The ides of Abacha

Around 2014-early 2015 several of my pro-APC (more accurately pro-Asiwaju Tinubu) friends looked forward enthusiastically to a Buhari presidency based on their assumption that their principal would be the vice-president. Deriving from Buhari’s history of “abdicating” power to a powerful deputy, they envisaged a “de facto” presidency, an expectationprobably inherited by the current vice-president’s entourage after Buhari declined to pick Tinubu as running-mate in favour of his nominee. I suspected that this trend of thought was misguided and warned explicitly several times that I thought it was Abacha’s administrative history rather than Buhari’s that would prove a better guide to the future!
In particular I reminded a few of my friends that Abacha’s deputy, General Oladipo Diya enjoyed significant power for only a few weeks until the regime stabilized whereupon the despot transferred effective power to Alhaji Aminu Saleh his secretary to the military government; and Major Al Mustapha! Diya’s close friend and Odogbolu compatriot, the activist lawyer, DrOluOnagoruwa whose reputation in civil society was part of the initial endearment of Abacha to civil society and pro-“June 12” groups, was appointed Attorney-General by Abacha, but was unaware as Professor Auwalu Yadudu, Abacha’s subsequently appointed legal adviser drafted decrees for the dictator’s signature. Onagoruwa read about those decrees in newspapers like other Nigerians and paid a very high price for his and Diya’s naivety about the General!
I noted several times that rather than the untrammeled power that everyone looked forward to in the model of General Tunde Idiagbon and Alhaji Salihijo who exercised the power of Buhari’s office as Head of State and PTF Chairman respectively, perhaps it was the humiliation and near-death of General Diya as Abacha’s deputy that might prove a more accurate historical reference point! I did not think Buhari had sought power determinedly since 2003 in order to hand it over to a Yoruba deputy or godfather! The examples from both Buhari and Abacha of course remind us that those to whom de facto power was entrusted were of similar ethnic, geo-political and religious persuasion as the grantors of power!
The sense in which Buhari’s second coming might remind us of his first coming as a military ruler and Abacha’s brutal dictatorship, rather than the “reformed democrat” that many people hoped for in contrived self-delusion was however most likely to be in relation to the character of his government rather than just the fate of his sponsors and deputies! There were early signs that Buhari, in spite of his verbal avowals was not quite ready for the niceties of democracy and constitutional order in his unwillingness to constitute a cabinet. It became apparent that he preferred a “constitutional dictatorship”in which he; executive appointees such as Chief of Staff and Secretary to Government of the Federation; and civil servants would run government without the distraction (as he seemed to regard it!) of federal ministers as required by the constitution. In the end, Buhari appointed ministers after seven (7) months only when his reluctance had become untenable!
Then there was the blatant disobedience of court orders especially with regard to the release of former National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki; Shiite leader, Sheik Zakzakky; and IPOB founder, Nnamdi Kanu. Kanu was freed during one of Vice President Osinbajo’s stints as Acting President but the two others have not been quite so lucky! The next signal that Buhari pays scant attention not just to democratic norms but also our diversity and federal nature was revealed in the composition of his military, para-military, security, intelligence and law enforcement appointments all of which he concentrated in Northern Muslim hands-under Buhari, the Attorney General, chairman of EFCC, Inspector General of Police, Army and Air Force Chief of Staff, Director of State Security, National Security Adviser, Controller Generals of Customs, Immigration and Prisons, the Commandant of the NSCDC, the DG of National Intelligence Agency etc. are all Northern Muslims. In the case of the Inspector General, his appointment required the untimely retirement of a whole generation of senior police officers!
The DSS headed by Buhari’s kinsman, Lawal Daura in particular began to operate like then National Security Organisation (NSO) head under General Buhari, Ambassador Rafindadi-without regard to rule of law, constitutionalism and even propriety. The most alarming episode was the invasion in dead of night, by armed DSS personnel of the homes of senior judges, including Supreme Court judges, across the country! Strong attempts were made to cow alternate centres of power apart from the judiciary-National Assembly, media including social media and even NGOs all witnessed subtle and not so subtle attempts to diminish their independence and authority. Senate President Bukola Saraki, in particular, and his deputy Ike Ekweremadu have borne the brunt of the presidency’s attempt to attain unrestrained power.
Recent developments however have been more alarming-the barricading of the National Assembly by armed and hooded DSS officials on August 7, 2018 in a perceived effort to remove the Senate President who decamped from the ruling APC; the attempt by a small minority of Benue State legislators to impeach the state governor who also left APC apparently aided by the police; the EFCC’s attempts to cripple the Benue and Akwa Ibom state governments financially for political reasons; and the manner of conduct of recent elections in Ekiti, Bauchi, Kogi and Katsina. New APC national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole has begun to act like he is chair of the Armed Forces Ruling Council, Communist Party of Nigeria or other totalitarian political grouping and a recently elected senator from Bauchi campaigned on a platform of making Buhari president-for-life, something a civil society leader warned me was on the cards three years ago!
If the government persists in its determination to remove the Senate President and his deputy without the constitutional numbers required so-to-do, we would be approaching I fear, the full manifestation of the ides of Abacha!

Opeyemi Agbaje