Dapchi Girls’ Abduction A Stage-Managed Movie

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There is no denying the fact that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has become a fading star in the Nigerian political firmament with the heinous lies being churned out daily from its propaganda machine. Only about five days ago I wrote a piece which was widely published by the world press about the purported abduction of 110 school girls from a Government college in the Nigerian town of Dapchi, northeastern Nigeria.

 

For starters, we are all aware of the mournful wail across the country resulting from the Buhari-led visionless leadership. Many Nigerians who were bamboozled by the APC change mantra have parted ways with the party and begun to yearn for a reversion to the status quo ante. On the economic front, the Buhari government has failed abysmally, insecurity of the right to life and property is on the ascending order of magnitude and this has taken a deadly toll on the citizenry. Nigerians now live at the mercy of janjaweed armed militias which is increasingly bringing about a disheartening demographic change.

 

The primary objective of any responsible government is the protection of the rights to lives and property and there is no denying the fact that the Buhari government has failed woefully in this regard. The criminal killings across the country are not only a sad reminder but a painful testimony to this incontrovertible fact.

 

I have often read APC script to Nigerians and this one is yet another one in the making that prepares and paves the way for yet another painful, visionless leadership that may ultimately send Nigerians to their untimely graves having previously handed Nigerians the hangman’s noose.

 

The plan that has just been hatched was ill-designed considering how it all began. There had been accusations and counter-accusations between the security forces when the purported abduction took place. Over 100 girls were reportedly abducted and ferried away by the abductors without interception by Nigeria’s security operatives amid claims and counter-claims that they got wind of the whole plot.

 

The police and military both absolved themselves of blames. Buhari visited and told a beleaguered nation that unlike Jonathan, he acted quickly enough to send the security forces in search of the girls for possible rescue. I reminded Nigerians in my previous piece that the only inference that could be drawn from that unintelligent remark is nothing short of another propaganda in the making to cause distraction and diversion from the killings ravaging Nigeria by killer herdsmen that is making the Buhari government very unpopular by the day.

 

Knowing full well that would be used against his re-election bid, they decided to cook up the Dapchi abduction story to buy their way back into gullible minds to further demonize the erstwhile ruling party.

 

You see, sometimes I often sit back hand on chin wondering how and why a group of heartless overlords has satanically decided to play god with people’s lives by cashing in on their naivety. Nigerians have not only been mesmerized but sapped with lies, horror, and deceit from the ruling All Progressives Congress so much so that the thought of APC and President Buhari causes the citizenry febrile convulsions.

 

You must not cash in on peoples naivety for personal aggrandizement, it is very obvious that the Buhari government has failed. Hence, I wonder why it should all be Buhari to lead Nigeria in the coming years in a country that parades a broad spectrum of the best intellects across the world. This is very disheartening if you ask me!

 

Great minds, it is said, are no nuisance. That story of the purported release of the abducted girls could only be sold on that part of the globe whose citizens have been mesmerized with hunger and hardships in the hope of using bags of rice to get their votes in the long run.

 

Since the news was first broken today by online medium Sahara Reporters, tongues have been waggling in this part of the Old World about the grand deceit which the West sees as another ploy to consolidate their hold on power in a country where every government machinery has broken down.

 

Nigerians are neither mindless zombies nor thoughtless morons to fall hook, line, and sinkers for this ruse. In the picture trending online, the abductors that reportedly arrived with the girls in six trucks were seen driving away freely in a place that has heavily military presence without a gunshot from the Nigerian soldiers. The girls were received by their families in a public location. When did Boko Haram become a charity organization and the terrorists as harmless members of society?

 

Since the abduction, did we see the video footage of the girls or statement from the Barnawi faction of the Boko Haram that took the girls into captivity for one month?

 

This story of the purported abduction is better sold to the gullible minds whose foolishness aids the APC criminal cult in consolidating their hold on power. This is a movie whose stage had been poorly set and the script poorly acted by a cast of neophyte actors all things considered.

 

The Buhari that I know would be coming in no time to declare his ambition to run for 2019 as elections draw near having ”fulfilled’ his electoral promises to gullible ones amongst us.

 

I am very sure the likes of Tinubu did not take part in acting this script nor take part in setting the storyline and splitting them into scenes, it would have been fool-proof had these been carefully done. The Tinubu that I know, I repeat with all the emphasis in my command, will not do a messy job if we all need reminding.

