“GOING by the title of a press release posted on April 21, 2013 by the Newsdiaryonline, I do agree with the National Publicity Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, Rotimi Fashakin, that there is an obvious politicisation of the present security challenges facing the nation at large.

However, I totally disagree with the dimension of his interpretation of the burden of proof, which is more or less spineless in facts, robed in infantile mendacity, coloured in venomous hatred and above all lacking in proven political historicity. It clearly portrays a bizarre syndrome of frustration over a histrionic political mirage.

To quote him: “The Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, is aware that the pre-eminent desire of Nigerians under this nation-space is security, which under this PDP-led regime, has been an elusive phenomenon. This is sadly because the Jonathan regime prefers political profiting from the menace of insecurity to obliterating the scourge from the nation’s landscape”.

The one fundamental question to Fashakin is, who in the first place authored the said security challenges, who actually seems to be creating a political space of cheap popularity? Did President Goodluck Jonathan or the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, create the Shari’a conflict, which was the precursor to the present Boko Haram? Is Boko Haram the brain-child of President Jonathan or the PDP? It is on record that on Thursday, November 1, 2012, Boko Haram mentioned General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) as one of the prominent Northern leaders whose consent must be sought if they should cease fire. Even though denied any association with a group that openly recognised him as their patron, his recent unequivocal support for unsolicited amnesty for them clearly betrayed that denial of association.

The same Buhari had on different occasions threatened Nigerians with blood-letting ahead of the 2015 general elections. Fashakin, no doubt, in his very sincere mind knows that it is indeed a Herculean task for anybody, given the above weighty evidence to fundamentally extricate the erstwhile iron-fisted tyrant from the Boko Haram political venture. From their fruits ye shall know them, so states the Holy Bible. Much the same way as the Igbo adage which states that the man who will rush food, is often detected at the point of washing hands. General Buhari’s utterances till date have only portrayed him as an unrepentant sadist whose only mission to rule will unquestionably revolve round vengeance. Even the unborn babies will not pray for such a man to assume power again in this nation.

Fashakin knows that he is being entrusted with an unmarketable product, hence like a perfect political job-man, his decision to throw every caution over-board, if only to create whatever appears to be an impact. It is obvious that in defending General Buhari, while at the same time attacking the administration of President Jonathan, he appears to have lost touch of the sad historical dynamics of the Nigerian politics of which he and his master, General Buhari are the dramatis personae.

Comparing the Boston Marathon bombing to the Nigerian situation is, to say the least, a tacit act of self-condemnation. Today those who call themselves opposition groups, for obvious selfish reasons and inordinate quest for political power, find it difficult to define an issue of purely political interest from the one of common national interest. Otherwise why should the CPC and the ACN turn to shadow supporters of Boko Haram in every move made by President Jonathan to counter the security menace? The question being put forward to Fashakin is: In handling the Boston Marathon bombing crisis, to what extent did political party affiliation affect the collective resolve of the politicians to confront the challenge?

Is it not distasteful that it is only in Nigeria that the concept of political opposition under modern democratic values rests on the fulcrum of pull down the incumbent? It does not indeed matter if the opponent is performing creditably or not. If the likes of Fashakin believe that, by attempting to discredit the President, even in matters that require collective effort of every citizen, irrespective of political affiliation, as in the case of Boko Haram, he would create a political thoroughfare for General Buhari in 2015, he may only be dreaming of a political mirage. Let it be known today that Nigerians are not blind to the characteristic fundamentalist and tyrannical tendencies of General Buhari. Handing him this country to rule once again will definitely sing a requiem.

For Fashakin, a Yoruba by extraction, whose people voted en-masse for President Jonathan without recourse to political affiliation in 2011, to describe the ruthless slaughtering of innocent Youth Corpers in Bauchi, Borno, Gombe and Yobe states as a mere spontaneous reaction against a perceived electoral fraud, is no more than an exhibition of the unquestionable inveterate meanness of a class of political murderers masquerading as a political party.

In other words, Fashakin is telling Nigerians that the best way to resolve a political impasse is blood-letting. Why then are Nigerians crying wolf over those behind Boko Haram, when its activities are the very broad spectrum of the CPC manifesto of blood-letting?

Going by this manifesto of blood, and the many threats of blood-letting coming from General Buhari in person, was Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor not divinely justified to call for the immediate arrest of the former? Given Buhari’s tyrannical antecedents, could the General have hesitated in clamping anyone into detention for even lesser offensive comments, were he to be the President of this nation?

Or is Rotimi Fashakin saying that General Buhari, because he is a retired General and former Head of State, is above the law, even in a democratic setting?

It is quite obvious that had such vile statements as coming from General Buhari were to have come from an Ojukwu or a Fasehun under a Hausa-Fulani presidency, hell should have since been let loose.

It is  pitiable and unfortunate that Fashakin speaks as if  Goodluck Jonathan is the president of the Peoples’ Democratic Party or the president of Dr. Doyin Okupe and Reuben Abati alone. President Jonathan is the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which includes Rotimi Fashakin and Muhammadu Buhari, as such should be accorded the deserved honour and respect.

Dr.  TONY NWAEZEIGWE, snr Research  Fellow, Institute of African Studies,UNN.