Piece of Peace: Against Provocative Campaigns, Threats and Violence (2)
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” ― Jimi Hendrix
Few days after my widely circulated article titled “Piece of Peace: 2015 Elections”, was published in the PointBlank News on 27/12/2014, I received the news that the two leading presidential candidates in Nigeria – incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Gen. Mohammadu Buhari of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) have signed a peace accord ahead of the general elections in February, 2015. The images of these two gentlemen hugging each other and smiling at the venue of the peace deal greeted the cyberspace with warm reception. Many of us that saw those pictures circulating on the internet immediately welcomed this development because it symbolized peace, understanding, tolerance and hope. Yours sincerely was particularly very ecstatic feeling somebody was listening to my #PieceOfPeace. I really felt we were making progress towards having a relatively peaceful general election in Nigeria, until recently when my escalated hope was put on a very serious doubt just few days later.
It all started with a sitting governor of a supposedly highly enlightened Nigerian state putting up an advertorial in the front pages of supposedly highly respected Nigerian dailies wishing the candidate of the opposition party death. In more clear terms, a sitting governor that suppose to be at the forefront of peace advocacy placed a death-wish advert in the national dailies for the opposition candidate. It sounds unbelievable, but that was what happened in the binoculars of all living Nigerians including our security agencies. Yes, some things can only happen in Nigeria, but this one was far at the extreme! I understand the sponsor of this provocative advert has a history of behaving in a very comical way, but even a clown should not crack this inciting joke in any circus. I also heard that his party came out to dissociate themselves from the publication. Well, that is good but it's not enough. What I expect from the party was to condemn the said publication, ask him to retract it by issuing an apology letter not only to the candidate but also to the millions of Nigerians that he incited. This apology letter should be publish in the front pages of the same newspapers he used. Having failed in controlling such a loose child, the party should know that they have set a rhythm for a very dangerous dance. As it is the mango fruit that causes the mango tree to be stoned. Therefore, if anybody is asking for the first party to contravene the Abuja peace accord, do not look beyond this provocative advertorial.
While the nation was yet to fully recover from this shock, she received another blow in faraway Katsina – a state that has branded itself to be the nation's home of hospitality and not hostility. This time it was the convoy of Mr. President that was stoned by miscreants during a campaign rally. It was an act that needs to be condemned by all right thinking human beings. As expected, both parties came out and dissociated themselves, then went ahead to condemn the disrespectful act. To me those were not enough. It is important to note that, even though the state is the home state of the leading opposition candidate Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the paradox is that, the state is governed and controlled by the leading PDP. Again, many of us cannot forget in a hurry how the governor of that same state was recently caught in a video camera inciting his supporters to kill the opposition – just like during the Rwandan genocide, he was making reference to killing cockroaches. But to my greatest surprise the director of media and publicity of the PDP presidential campaign organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, was quick to blame the opposition for the attack, while in an effort to exonerate their party from this blame. The oppositions also blamed the PDP for stage planning the attack themselves. All this to me was a show of shame.
As if we have not seen the end of it, another attack was unleashed on the campaign train of Mr. Present again but this time around it was in Bauchi state – another state governed and controlled by the ruling PDP. In what came as a surprise to everyone, the governor of the state Alhaji Isa Yuguda was quick to exonerate the opposition from blames. He asserted in an interview that it was some disgruntled elements from within his party that intentionally planned the attack to discredit him. At this juncture, I am tempted to ask this question: why is all the incitements and violence coming from the PDP-controlled states?
Nigeria is like a very old water tank; just when you try to fix water leakage from one position another position just bursts. Oh yes, you only need to know about the threats coming from those glorified Niger-Delta ex-militants to agree with this old water tank analogy. In faraway Bayelsa state, a group of ex-militants that benefited from the peaceful amnesty program of the late former president Umaru Musa Yar'adua are now trying to distort the peace of the nation. According to newspaper reports, they regrouped in the state government house at Yenagoa to discuss about the 2015 general elections and at the end of the meeting they issued a threat of violence to the nation. The warlords threatened that, in the event that Mr. President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan loses the election in February, there will be war! In a sane nation, these nuisances should by now be cooling off in a Kiri-Kiri maximum prison for treasonable felony. But before I forget, Bayelsa state is the hometown of Mr. President and is also governed and controlled by the PDP.
I call on all Nigerians not to be intimidated by this empty threat or any similar one that may come in the future. No one should be allowed to be cowed into voting against his or her wish. The future of our country lies finally in our votes. We finally have another opportunity to make it right as a nation. While I shall continue to call on all of us to avoid any act of violence, I shall also continue to call on all of us to vote wisely because our vote is our right. This is just a #PieceOfPeace.
Shafi'i Hamidu wrote-in from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
Twitter: @shafzon
FaceBook: Shafi'i Hamidu
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