Politics! Dirty politics! That is the menu we are being served now. The silly season of politics is always the period people are treated with the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Money speaks different languages, both the ones people understand and the ones they are ignorant about. Blackmail, slander, intimidation, propaganda, name it, take centre stage when real politics is involved. Maiming of political opponents or outright assassination also reigns supreme during period of politics.
With the 2015 elections five months away, all the stupid things that go with politics have started unfolding. The so-called political leaders are at it once again to outdo each other. They are more concerned about who wins the next presidential election than how to fix the country, unlike the way selfless leaders in other parts of the world go about leadership.
Events last week, particularly the press conference held by the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) and the one by the newly defected APC chieftain to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), former Governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff, have brought to the fore what we are to witness as the election in February beckons.
APC National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, told a press conference in Abuja that President Goodluck Jonathan should cause Sheriff and former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt General Azubuike Ihejirika (rtd), to face trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) as “sponsors” of the dreaded Islamist fundamentalists, Boko Haram.
The APC was apparently reacting to the report by one Australian private investigator, Stephen Davis, who told a television station that Sheriff and Ihejirika are the sponsors of the sect that has caused the death of thousands of Nigerians.
Oyegun said: “The truth is finally out. We have been vindicated. We have no hand in the Boko Haram insurgency. The raison d’etre of our party is the well-being and security of Nigerians.
“The sponsors of Boko Haram are within the PDP and the Presidency. They are known friends of President Jonathan. He knows them and they know him.
“The man who exposed these Boko Haram sponsors is a Jonathan-appointed negotiator. He has no axe to grind, neither does he have any motive to shield the APC or portray the PDP/Presidency in bad light.
“In fact, if he had any sympathy at all, it is for the man who hired him, President Jonathan.
“Then their drum exploded! Stephen Davis, a man hired by the President Jonathan-led federal government to negotiate with Boko Haram for the release of the Chibok girls, decided to speak out, believing the best way to tackle the insurgency is to expose the sponsors….
“Prodded by Sahara Reporters in a subsequent interview on whether [Muhammadu] Buhari and Nasir el-Rufai were sponsors, he said the Boko Haram commanders who gave him the names of their sponsors did not mention their names ….”
Having been convinced that Sheriff and Ihejirika are the real sponsors of the sect, Odigie-Oyegun insisted that they must be handed over to the ICC for investigation and prosecution. He said the APC had always suspected Sheriff as a mole in their midst to hijack its structure.
Sheriff held his own news conference to deny all the insinuations against him. He narrated his political journey so far and also shed light on what many Nigerians may not have known about Boko Haram, a seed he said was sown by his predecessor, the late Governor Mala Kachallah of Borno State.
Sheriff said: “Given the seriousness of the issue, I feel it is highly uncharitable to try and trivialise the issue of terrorism on the altar of political rivalry.
“I believe very strongly that some of those linking me with the sect are doing so either because of absolute ignorance of the group, its history and development, or are clearly being mischievous.
“Hence my decision to speak on the issue and make certain clarifications for the benefit of the unsuspecting general public.
“It may interest you to know that it was the government of my predecessor in office [Kachallah] that introduced Sharia law in the state in 2000 through the ‘Borno State Sharia Administration of Justice Law 2000’.
“Kachallah signed the Bill into law at an elaborate ceremony at the Ramat Square in Maiduguri and appointed the Borno State Sharia Law Implementation Committee in February 2001 under the Chairmanship of Professor Abubakar Mustapha, the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Maiduguri.
“The late Mohammed Yusuf, leader of the Boko Haram sect, was a member of the committee, among other Islamic scholars. If indeed there was an agreement between the sect and my predecessor on Sharia implementation, I am not aware of it, as I was neither in government then nor was I a party to it.
“And since the law preceded my administration I may not be in a position to speak on how it was conceived, promulgated and implemented.
“I do not share the ideology of the Boko Haram sect, which is against Western education, Western culture and modern science or any other sect with a similar ideology.”
I agree with Sheriff that God is the ultimate judge of all men and that he should visit his wrath on those who kill only to turn around to accuse others.
But I was disappointed in him for waiting for this long before telling Nigerians all he knew or did not know about Boko Haram and the ordeal he went through trying to tame it in Borno.
It is important to note that Sheriff did not say that Ihejirika was involved in Boko Haram in his speech. His explanation also corroborates former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s earlier comment that the sect predates the late Umaru Yar’Adua’s Presidency which started in 2007.
Until I read Oyegun’s full speech, I thought he was one of Nigeria’s best and independent-minded leaders. I hope I am not wrong? What does he want to gain by using Boko Haram as a political tool simply because one excitable character called Davis has been paid by politicians to fly a kite?
Assuming Sheriff had remained in APC would Oyegun have raised the alarm he is raising now?
If actually a Davis was hired to do an investigation, where is his report? Who saw the terms of contract for the so-called negotiation with the sect? Should we not be asking for Davis to be arrested for doing a yeoman’s job or at least barring him from this country since we know he is up to some kind of mischief?
What attitude by a non-Nigerian can be more denigrating than this and yet we are ignorantly politicking with it?
The idea that Ihejirika was sponsoring the sect is not only funny but shows an attempt by some people to malign him and the good work he did for this country as COAS, and by extension, the entire Igbo race where he comes from.
If Oyegun and his likes are sincerely looking for the real sponsors of Boko Haram let them cast their minds back to all the states in the North from 2000, like Kachallah’s, who introduced Sharia law into the country. Luckily enough, most of them were in Oyegun’s party then – the APP and later the ANPP.