By Osita Ebiem
Some Nigeria’s analysts see Muhammadu
Buhari’s emergence as the “accepted” “saintly tough-guy” Nigerian corruption
killer in a different light from the general make-believe one. These analysts
attribute Buhari’s final success after many failed attempts to become Nigeria’s
democratically-elected president to some external influences. They claim that
some powerful international figures have often meddled in Nigeria’s internal
affairs to affect the outcome of events in the country. And Buhari’s recent
victory at the polls was not an exception.
One remarkable example that these
critics cite is the especially patronizing speech by the American President
Barack Obama just before the 2015 Nigerian presidential election which brought
Buhari to power. In his speech Obama urged Nigerians to maintain a united
country no matter the outcome of the election. Many saw the speech in which the
president used an old Biafran-Nigerian wartime “genocidal slogan:” “To keep
Nigeria one is a task that must be done” as an outward expression of
clandestine political machinations which in the end installed a preferred
candidate in Nigeria’s supreme leadership saddle.
In the opinion of many observers, Buhari
is an Islamic extremist who believes that he; "will continue to show
openly and inside me [him] the total commitment to the sharia movement that is
sweeping all over Nigeria," and "God willing, we will not stop the
agitation for the total implementation of the sharia in the country."
Those are Buhari’s own words. For having the foisted posture of the “saintly
tough-ruler” as well as an Islamic fundamentalist, Buhari fitted well the ideal
consensus candidate of Nigeria’s Islamic north. He was chosen because he was
believed to be a capable and willing candidate who would boldly implement the
so-called north’s long term ambitious Islamic agenda for Nigeria – extending
the global Islamic caliphate project to cover the entire country, including
Christians’ and other religions’ areas. Nigeria for many reasons has long been
considered important in this local and global Islamic caliphate agenda. It is
said that the ultimate goal of this agenda for countries in Africa’s south of
the Sahara is to eventually overrun and conquer them for Islam like those in
the northern half of the continent. The advocates and financial sponsors of
this agenda see the conquer and subjugation of the entire Nigerian geography as
being strategic because by virtue of its position and clout the country will
serve as a launch pad whose reaches cover the entire target-region.
The Nigerian jihad as part of the
greater global Islamic agenda
In Nigeria today there are two manifest
champions of this “global caliphate” agenda. They are members of the deadly
Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram who have very strong connections with the
most powerful people in Nigerian political, military and business
establishments. The second group is also an equally well-connected Islamic
terrorist group modeled after the fearsome Sudanese Janjaweed. Its members are
mostly Fulani, members of the ethnic group (the group sometimes referred to as
Nigeria’s “born-to-rule” over others) from which the current Nigerian president
comes. They are generally known as the Fulani Cattle Herders (FCH.) Like Boko
Haram, Fulani Cattle Herders are also generously financed by the northern elite
and ruling oligarch class.
In the last few decades Saudi Arabia
and some other Islamic countries like Iran, Turkey and Nigeria have dreamed of
and fanatically pursued the archaic fantasy of an eventual Islam-subjugated
world. These countries have expended in the process, a chunk of their
petrodollar and other national incomes in pursuing the agenda. Some observers
think that they have been successful in more ways than most people will care to
admit. It is believed that among other achievements, that perhaps their
greatest is being able to successfully infiltrate the Western news media
establishment. Through this subversive penetration of the mainstream news and
information dissemination process of Western societies, the jihadists have over
the years, exerted pervasive subtle but unmistakable influence on the editorial
opinions of media outlets in the West. Some analysts think that the prevalent
editorial stance of most mainstream Western media where each tries to outdo the
other on who would best be described as the most “politically correct,”
“tolerant” and “civilized liberal,” can hardly be explained otherwise.
The infiltration seems to be so
thorough and complete that today no matter how realistic and objective a critic
is, there will always be a way to accuse him or her of being “politically
incorrect,” suffering from “islamophobia” and expressing a “dangerous far right
extremist views.” Today anyone can easily bet their most valued possessions to
predict that the editorial opinions of Western media will always sing in unison
the well-rehearsed chorus that “not all Muslims are terrorists” therefore the
critic who deviates from the accepted “liberal” and fear-induced “civilized
tolerance” is condemned and labeled; “unsophisticated,” “bigoted,” “crude” and
“uninformed racist.” The new Western standard is simple; even after the
attacker had called the authorities on the phone to announce their reason for
the attack, Western authorities in the name of “not being at war with Islam,”
should spend an endless period of time investigating to ascertain the motive
behind the attack.
The ultimate goals of all terroristic
or Islamic jihad campaigns are to receive attention, elicit fear and intimidate
or cow the target-victims (the infidels.) Those goals have substantially been
achieved in many places around the world, Nigeria inclusive. The ongoing global
jihad has not only successfully used fear and intimidation to cow much of the
international community, it has also compelled everybody to “tolerate and
endure happily” the prevailing globe-wide displays of barbaric Islamic violent
extremism. So, the fear campaigns have successfully cleared the way for the
emergence into powerful offices, such extremist bigots like Buhari in
dysfunctional societies like the Nigerian country. As a result, people in the
mold of Nigeria’s present leader, rather than being censored are patronized by
such world leaders like United Nations’ Ban Ki-moon with such unrealistic words
like: “You are highly respected by world leaders, including myself. Your
persona has given your country a positive image.” Yet the so-called Nigeria’s
“positive image” is nothing more than the continued descent to the lowest
levels of religious intolerance and flagrant abuses of the human rights of
peaceful citizens. The brutal killings of hundreds of non-violent Biafran
separatist protesters by government security forces are too recent to be swept
under the carpet by the patrons of these extremist elements.
While campaigning for and on assumption
of office, Buhari did not need to present any complex political agenda. Having
proved himself as an Islamic fundamentalist, he could cash in on the well-established
global jihad’s political capital of the “global caliphate.” Nevertheless,
Buhari who became the posterchild of Nigeria’s “saint-and-tough-guy” messiah,
winning became a do-or-die obsession. At 70 plus years, he became desperate as
he felt that time was running out on him. In his own words; “baboons and dogs
would be soaked in blood” should he fail again to win the election to become
Nigeria’s next president in 2015.
Buhari and his handlers managed to
convince the uninformed public that he was the “poor” candidate who never stole
money since his more than forty years in public office (but there are abundant
public records to the contrary) who is suited to kill the monster of Nigerian
corruption. Yet this wretched candidate was able to easily afford the $10
million consultancy fee of the American political strategist David Axelrod of
the Obama phenomenon. So, an indigent Buhari who would kill the Nigerian
corruption saw nothing wrong in paying a “modest” $10 million to a foreign
political consulting firm for a local election in a country where the people
live on less than $2 a day.
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