Five days ago, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar was nominated as the flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the party’s just concluded Presidential Primary rounded off on Saturday, May 28, 2022 at the Moshood Abiola International Stadium, Abuja. Atiku beat his closest rival, Nyesom Wike, the Governor of Rivers State.
The former Vice President polled 371 votes to beat Wike who scored 237 votes. Other contestants are: former Secretary to the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim14 votes; Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, 20 votes; Akwa Ibom governor, Emmanuel Udom, 38 votes and former Senate President, Bukola Saraki who had 70 votes.
Atiku’s victory, various reports indicated, was made possible by the Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal who stepped down for him. This means that Atiku Abubakar from the North will fly PDP’s flag in the 2023 general elections.
Atiku Abubakar again? Fulani again? A Moslem again? The North again? What an arrant nonsense! How can anyone in his right frame of mind think of replacing Muhammadu Buhari, a Fulani Northerner and a Moslem with another Northerner, a Moslem from the same tribe? Those that elected Atiku as PDP’s Presidential are doomed. Shame on them all!
First, the Fulani man currently at the helm of affairs in this country has ruined this nation to the point of chaos, as nation is moving to a failed state. Under Buhari’s watch, Nigeria became a banana republic where gunmen walk about the forests with guns, abducting, raping, killing and collecting ransom at will.
Presently, some innocent citizens of this country are still held in a forest in Kaduna State after some gun totting terrorists bombed the train they were travelling in, killing and abducting some travelers over two months ago. Till now, these innocent citizens are still in the hands of their abductors, languishing in the forest, goaded by their captors ceaselessly to make appeals to the federal government to meet their (the captors) demands. Till now too, these gunmen are communicating to their colleagues and even the wider public without being tracked and arrested.
In all this, Atiku has not come out strongly to condemn the atrocities of the Fulani herdsmen who are on rampage.
Just last Sunday, the Prelate of the Methodist Church Nigeria, His Eminence, Sunday Uche was abducted at the Leru-Nkwoagu Isuochi junction by some gunmen suspected to be Fulani soldiers in the Nigeria military, it was said. The amount paid to secure a high class religious personnel like Rt Rev Samuel Uche, the Head of the Methodist Church in Nigeria was N100million. This is happening under a government run by a Fulani man. To this, we say the army should refund the N100million.
Now, there are killings ongoing in the Southeast also believed to be executed by the Fulani terrorists. But the government has done nothing concrete to unravel those behind them except to continually blame killings and beheadings on the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and Eastern Security Network (ESN).
Shockingly, the Nigerian security has not arrested, prosecuted or secured conviction of any of those behind all these dastardly acts. What the government continually does is to heap the blame on the IPOB and ESN just to secure international support and close its eyes on the wide spread killings of Igbo youths across the Southeast.
Buhari’s government dissipates much energy fighting and killing members of the IPOB/ESN while Fulani herdsmen to roam the forests and bushes with AK 47 and other dangerous weapons. It was also the same government that opened the country’s borders to Fulanis of Niger, Chad, Northern Cameroun, Burkana Fasso, Mali, Central African Republic and Guinea where they originally migrated to other countries including Nigeria without any tangible reason of doing so.
These herdsmen will arrogantly tell their victims that they need the ransom to enable them buy more arms to overrun the entire South and establish a caliphate. That is a Fulani agenda widely spoken against by highly placed personalities like Gen Theophilus Danjuma and other Nigerian patriots.
Happily, the international community is on the know of who are the real terrorists and those behind these atrocities in the Southeast. whether they are being executed by IPOB/ ESN or government agencies in collaboration with Fulani soldiers in the Nigerian army and security agencies.
Second, the Fulani man at the helm of affairs in this country has run the Nigerian economy to the abyss. Before Buhari’s ascension as President on May 29, 2015, naira was N187 to $1. Today, naira is N601 to a US Dollar. The common man can longer properly feed. If insecurity doesn’t kill him, hunger will remove him from the landscape of Nigeria. The prices of foodstuffs and other essential items have skyrocketed. A bag of cement jumped from N1,500 in 2015 to N4,000 in 2022. A Fulani man is the President!
Third, Nigeria is fantastically corrupt under a Fulani man called Buhari. In its February 2022 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), the Transparency International (TI) named Nigeria as the second most corrupt nation in the world; this is a country run by a Fulani man. Today, men in uniform collect money openly and in some instances give the motorist change, yet a Fulani man called Buhari is fighting corruption.
Fourth, Nigeria of today is highly polarized. At no time had it happened in like manner. Several ethnic champions have sprung up. The mantra of “One Nigeria” is only but a mockery and indeed a farce. A singsong which those parroting it know it is a travesty. Tribes now hate each other and Nigerians believe in their ethnic groups than the nation state called Nigeria. Cross ethnic killings are rampant. Life is now cheap in Nigeria. How would any right thinking person still place the destiny of this same highly traumatized nation to another Fulani man?
To be continued
Uche Nwosu is a two time Shell Petroleum PLC award winner in the year 2000;
He won the Shell Award on Investigative Journalism and Environmental Cleanliness.
