Sowore And The Tangles Of Tyranny

"Our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, Father of All Animals, Terror of Mankind, Protector of the Sheep-fold.."

- George Orwell in "Animal Farm."
At times, when you wish you were disappointed, you are disappointed that you were not disappointed.

I have always known Mohammadu Buhari to be a tyrant. He has always been and would always be. But for whatever reasons, I was still hoping that, by chance, just by chance, he would disappoint me by not reaching into the depth of his dreary, darkened heart to bear the infamous fangs of his torturous tyrannical idiosyncrasies. But alas!

Any human being who puts in place retroactive law to take the life of a fellow human being is a wicked soul. He is a murderer. That is what Mohammadu Buhari is. That is his record. It is incontrovertible. This puts in proper perspective, his jailing of Pa Adekunle Ajasin, despite being found not guilty of any form of corruption, after being tried by Buhari's tribunal three times.

Mohammadu Buhari is responsible for the death of Professor Ambrose Folorunso Ali, a distinguished Morbid Anatomist and former Governor of Bendel State, who was falsely accused of "corruption." I had, by chance, ran into him one evening, at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, where he was being treated for his worsening sight. He was totally blind and extremely ill by the time General Ibrahim Banangida released him. When Professor Ali died, his family inherited two undeveloped plots of land. Yes, he became blind in Buhari's gulag and died soon after he was released

Mohammadu Buhari is responsible for the death of Chief Bisi Onabanjo, former Governor of Ogun State. The only Ayekooto, the Tribune Stable, or even the entire print media in Nigeria's history has ever known. He was jailed for a phantom case of corruption that established nothing against him. He was denied medical treatment and his life was shortened.

Mohammadu Buhari is responsible for the death of Chief Ayo Ojewumi, a principled and above board politician from Oyo State. He became blind in Buhari's gulag. Buhari did not care. He ensured his continued imprisonment over nothing. Nothing whatsoever, concrete or trivial, was established against him. Chief Ojewumi died 28 days after he was released by General Ibrahim Babangida.

Mohammadu Buhari is responsible for the death of Alhaji Busari Adelakun, the powerful politician from Ibadan, n'ile Oluyole. I don't even remember if he was ever tried. He remained in Buhari's detention and died as a result of lack of adequate medical attention. Towards the last days of his life, he was taken to LUTH, but no remedy could be made, as it was damn too late.

I had visited him on his bed at LUTH out of curiosity, when I learnt he was there. He was being "observed," by a cousin of mine, a medical doctor, who provided access. At such critical time of his life, his sense of humour still came through as he called me "Omo Bola Ige," when he learnt I am Ijesha. He died soon after.

Mohammadu Buhari is not just a tyrant, his is a sadistic genre. He is a dangerously inebriated fascist. He is a baptised autocrat. He is a pernicious putschist. He is a born again authoritarian. He is a profligate praetorian. He is fundamentally despotic. To call him a dictator, is to compliment him. He is an audacious absolutist. He is a shameless usurper. He is a criminal coupist. He is cold, cruel and crude.

The arrest of Omoyele Sowore, regardless of Sowore's failings and shortcomings, by the tyrant called Mohammadu Buhari, is a sign of many things that Buhari's supporters would rather not think and talk about or wished we don't think and talk about. One of such is that the cabal in Aso Rock is very unpopular. If this government was popular enough, it would not have worried about any protest.

The Buhari administration is jittery. It is anxious and unsettled. The more the administration tries to project confidence, the more it exudes jitters and nervousness. The more it tries to show it is in charge, the more its incompetence bursts at the seams. The facade of strength it tries to project by ordering the shooting of protesters and the arrest of Sowore, is only what it is, a facade.

For Buhari and his fellow travelers, tomorrow is too far flung to be scared about. It is too distant to be imagined and be in awe of. They are in fact and indeed scared of today. They are in cold fear as they wonder if they could maintain and protect the stolen mandate. They are conscious of the fact that they are dressed in borrowed robes, fitted in the tapped tapestries of pimped power. They are aware of being usurpers, hustlers holding on to what is not theirs.

In fact, the crisis of challenge to its legitimacy has not even started. It is a challenge that would inevitably come. Yet, before the arrival of that challenge, the administration has already become so disoriented, disconcerted and discombobulated. The administration is already befuddled and confused to the point that its mis-steps are already becoming too many. The operators are panicky. They have become pathologically apprehensive. Every dissent is seen and perceived as a masquerade of torment and fear.

