Lies about Buhari: The Truth Part 1.

In this 2 part series, I will attempt to show readers with a open mind that many of the Allegations against the Presidential Candidate of the All Peoples Congress (APC). Gen. Buhari are Lies, these allegations have been repeated on social and traditional Media.

Facts will be checked in a Question and Answer Manner.

Q: Did Buhari call for post election violence or ask his supporters to kill?
A: No.

This is Propaganda from the Ruling Party. See Video for details.  

It should also be noted that the BBC carried out Buhari’s condemnation of the violence http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13126839 as well as his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/votebuhari/posts/10150155911827734

What about the Dog and the Baboon Statement?

“za a yi kare jini biri jinni: The Battle will be Fierce. The parable of the Dog and the Baboon”

A fight between a dog and a baboon is highly unlikely, unless inspired by a human being.

In Africa and particularly in Hausaland where this highly unlikely idea was contrived as a proverb, such a fight can only happen under the influence of man when in hunting he sets the dog to catch the baboon or its baby. In that case, that fight would surely be one to witness.

The dog uses its power of speed and strong canine teeth, the baboon his powerful shoulders, limbs, claws, hands, and under extreme conditions, his teeth. And this condition is extreme – a fight for his life or that of his baby. So we better assume that the baboon will deploy his entire arsenal.

As the proverb depicts, the fierce fight ends inconclusively with both parties sustaining deeps cuts and innumerable browses. Each contender was lucky to survive it and returns to its shelter licking its wounds

When you tell your contender that za a yi kare jini biri jinni, it simply means the battle will be fierce. In the case of Buhari, he was promising his supporters from Niger State that 2015 elections will be fierce; or put in another way, the PDP wIll not have it easy. Simple.

How this simple statement translated into a political missile that says Buhari is promising a bloodbath come 2015 remains one of those sad stories in our practice of journalism.

Q:Did Buhari promise to make Nigeria ungovernable?

A: NO!

In 2010, as reported by various sections of the media, Lawal Keita, a PDP chieftain stated that if a person from the North did not win the 2011 elections, Nigeria will be made ungovernable .

Below are links to that effect as reported by the press when that statement was made.

http://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2010/10/08/group-wants-kaita-tried-for-treason/

In April 2011, Reuben Abati slandered Buhari in The Guardian about same statements of making Nigeria ungovernable. Buhari sued Abati to court in 2011 for damaging his name. President Jonathan begged Buhari on behalf of Abati to settle out of court because Abati might end up in jail. On 11 July 2013 Rueben Abati and The Guardian published an unreserved apology to Buhari. HERE

Q: Did Buhari cancel the Lagos Metroline project due to any malicious intent?

A: NO!

In January 1985 when the contract was cancelled, Nigeria was in the middle of a recession, brought on by the necessary belt tightening after the years of reckless excess under the Shagari administration, especially in the election year, 1983.

In October 1984 for example, Nigeria had unilaterally dropped the price of each barrel of exported Bonny Light crude by $2, thus putting her national interests ahead of OPEC’s cartel interests. Such short term economic pragmatism was the necessary order of the day. And even though it flew in the face of their consensus on prices and production, OPEC’s most important member, Saudi Arabia, acquiesced to such an unprecedented behavior by a member of the cartel because it was convinced of the precarious nature of Nigeria’s public finances.

Hence, despite over 10% (N80m) of the overall N700m 16-mile overhead railway project being already spent, the cancellation of the contract went ahead as the governing Supreme Military Council (SMC) accused the French consortium leader, Interfina, of excessive project costs. Interfina could not successfully defend such accusations.

The SMC was also quick to point out that despite Shagari’s accelerated timetable for the move of the Federal Capital to Abuja, new infrastructural spending would now have to proceed at a slower pace.

References:

1. African Business, December 1984

2. Financial Times, 28 January 1985

3. West Africa, 4 February 1985

4. West Africa, 11 February 1985

5. African Contemporary Record, (1984-1985)

Q: Did Buhari say Muslims should only vote for Muslim leaders?

A: NO.

In June 2001, Sheikh Sidi Attahiru Ibrahim launched his book at a Dan Fodio University event. General Muhammadu Buhari was invited to chair the event, where he spoke ex-tempore. Buhari Later contested the Presidential Elections 2 years Later in 2003.

Later that month, Buhari granted an interview to Rev, Fr. Matthew Hassan Kukah (present day Catholic Bishop of Sokoto) confirming what he said at the book launch. Here is the relevant portion of Kukah’s report on what Buhari said during their June 23, 2001 conversation (which was published in the Weekly Trust edition of July 6-12, 2001)

“During the course of my comments, I drew attention to the fact that the introduction of Sharia had become one of the main issues in this new dispensation. I explained that Sharia, however, has been with us well before the British colonized Nigeria. Now, Sharia has been introduced in many Northern states and Sokoto is one of the states that has already adopted Sharia. It must be pointed out however that Sharia is applicable only to Muslims. Those elements that have taken the law into their hands and use the opportunity to molest other non-Muslims are not helping the cause. What is amore, they are like bad policemen or judges who are making the enforcement of justice so difficult in Nigeria. Their shortcoming does not do the police force or the judiciary any good, but these acts do not detract from the imperative of both institutions. Midway through our democracy, we have time now to assess the situation on ground in terms of making our choice in the next elections. Vote for good men whether they are in Borno, Katsina, Sokoto or wherever. Vote for those who will protect your interest. This, Rev. Father, is the summary of every thing I said and the tapes are there.” (1)

At that time, there was actually no Controversy around the statements.

