By Bala Ibrahim
If you ask any member of the PDP today, or apologist of the party, what is it that makes him the happiest in recent times, he would tell you it’s the booing of Buhari. Since the successful execution of the Maiduguri mischief, many members of the opposition have been celebrating, as if INEC has recognized the results of their cyber candidate.
Not even the Bayelsa fluke is making them as happy as the booing of Buhari.
For a party to whom booing is the permanent signature tune of their members and candidates, this is more than a malady.
I am sure PMB is not terribly perturbed by the turn of events, because the Maiduguri misbehaviour is not the first of its kind to him.
Sometimes last year, at the presentation of the 2019 appropriation bill to the National Assembly, under the outgone and disgraced Senate President Bukola Saraki, PMB was given a rough welcome by a section of the Assembly.
Through a conspiracy similar to the Maiduguri shenanigan, the president was shouted down with screams of “nooooo”, “nooooo”, “lieessss”, when he started talking about the successes of his administration, particularly in the fight against insurgency. The shout was loudest when he said, “the economy has recovered from recession”, and that Boko Haram had been degraded in the North-East.
Because it was planned, those given that duty of discourtesy, all of whom are now pathetically in the political labour market, continue to shout, until the president became visibly angry, wherein he abandoned the speech, and addressed them in anger, “Distinguished members, let us conduct ourselves properly.
The world is watching us; we are supposed to be above this”
That was when they realized the difference between the scum that sent them and the lionized personality before them.
The Maiduguri misdemeanour seems similar in the pattern of play, except that the cowards could not get any near the president.
However, from the social media euphoria of their propagandists, one can see how thrilled they were, by the undue pre-eminence of succeeding in the accidental booing of Buhari. The excitement was electrifying.
I didn’t know they equally hold Buhari in such esteem until I saw the media merrymaking and jollification that followed the execution of the machination.
They were treating Buhari booing like the persecution of Mohammad, which necessitated his migration from Mecca to Medina, or the crucifixion of Jesus by the cross.
Much as the booing was an issue because it was an action that came in reversed metaphor, I see a more unsettling issue at hand, which is the worrisome and regularly scary reports from the government, about the incessant intention of the opposition to undermine it.
In yet another statement released yesterday Saturday, by Mallam Garba Shehu, the presidential spokesman, the government said it has uncovered some grand plans by the PDP, to tarnish and rubbish the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
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The statement said, as part of this overall scheme, the PDP, with its belligerent politics, had been marching from one embassy to the other in protest against the Buhari’s administration and the nation’s highest court of justice, the Supreme Court.
Garba Shehu, said “They are keen to give the impression that Nigerians are in support of them as they take to the streets, and they will go to any length to promote this false narrative.
If we go by memory, this is not the first, second or third instance the government is alerting the nation about such nefarious plans from the opposition. But nothing gets done.
Isn’t the president to blame for the regular repeat of these problems? You cannot permit the minority to continue putting you on the defensive when you have the legitimacy, popular support and the entire instrument of power in your hand to checkmate the excesses of saboteurs.
Once a Government allows itself to be intimidated because of the fear of the word tyranny, such Government is setting a decoy to itself, that may ultimately lure it into an inescapable trap.
The Government first warn the nation that it is in the know, of some people planning to make the country ungovernable, through public incitement. It refused to do anything.
The Government also said the opposition was reaching out to foreign countries, with a view to discrediting PMB and the Government. It refused to do anything.
The Government also said the opposition was reaching out to foreign countries, with a view to discrediting PMB and the Government. It refused to do anything.
The same Government accused Atiku Abubakar, the defeated presidential candidate of the PDP, of usurping the powers of the president, by issuing statements on topical issues both within and outside Nigeria, an offense that is on the same page with a felony. It refused to do anything. Why? Why? Why?
To paraphrase the position of a friend, who is also a fanatical supporter of the president, PMB is to blame, for allowing things to get this far. “Buhari should know that he is hated and maltreated by his adversaries’ right from his military sojourn to date.
He knows that they would never stop until they get him down. He should know that by getting him down, they get the country down like he sheepishly allowed them to do when they overthrew him in 1985.
He should know that he owes us an apology, which we accepted for his first mistake, but he has no right to be forgiven if he sheepishly allowed them to do it again.
The people are the major stakeholders in this project and cannot accept avoidable failures on his part, that would spell doom for the country.
He should know that he commands tremendous powers as president and the people’s General. Therefore, refusal to defeat them is unacceptable to the people”.
It is ironic that those with the woes, who are constantly booed, are the ones booing the wooed.
In a democracy, the opposition is healthy, particularly where there is constructive criticism, but it becomes harmful when practised by those deficient in political hygiene.
I pray the president would act, not later than now.
Originally from the Facebook wall of Bala Ibrahim, a Media Advisor.
