By Ochereome Nnanna
IF you examine the battle of wits between President Muhammadu Buhari and his most outspoken critic, Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, you will see yet another déjà vu of Nigerian politics; a theatre of the absurd where the same drama sketch is repeated at different epochs but not necessarily by the same thespian talents.

Buhari is carrying on, much like his co-traveller ex-military dictator-turned elected president, Olusegun Obasanjo. When Obasanjo was president between 1999 and 2007, he fought like a deranged dictator and in all directions.

He caused the change of Senate Presidents FOUR record times in six years, thus ensuring that all the five states of the South East produced Senate Presidents. Some gullible or foolish-minded Nigerians, rather than put the blame for the high turnover squarely on Obasanjo, blamed Igbo federal lawmakers for scrambling to outdo one another for the post.

Obasanjo caused the abduction of Governor Chris Ngige of Anambra State by Police AIG Ralph Ige, who was carrying out the orders of Ngige’s political godfathers in Obasanjo’s employ, the Uba brothers. Ige died a month after. Obasanjo tried (unsuccessfully) to sack his Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, but succeeded in driving him out of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP. He illegally stopped the disbursement of the Local Government allocations of Lagos State from the Federation Account in the hope that the government of his enemy, Governor Ahmed Bola Tinubu, would be weakened for his party, PDP, to grab Lagos. It failed.

Obasanjo pushed Abia State Governor, Orji Uzor Kalu, out of PDP, but failed to stop the latter from getting elected (albeit crookedly) for a second term. In fact, Kalu successfully installed his protégé, TA Orji, in power in 2007 even while the latter (Orji) was languishing in Obasanjo’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,EFCC, detention cell. Under Obasanjo, a number of his political enemies were mysteriously killed, and no one has been held to account till today. These were: Chief Marshall Harry, an All Nigerian People’s Party, ANPP, hothead from Rivers State; Chief Aminasori Kala Dikibo, a PDP leader from the same Rivers State and Obasanjo’s own Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Chief Bola Ige.

Obasanjo saw enemies everywhere and he fought them all, winning most, losing some and carrying the suspicions of some murders on his way to his grave.

The same trait – fighting of real or imaginary enemies – has been evident with President Muhammadu Buhari, but admittedly at a much lower scale with more sophisticated focus. So far, no one can accuse Buhari of depriving any of his opponents of his life. No politically-related murder has taken place in the past one year, which is a positive for Buhari.

No governor has been impeached, let alone Buhari being accused. In fact, Buhari would have been as clean as former President Goodluck Jonathan in the area of permitting the Federal Parliament to function without interference, if he had kept his word about the emergence of its leaders. But he allowed himself to be dragged by his co-party leader, Bola Tinubu, in insisting that Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, must be removed for torpedoing the All Progressives Congress, APC’s, choice of parliamentary leadership.

Again, Buhari has been neatly picking up and putting away the voices of the opposition, notably, Mr. Olisa Metuh and Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode. If Fayose were not pavillioned with immunity, he certainly would have been in the slammer. Instead, Buhari’s personalised Directorate of State Services,DSS, and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,EFCC have been pecking at Fayose’s soft underbelly. First, DSS filched Hon. Afolabi Akanni and detained him for nineteen days. The poor chap nearly died in detention, and that would have been the first blood on Buhari’s head. Now the EFCC has frozen Fayose’s personal bank account on “suspicion” that it was being used to “move” money.

It is not as though the Commission has no right to do this, since Fayose’s personal accounts do not enjoy the immunity which he enjoys. But the law says a competent court order must be obtained before such an action could be carried out. EFCC never showed any evidence of such an order to the media when the news broke. Fayose’s account has joined former NSA, Sambo Dasuki and Radio Biafra Director, Mr. Daniel Kanu in the growing queue of victims of impunity wreaked by federal operatives on Buhari’s perceived enemies.

Our history of the past seventeen years of renascent democracy teaches us that Obasanjo succeeded in crushing some of his governor opponents. These included DSP Alamieyeseigha whom he got impeached and sent to jail. He also got Fayose impeached and put on EFCC trial/detention, though Oshoko came back six years later to reclaim his electoral mandate. He got Peter Obi impeached, but Peter defeated him in court and reclaimed his mandate.

On the other hand, Tinubu and Kalu (who, incidentally, used to be close friends as governors) triumphed over Obasanjo, and today, Obasanjo is pussyfooting in the sidelights of a political administration that Tinubu helped bring to power.

It is obvious that Fayose has what it takes to overcome Buhari’s bully tactics. Like Tinubu, Kalu, Obi and Ngige, Fayose is a warrior-politician, and we can see that in his reprisal release of Aisha Buhari’s alleged but hitherto-unknown involvement in the Halliburton scandal, a graft among so many others that the Buhari administration has played a blind eye to. In fact, the Chairman of Buhari’s Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption, Professor Itse Sagay, recently made it known that there is no evidence of corruption against any APC officer holder (including those indicted for large scale of Rivers State treasury to fund Buhari’s campaign).

Obasanjo and Buhari played the same trick on Nigerians – using the war on corruption as a smokescreen to feather their political nests through the persecution of their political adversaries. Though many Nigerians are still carried away by this old trick, the world out there is beginning to take note, going from what Pete Hoekstra wrote in the Wall Street Journal a week ago, saying that Buhari is a problem and not the solution to Nigeria’s problems.