The controversy began when Ahmed Oyerinde, a long time Sokoto correspondent for ThisDay and other Newspapers, (who was not at the venue of the book launch when Buhari spoke) made up the false quote and reported this as fact in ThisDay. In the aftermath of his report, the tape of the event was played and no such statement was found there. Oyerinde later confessed to his Editors that he was not at the event and did not hear Buhari say any such thing. I was told that ThisDay later published a retraction of the report. (2)

For the record, Oyerinde, sadly now late, had been the subject of a disciplinary investigation by Nigerian Press watchdogs for allegations of taking money to write false and mischievous stories. The allegations were confirmed and he was reprimanded. One of these investigations dates back to 1990. (3)

Yet, despite Buhari’s many denials, and the defence of neutral observers like Fr. Kukah & Garba Shehu the peddlers of this lie keep repeating them maliciously.

REFERENCES:

1. Kukah, Matthew Hassan, Weekly Trust Newspaper, Abuja, July 6-12, 2001

2. Private conversation with a Senior ThisDay editor with close knowledge of the 2001 incident on Dec. 30, 2014

3. Shehu, Garba, Premium Times, http://www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/106982-not-accepting-to-negotiate-with-boko-haram-could-hurt-buhari-by-garba-shehu.html

Q: Does Buhari like democracy, and does he deserve to govern in one (since he overthrew the Shagari government in 1983)?

A: Yes

While the December 31, 1983, coup ended the rule of Shagari’s National Party of Nigeria (NPN), the overwhelming view of the Nigerian populace at the time was very welcoming of the military’s intervention.

The Shagari regime had in four years run the economy badly and turned Nigeria into a civilian, dictatorial “one party state”.(1) Hence, it was no surprise that when “news of another coup reached the public, there was jubilation. People drank, danced and sang all over the country that the decadent, corrupt and directionless politicians had been wiped off the face of Nigeria’s political life. People called for ‘military rule for ever’. Others called for war on politicians, the execution of legislators, ministers, governors and top party men. Yet many remarked that ‘unless we do like Rawlings (who killed corrupt Ghanaian rulers in 1979), Shagari and his men will come back'”.(2)

Just before the 1983 elections, fear pervaded the land as senior NPN officials went around “boasting that there were only two parties in Nigeria – NPN and the Army”.(3) And even inside the other “party” (The Military), fear of the NPN wasn’t unfounded. The “police was equipped with Armoured Personnel Carriers, reinforcing suspicions that the NPN was not merely maneuvering to sustain its political ascendancy, but was also preparing to bully its way through the August 1983 elections, while furnishing itself with alternative defence in the event of a direct conflict with the armed forces.”(4)

Having now overseen a wholesale rigging of the elections across the country, with attendant bloodshed and violence by a Police Force doing the bidding of the ruling NPN, some of the Army’s leaders ousted the political class to prevent a bloody cleansing of the stables by junior officers. Such was the rot in the polity.

Buhari himself was later ousted by a palace coup in August 1985. After years of house arrest, and the eventual fall of the Soviet Union in the late eighties, he became a convert to the idea of liberal democracy.

At his Chatam House Speech, Buhari said:

"Permit me to close this discussion on a personal note. I have heard and read references to me as a former dictator in many respected British newspapers including the well regarded Economist. Let me say without sounding defensive that dictatorship goes with military rule, though some might be less dictatorial than others. I take responsibility for whatever happened under my watch.

I cannot change the past. But I can change the present and the future. So before you is a former military ruler and a converted democrat who is ready to operate under democratic norms and is subjecting himself to the rigours of democratic elections for the fourth time."

The following image is a news report from The Times of Saturday, January 7, 1984.

http://factchecki.ng/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/image.png

Lagos honeymoon for soldiers and civilians

REFERENCES:

1. ‘Season of Anomy’, Editorial, The Guardian (Lagos), 24th August 1983

2. Falola T, Ihonvbere J, ‘The Rise and Fall of Nigeria’s Second Republic’ (1985), p 228

3. Falola & Ihonvbere (1985), p. 226

4a. The Guardian (London), 11th January, 1984

b. T.Y. Danjuma, The Guardian (Lagos), 20 July 1986

[Both cited by Othman Shehu, Chapter 8 on ‘Nigeria’, in ‘Contemporary West African States’ (1989) by Cruise O’Brien and Others, pp 134-135]

Sources

http://www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/5195-buhari_vs_pdp_the_dog_and_the_baboon.html

http://factchecki.ng/

Oluwole Isaac.