 

Buhari from reports reaching me will be declaring his intention for re-election any time now having ”fulfilled” one of his major electoral promises to secure the rights to lives and property amid the ongoing bloody insurgency and mindless, criminal killings which tears the nation apart.

 

Over here in the Old World and other western democracies, 1% increase in tax is more than enough to send the government packing. Mauritius President, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim  and Jacob Zuma of South Africa had to resign amid financial misconduct and corruption scandal respectively. Why should Nigeria’s case be different amid the criminal killings and ongoing bloody insurgency which the Buhari-led Federal Government is unable to proffer lasting solutions to? Is it not high time Nigeria and Nigerians were rescued from the hands of neophyte actors whose sole aim is bent on personal aggrandizement?

 

There is no denying the fact that Nigeria has fallen from its Olympian height. Buhari’s anti-corruption war is none other than a drunken farce because there is no denying the fact that he leads a government which is seen as a vast empire of corruption going by the Transparency International corruption perception index. If he is genuinely fighting corruption where is the bogus amount of money recovered from the nation’s treasury looters majority of whom are in his government? Why has the money not be ploughed back into the economy to positively impact on the lives of the citizenry?

 

What is on the ground that morally justifies Buhari to canvass for support ahead of 2019 federal elections? Is the hunger ravaging every nook and cranny of the country that has brought about an upsurge in crimes of varying degrees? Is it the mindless killings by armed militias who disguised as herdsmen carrying out ethnic cleansing? What about the bloody insurgency on the northern flank of the country that he promised to defeat in no time? How have the economic policies of the Buhari government impacted positively on the people that qualify him for re-election? Frankly, I do not understand.

 

Many Nigerians like I did say yearn for a return to the status quo ante seeing that the prodigal years of the PDP years appear miles better than APC years of fat slavery. This could be seen on every front. What about the Mediterranean deaths and neo-slavery in Libya where Nigerians are the major victims? Nigerians have been reduced to street beggars in the streets of Italy and other European cities, a very sad case of a front line oil-producing nation.

 

Only recently, the Buhari-led Federal Government said Nigeria’s external reserves have risen. What about the domestic debt? This is a country that is saddled with massive debt burden and if the debts had to be paid off what would be left in the external reserves? What about our external debts? How much did he meet when the previous administration was in power and how much was Nigeria’s domestic and external debts? Buhari should be asked these searching questions by intelligent minds.

 

By the way, how did Nigerians fare under the last administration? We were all living witnesses to the fact that lives were much more easier. We had enough to eat, and some of us who live outside the country contemplated returning home to invest. In fact, there was a mass hejira home at the period under review. I too climbed in on the bandwagon home and set up an ultra-modern mineral water and juice processing factories in metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria. Buhari’s ascension to power sounded the death knee to my business back home in Nigeria as I could not source foreign exchange to import raw materials and many other factories had to close down and relocate to neigbouring West African countries.

 

So what is he talking about? How can our youths be supporting a government that has destroyed their future, a directionless and visionless government with no plans on the ground to revitalize the obviously decadent paralysis?

 

It is high time Buhari took a bow out because it was tears, sorrow, and blood when he first mounted the saddle of power in 1984 as a military ruler. There was hunger in the land and Nigerians had to queue up for food, I could recall from dim memory what the situation was like in Lagos, Nigeria. That was when the word ‘essential commodities’ gained currency at the time, the reason why we campaigned vigorously against his emergence in the build-up to 2015 federal elections.

 

Three years into the life of this administration, there is nothing to suggest that we are on the path to redemption nor is there any anything on the ground that we are on the path to recovery. The voice of reason is increasingly being challenged by the collective voice of looters. Primary education is in shambles, secondary education is jumble while university education is in a jumble of retrogression.

 

Have we now been reduced to sheep that talk with the crop of APC politicians that make up the Abuja regime further deepening our woes? Is it not high time Nigerian stopped dignifying APC arrant nonsense of the Dapchi girls stage-managed abduction movie?

 

*Iyoha John Darlington is the Public Affairs Analyst, expert in conflict management and resolution and the International Media Aide of the Green Party of Nigeria (GPN).

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