Also, their cacophony about "corruption," has only resulted in a macabre music, to which only them and their sentries could swing; to which only them and their apologists could prance. The anti -corruption war has been discovered to be fake and thus utterly discredited over time. Its credibility was further cinctured by the "Cabinet of Thieves" that Buhari has put together. Those yelling "Change" in the months leading to 2015 election, flailing the flags from rooftps, of anti-corruption, have been flabbergasted and dumbfounded in their disappointment.

Mohammadu Buhari and its sympathizers are very much aware that he lost the 2019 Presidential Election and that he was rejected at the polls by Nigerians. They know that without rigging, they would probably be standing trials for their crimes now. This truism and reality haunts Buhari. He is harrowed, harassed and hounded by his evil deeds. To imagine himself out of power is a nightmare because of the certainty of the consequences that would definitely follow.

The fear of what could be Buhari's fate out of Aso Rock is very palpable. Buhari and his crowd are a tormented, troubled and terrified lot. Observe their bravery, it is mere boondoggle. Monitor their temerity, it is fictitious. Derobe their audacity, you would discover deception. Examine their effronterry, you would find fickleness and fraudulence. Behold their boldness, it is just bogus. They lack confidence and capacity. It is why they are resorting to ruthlessness. It is why they are jittery. It is why they would become more deranged and dangerous.

The administration is perpetually under psychological siege. It is always defensive because it knows that Nigerians have rejected Mohammadu Buhari. In the coming weeks and months, Nigerians should expect a more maniacal approach to Buhari's tyranny, driven by despair, dread, dismay, doubt and desperation. Buhari is like a caged ravenous lion. He is bloodthirsty. As a vampire, he could never be satiated. Buhari is a desperado. Nigerians should be on alert.

To this end, in every dissenting Nigerian, Buhari and his crowd would only be able to see "terrorists" and "anarchists." They live in fear of what could go wrong that would chase them out of Aso Rock and put them in the dock. They monitor the armed forces because they are scared of coup d'etat. They monitor the judges at all levels of the judiciary for "unexpected hostile pronouncements." They see protests and protesters as serious threats and are terribly scared of them.

The media, they still think they could manage. For a man like Buhari, who once said that even, if journalists reported the "truth," if he didn't like it, the journalists would still be jailed, he wouldn't lose any sleep jailing someone like Omoyele Sowore. For the media, they had better be prepared because the nights of long knives are here.

Mohammadu Buhari's hypocrisy is of Orwellian proportions. Eric Arthur Blair, also known by his pen name, George Orwell, must have had Buhari in mind while wrting his 1945 book, "Animal Farm." A psychoanalysis of George Orwell's Napoleon in "Animal Farm," conveys very solid characterisation of Buhari by this famous English author.

A comparative analysis of the basic characteristics of Napoleon, the Pig, and Buhari, the Dullardinho of Daurasil, would, in your face, fling the strings of dishonesty, hypocrisy, wickedness, satanic egoism and egotism, exploitation of others, domination of others, tyranny, nepotism, incompetence, deceit, duplicity, coldness, crudity and cruelty.

These characteristics of Buhari shrouded him from the nags of his conscience, that is assuming that he has one, which many are seriously doubting. This is why Buhari could "steal" our $2.8billion and call others thieves. This is why he would overthrow a government and accuse others of trying to do the same. That is why he would call for revolution and arrest others for doing same. That is why he would call for the resignation of the sickly President Musa Yar'Adua while he wouldn't do the same when the shoes were on the other legs.

This is why Buhari would preach against sending your wards to universities in foreign land while he had his own children there. This is why he would condemn the patronage of foreign hoslitals and yet actively engage in doing same. This is why he would make facetious and fatuous claims about being ascetic and yet drive ten Toyota Prados in his convoy before becoming president.

This is why he would talk of the "dogs and baboons" swimming in pool of blood while accusing those who warn against such utterances as war mongers. That is why he would accuse President Goodluck Jonathan of incompetence and be an exemplar of same. That is why he would openly protest against a government without being harassed but would send soldiers and mobile policemen after peaceful protesters.

In Napeleon's Animal Farm, "The creatures... looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." The same way in Buhari's Nigeria, citizens are looking from cow to man, and from man to cow, and from cow to man again, but it is incredibly impossible to say which is which.

Sowore is seized in the spasm of tyranny with its entangled cobwebs. It is the duty of every living soul to ensure that he is not swallowed. It does not matter whether we agree with him or not. It does not matter whether we like him or not.We must fight for his freedom. He must be shaken off from the shackles of tyranny. For in fighting for the freedom of others, we are protecting our own freedom.

"In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.”

- John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural Address January 20, 1961

©Remi Oyeyemi