Iliyasu Gadu
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Readers of my column will know that I seldom stand on the same page with President Buhari on the several issues that I write about. Indeed I count among some of his fiercest, unrelenting critics on his handling of issues I consider germane to the country. I was reliably told that one particular article I wrote titled ‘’President Buhari, the Messiah who Messed up’’ riled up the folks at the seat of power and the offensive inquiry was ‘’who is this Iliyasu Gadu fellow that shows little respect to the President?’’
But on the trending issue pertaining to the series of actions that followed President Buhari’s timely and appropriate words of caution to the criminal elements trying to turn the southeast of the country into yet another cauldron of rebellion in pursuit of their undisguised aims of dismembering the country, I make no bones to say that I stand with president to the hilt.
Like many Nigerians I am at once baffled and miffed by the whole hiatus coming from a coalition of countries led by the United States of America on the suspension of the micro blogging platform Twitter by the Federal Government.
In my experience as a former Foreign Service Officer in the Information Services, I have had a fair amount of knowledge of the dark arts of psychological operations often deployed by these countries around the world in the pursuit of their naked interests. From this I have also studied in detail and am able to predictably discern the pattern of reaction of these countries on issues of this nature.
With regards to the statements made by their representative missions here in Nigeria on the action taken by the Federal Government reading in between the lines one is able to get a few nuggets of information on how they went about coordinating their actions from contacts through coded and secure communications channels, the wordings of their statements and the releases to the media. They would have also resolved to set up a joint committee to monitor the situation and decide what to do going forward on the issue.
If we read the wordings carefully the meaning and nuances of the various statements we will find that essentially they mean the same thing and the objective and conclusion is also the same; these countries are not bothered so much about the positions of the Nigerian government on the emerging situation in the southeast and that of IPOB. They are more concerned about the suspension and disruption of Twitter services in Nigeria.
Why is that?
Here again the concern is also not so much about the possible commercial losses that Twitter will incur as a result of the Government’s action. No their main point of interest is that Twitter one of the effective instruments through which they collectively as a coalition of ‘’blue-eyed master race countries’’ deploy to manipulate and control the mind of the ‘’lower races’’ of the world to accept their supremacy has been ridiculed.
These countries know in their minds that Twitter cannot be adjudged to be that instrument of ‘’freedom of expression’’ they claim in their statements because Twitter’s activities here in Nigeria was not set up to run on the principle of fair and balanced services. If it were, Twitter would not have played the despicable, unethical role it played during the EndSARS debacle and in continuing to provide its platform for use by Nnamdi Kanu to spew forth his venom against Nigeria in clear contravention of its own rules which it deigned to use against President Buhari but never against Kanu.
But do these countries have the moral right to even lecture Nigeria?
The United States is a country built on the genocide of red Indians (it is fraudulent to call them Native Americans because they were there before even Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci came) and the brutal enslavement of African people. It is still living with the indelible stain of these original sins to this day despite attempts to whitewash it.
Is it Britain the mother of iniquity which has continued to look askance as Kanu instigates and incite violence against particular individuals and destruction of public and public buildings and infrastructure in Nigeria?
Or France the shameless, parasitic leech that continues to live on the blood of its African colonies? As for Germany the less said the better.
It is not surprising too that Canada is in the fray. But that this country of lumberjacks who stole the land from the Inuit and pushed them far into the frozen wastelands has even the temerity to look Nigeria in the eye beats the imagination. I am also expecting that big penal colony of indentured labourers Australia which decimated the aborigines to make its sanctimonious pitch too at some point.
Both Twitter and these countries are known to apply double standards when it comes to such issues. They dare not raise a whimper at Israel and its President Benjamin Netanyahu for all the brutal treatment of Palestine. But because they consider Nigeria a soft and easy touch they believe their actions will make our government tremble and concede its sovereign right to them.
Nigerians should wizen up. The main objective of all the sanctimonious posturing ultimately is to bleed Nigeria to a state of total anomie with no functional or respectable government in place. They will fall short of supporting or encouraging the dismemberment of the country because of the massive humanitarian catastrophe it will cause to Africa and the world. And also breaking up Nigeria will upset the delicate balance of greed that they have designed on Africa since 1884/85 in Berlin. There will most likely be another vicious round of scramble for the carcasses of Africa which may result in another war between them this time more devastating than the previous ones should they allow that to happen.
From their secret studies of Nigeria and projections about its future they are not too sure that at present trajectory Nigeria can be contained in the future. The solution to them is to turn Nigeria into another Congo DRC or Libya where total or near anarchy reigns making it easier for its vast resources to be continuously plundered in the interest of their countries.
The action of the Nigerian government on Twitter has inadvertently forced these countries to reveal the template of their designs on Nigeria prematurely. We should expect that in the run up to 2023 they will use the opportunity of similar incidences whether contrived by them or by happenstance to implement their agenda to the ultimate peril of Nigeria.
Now that providence has led the government to take this action on Twitter we now know that indeed the barbarians are poised at our gates and we must do something to thwart them in the interest of our present and our future.
That is why on this one I wholeheartedly stand with President Buhari.
