendants or swearing relatives point it out. Together with the handful that is still blessed with something close to robust health, they have one thing in common. They are seated, restless or restive, in various existential departure halls, clutching fitfully at their boarding passes and waiting for that inevitable voice that cannot be disobeyed, to announce their flights into past tense. 

A Problem Like Fulani Herdsmen

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

The brutal abduction early last week of Chief Olu Falae, a former secretary to the government of the federation (SGF) and former finance minister, by a band of suspected Fulani herdsmen has once again brought to the fore the often tragic excesses of these cattle herders whose distorted and unwholesome understanding of their place as co-inhabitants in their host communities appears to have led them into the erroneous and dangerous belief that they are, perhaps, incapable of being restrained by any law.

On Monday, September 21, 2015, the day Falae turned 77, armed Fulani herdsmen reportedly stormed his farm at Ilado in Akure North council of Ondo State, attacked his workers and violently took him away.  This is how his personal assistant (PA), Capt Moshood Raji (retd), explained what happened while speaking with newsmen in Akure  on Thursday, September 24, the day Falae regained his freedom, as reported by Vanguard newspaper on Friday:

“About a month ago, there was a clash between the herdsmen and Chief when some cows destroyed maize on the farm. I was the one that led the policemen to arrest them. We arrested some and detained them for about four days. Chief Falae said he has no problem with them that they have to sign an undertaking that they will not go there again. They signed an agreement that they will not go there again. The Fulani Secretary signed for them. The secretary then said I should caution Oga (Falae) that he should go and fence his farm. He said if he dared harm any cow or kill any of their cows, there would be trouble. He said that before the officer in charge of SARS. They have [now] carried out the threat. What they destroyed was about N500,000.00 but N120,000 was paid and the chief distributed the money to all his workers when it was brought to him.”

After his abductors set him free, Falae reportedly told Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State who visited him that during his four days in captivity, he was made to sleep on bare floor and trek several kilometers from his farm in Ilado, where he was kidnapped, to about 10 kilometers near Owo, where he was eventually set free. And when Gen Alani Akinrinade visited him on Monday September 28, he explained further: