Threat to Our Republic, By Jide Oluwajuyitan
POLITICS DIGEST – Nigeria is a republic. And sovereignty in a republic belongs to the people. The ruled within the republic expect their elected or appointed representatives to be guided by the rule of law.
Unfortunately 57 years after Nigeria became one of the world 159 sovereign nations that go with the “republic’ prefix, President Buhari and some his political appointees have become the greatest threat to the survival of our republic.
President Buhari who seems to be driven by messianic complex is hardly moved to action by public opinion. His administrative style, best described as “delegation by abdication” which allows his political appointees to operate in their own world does not help matter.
We have therefore in a federal republic seen a minister of defence coming out to attribute the mindless killings of subsistence farmers on their lands by intra-national and international cross border herdsmen to the blocking of grazing route by federating states.
We have seen an attempt to smuggle an indicted fugitive offender back into the bureaucracy. We have seen an abuse of the Department of State Service (DSS), a security arm of the state by the president’s political appointees that hijacked and used it to invade the National Assembly chambers, desecrate hallow chambers of justice and undermine rule of law, the pillar of a republic.
Tragically, everything is done in the name of President Buhari who sometimes forgets the buck stops at his table.
And because of the president blind’s faith in the goodness of his political appointees, they on their part don’t think they are answerable to Nigerians whose taxes sustain them.
Those who have kept Dasuki in detention for over three years despite judicial pronouncement did not even bother to proffer explanation for their perfidy or betrayal of our republic.
For keeping Sowore, a social media tiger who lost woefully in the last presidential election in detention after securing a court bail, he became a rallying point for President Buhari’s domestic and international detractors. He was turned to an instant hero as a result of ineptitude and disloyalty of some people in government to our republic.
Because of their folly, major Nigerian newspapers took turns to condemn President Buhari’s lawlessness and his administration’s assault on freedom and liberty of Nigerians. They in their different editorials waged a common war against government’s assault on rule of law.
Civil society groups joined forces with the media, organizing protests and staging demonstrations in Abuja and other cities. International media and American State Department also joined the campaign against what was described as President ‘Buhari’s creeping dictatorship’.
Through all this, The Attorney General and the Minister of Justice who has committed treachery against our republic kept on acting as if Nigeria is a private property of some people or a nation not governed by law.
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But last week, following the intervention of people described as the president’s “confidants, including governors and ex-security chiefs,” who reportedly pointed out the “political and international implications” of continued detention despite court’s ruling, Dasuki and Sowore were released by a presidential order. By ordering the immediate release of the duo in line with pre-existing judicial pronouncements, the president clearly understands Malami’s folly and betrayal of our republic may at the end define his presidency.
Malami in a statement admitted directing “the State Security Services to comply with the order granting bail to the defendants and effect their release in line with the provisions of Sections 150(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), and in compliance with the bail granted to Col. Sambo Dasuki (Rtd) (as recently varied by the Court of Appeal) and the bail granted to Omoyele Sowore”.
To confirm he was reluctantly carrying out an order, he added “Whilst the Federal High Court has exercised its discretion in granting bail to the defendants in respect of the charges against them, I am also not unmindful of the right of the complainant/prosecution to appeal or further challenge the grant of bail by the court having regards to extant legal provisions, particularly Section 169 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.” Malami did not tell Nigerians while he did not take that route before the president’s action which was an expression of lack of confidence in his competence.
Close observers of the presidency would have noticed that Shehu Garba, the president’s senior media adviser shares the same mindset with Malami. It was therefore not a surprise that like Malami, he in his own press release wants Dasuki and Sowore to regard their temporary relief a pyrrhic victory reminding them of existing provision that allows federal government to appeal against their release.
On Sunday, Malami who had earlier claimed the decision to release them was necessitated by compliance with the bail granted the duo by the court without telling Nigerians why the court order had been met in default for over three years in the case of Dasuki and four months in the case of Sowore said “the release of the duo was not due to pressure but was done out of compassion.”
Abubakar Mallami was undoubtedly on top of his games. But even Nigerians are suffering from collective amnesia, they live in Nigeria and not on planet Mars.
In all this, I think the greatest loser is President Buhari whose presidency at the end may be defined by the follies of those who many suspected serve as fifth columnist in his administration.
It was only last Monday Kogi State’s Governor Bello reacting to to those who describe President Muhammadu Buhari as a dictator said “Mr. President is the most democratic president I have ever seen.
This is the first time we are seeing a former military head of state that is so democratic to the extent of allowing things happening in his home front to be democratized”.
While this might resonate well with Nigerians who could recollect Buhari’s predisposition to his loss of three presidential elections that went up to the appeal court or the hijacking of his APC victory by Saraki and Ekwerenmadu in 2015 while trying to advertise his democratic credentials by not interfering in the election of principal officers of the National Assembly, it will not resonate with victims of abuse of rule of law and Nigerians who feel diminished by government assault on rule of law under the leadership of minister of justice Malami in the last five years.
With the over-ruling of Malami, by an embarrassed President Buhari whose own democratic credential is in tatters, if it were to be in other climes he would have resigned honourably.
But as with DSS recruitment scandal, the Dubai misadventure and Maina scandal, Abubakar Malami will stay on inflicting more injuries on President Buhari’s administration and more assault on sensibilities of Nigerians.
