The triad of Muhammadu Buhari, Olusegun Obasanjo and Theophilus Danjuma number among that post-Yakubu Gowon military elite, gathered behind the short-fused but short-lived Murtala Muhammed (1938-1976).
They prided themselves the post-Gowon military’s golden reformers, on account of Gen. Gowon’s failure to deliver civil rule, which they did under Gen. Obasanjo. With that, however, they awarded selves a huge dose of patriotic entitlement, which an uncritical media parrots as sacrosanct.
Still, as a class, but with different degrees of culpability, they delivered more tinsel than gold.
Despite that shortfall, as a collective, they are loudest in trumpeting a monopoly of public sainthood; with the hollowest grating the loudest, of the holy noise.
On this scale, Gen. Obasanjo is clearly first. Under that dynamics, he has grossed a two-term elected presidency, essayed a disastrous third term, and canonized himself Nigeria’s No. 1 public conscience — at least, among the obtuse, the gullible and the naive. That was aside from becoming accidental military head of state, after Murtala’s assassination in 1976.
President Buhari, clearly with the most reasonable claim to decency in the public space, even after tenure as military head of state, is clearly last.
That virtue, of personal probity, propelled him to a democratic era presidential encore in 2015, after the accumulated decadence of his peers almost crashed the republic, under the effete President Goodluck Jonathan.
Gen. Danjuma, taciturn and respectable, is in-between. As chief of Army staff, he was military enforcer of Obasanjo’s tenure as military head of state (1976-1979). Also, as Defence minister, a key player, during Obasanjo’s first term as elected president (1999-2003), though the two would later fall out, in a bitter public spat.
To this triad, you might add a fourth: Gen. Ibrahim Babaginda who, as self-named “military president”, spawned the most decadent government in Nigerian history.
This brief background is imperative, for the triad of Obasanjo, Babangida and Danjuma are involved in some media grandstanding of late, with the usually taciturn Danjuma’s the latest rally.
It is nothing but an elite gang-up, which again the unwary, among the deprived public, is programmed to cheer as some redemptive push.
There is nothing redemptive about it all — just another selfish gaming, to clothe base, selfish interests, in immaculate public-spirited garb.
Why, the empty racket is even aided and abetted by a sensational media, bawling: the generals are speaking! Which generals?
It is the tragic hysteria of a howling media, that boasts no institutional memory; nor is guided by history, the rich fount of that memory.
But more tragic: the most decadent segment of former military plutocrats are on the war path; and, as of right, decree thunderous public applause. What hubris!
They hide behind the present challenges under PMB to goad an unwary public into rebellion. What conceit!
In a high season of high cynics, even IBB saw no irony in his so-called letter to PMB. Well, he first wrote. Then, he didn’t. Finally, he did, but …!
It was the classic IBB hee-haw! But it was enough. There is nothing more telling than opportunistic grief, in a land of piercing pains!
Of course, IBB clambered on the back of Obasanjo’s “press release”, excoriating PMB, strafing both the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the doomed Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which, by the way, he thoroughly ruined during his presidential years. He now pushes yet another racket, in his so-called Coalition for Nigeria (CN).
It is the latest Trojan horse: the Hobson’s choice from Obasanjo’s hypocritical stable of holy mischief, to which the gullible have a democratic right to embrace.
But then, this caveat: the self-consecrated holy pope of Nigerian politics — and governance — has a clear, demonstrable record of nexus between public strain and private g(r)ain. Whoever trades at his stall and goes home with a bargain?
Still, folks are entitled to their democratic follies and foibles!
That brings the discourse to the Danjuma put down — a ringing denunciation of the security forces under PMB, that must be taken seriously.
After accusing the security forces of siding with “Fulani herdsmen” to kill his Taraba locals, he slammed the military as a “Fulani” hegemonic army and called on the Taraba people to “defend” themselves. He spoke at the inaugural convocation of the Taraba State University.
These are grievous allegations, made even more thunderous by Danjuma’s natural taciturnity. Might there be any truth in it all? The Buhari Presidency must get to the root of the matter fast.
Even as a mere allegation, any supposition that the Nigerian military is beholden to any ethnic group is explosive enough; and should worry everyone. Like Caesar’s wife, the security forces must be absolutely without slur.
Still, why is Gen. Danjuma projecting the Taraba conflict as a one-way killing spree? The objective situation on the ground negates that claim.
The whole swath of Taraba, Adamawa, Benue, Plateau and Kaduna are a near-eternal belt of conflicts, with the Fulani taking on the Junkun, the Junkun taking on the Tiv, the Tiv taking on the Fulani, and the Christians and Muslims, of southern Kaduna, sizing up one another for combat.
In this explosive vortex, fired by mutual hate and mass poverty, the politics of religion often ruthlessly imposes the religion of politics; with zero-sum winners and losers pushing aside present fate to plot future wars for dear faith!
Incidentally, Kaduna and Danjuma’s Taraba provide the latest spooky examples. Under Jonathan in December 2012, Patrick Yakowa, Kaduna’s first Christian governor, died in an air crash. The Muslim lobby could not wait to correct that historical blip.
In Taraba, in October 2012, Danbaba Suntai (now dead), the state’s umpteenth Christian governor became gravely ill, from another air crash. But the Christian lobby there dug in, stonewalling any prospect of a first Muslim governor for the state.
In the politics of religion and religion of politics, therefore, there appears no love lost between both divides: in Kaduna (tilting Muslim) and Taraba (tilting Christian).
So, that is why Danjuma’s one-sided killing theory can hardly stand logical scrutiny. And the general himself, with all due respect, cannot claim total neutrality in the matter.
The patriotic love that drove him to cry out for his people also drives the Fulani to look out for their own. But what is bad — and must be condemned — is the wilful spilling of blood on both sides.
It is on this high pro-life principle that both sides must unite and force a stop to the carnage. That cannot, however, be with Danjuma’s Taraba call to “defend yourself”. That borders on the anarchic, a perfect recipe for more bloodshed — of the poor and the vulnerable.
Though PMB’s profile doesn’t quite fit into that devious fellow that would turn the Nigerian security forces into a Fulani ethnic army, the government should look out for such rogue elements in the security forces and root them out fast.