BUHARI, APC AND FREEDOM FOR THE ABDUCTEES

Sonnie Ekwowusi urges government to do more and free the Abuja-Kaduna train victims

It is obvious that securing the freedom of the abductees of the Abuja-Kaduna bombed-train is not the priority of the APC ruling party. Neither is it a priority of President Buhari nor former Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi nor the APC Presidential aspirants. The only priority of President Buhari, the APC ruling party and APC Presidential aspirants at the moment is to re-capture political power in 2023. They have no human feeling for these abductees. I hate to address them as abductees. They are not unknown abductees: they our fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and, above all, our brothers and sisters who were victims of the Abuja-Kaduna-train bombing and abduction on March 28, 2022 and who have been abandoned. The Buhari government does not care a hoot about these suffering brothers and sisters of ours. Had the Abuja-Kaduna train bombing and abduction occurred, say, anywhere in the western world or even Asia or other parts of the world, the CNN, BBC and the world media including the Nigerian media by now would have been bombarding us with the minute-by-minute analyses about the fate that had befallen the abductees and the efforts being made to secure their freedom. But this is Buhari’s Nigeria where life has become so cheap. This is Buhari’s government where the death and suffering of our fellow Nigerians do not matter to the government.

 With my head collapsing on the table in great dismay and sorrow, I am just looking at the gory photos of the dismembered bodies of the innocent church worshippers who were killed by terrorists at St. Francis Catholic in Owo, Ondo State last Sunday. These worshippers simply went to church to worship God only to be felled by the terrorists’ bullets. Just last week in the Lugbe area of Abuja a member of the Vigilante Group was stoned to death and set ablaze by Muslim extremists for allegedly insulting Prophet Mohammed or an Imam. This is Buhari’s Nigeria for you. No progress. We are still awaiting justice for Deborah Samuel who suffered the same tragic fate recently and now they have murdered another person for the same religious reason. Till date, the whereabouts of the conscience of the nation Leah Sharibu, the little girl who refused to succumb to their force to reject Christianity and embrace Islam, is still unknown. Is Leah Sharibu alive or dead? We don’t know. Contrary to Lai Mohammed’s claims, Leah Sharibu is nowhere to be seen today and the Buhari government will soon quit power.

The pertinent question: why can’t this Buhari government offer the citizens of Nigeria at least a minimum protection of their lives and property?  What an irresponsible government!  I believe it is now crystal clear that the APC ruling party has failed on all fronts-politically, economically, socially, culturally, intellectually and morally, security of lives and property-in the last seven years and consequently must not be re-elected in 2023. The national grid has collapsed again. The whole country including Abuja is submerged in darkness. This APC government is a complete disaster. It has no heart. It has no soul.  It lacks human feeling. It lacks imagination. In the early hours of 31^st October 2020, six American forces conducted a successful hostage rescue operation of  Philip Walton, 27, an American citizen who was abducted in Niger Republic and held hostage in Northern Nigeria. No American soldier was injured during the operation to rescue Philip despite the fact that the soldiers were unfamiliar with the Nigerian terrain. Now, you judge for yourself. Only one American was abducted and the American government did everything possible to send American soldiers to Nigeria to rescue him. At the moment scores of Nigerians are languishing in the dungeon of bandits and the Buhari government lacks the imagination of what to do to rescue them.

If the government lacks the military know-how and intelligence to rescue our abducted brothers and sisters, why can’t it humbly enlist the services of the American forces who rescued Phillip to come to Nigeria and rescue these brothers and sisters of ours who are being tormented in the bandits’ dungeon? Or, why can’t the Buhari government use the technology at its disposal to rescue them? If the kingpin murderer of the Anambra lawmaker Okechukwu Okoye was arrested with the aid of a phone technology, why can’t the Buhari government use the same technology to track down the bandits holding our brothers and sisters in their dungeon? If each of the APC Presidential aspirants could raise N100 million on the spur of the moment to purchase ordinary APC Presidential form, why can’t each of them, out of love for God and man, donate at least N50 million towards erecting a framework of human solidarity for the freedom of our abducted brothers and sisters?

In the last video footage shown to the public by the bandits, we saw some of our suffering brothers and sisters crying to high heavens and begging the Buhari government to come to their assistance before they die in the dungeon of their adductors. With tears flowing down her cheeks, one lady abductees, who was a classmate of Presidential aspirant Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo in the 1978/79 Nigerian Law School set, pleaded with Osinbajo to act quickly and save her life before she is killed by the abductors. Another weeping lady abductee complained that she left at home her sicklier son whom she was looking after and was unsure whether he had died or still alive. Earlier, a pregnant lady abductee was delivered of a baby in the bandits’ dungeon. Can you imagine your pregnant wife being abducted and delivered of your baby in the abductors’ dungeon?

 I must quickly remind us that the APC ruling party and President Buhari have destroyed this country almost beyond repair. Uncountable Nigerians have died owing to frustration due to the economic hardship in the land. The private businesses of many people have collapsed. Many sick Nigerians in the hospital have lost all hope of recovering from their illnesses. The country is in darkness at the moment. No jobs. The Naira has been under a free fall. The Buhari government which came to power under the mantra of fighting corruption is now corruption personified. We have now seen how the former Accountant-General of the Federation and others have been freely carting away billions and putting them into their private purses. Kidnappers, bandits, Fulani herdsmen, unknown gunmen, terrorists are lurking at every street corner. So, the Nigerian electorate must do everything possible to vote out the APC in 2023. Ditto for the PDP. Both the APC and PDP must be sent packing in 2023. Happily, uncountable Nigerian young are re-grouping across the country to ensure that most of the Nigerian youths not only retrieve their PVCs but cast their votes in 2023. Labour is toeing the same line of action.

We must understand that the sovereignty in our constitutional democracy resides with the people not with the APC or the PDP. Nigeria is our collective commonwealth. Therefore no Presidential aspirant has the right to conceive Nigeria as his personal fiefdom.  No Presidential aspirant has the right to treat Nigerians as his personal chattels. Therefore when President Buhari continues to say that he should be given a chance to select the person who would succeed him as President, he is insulting our collective intelligence. He is not our king and we are not his subjects either. We gave him the mandate to represent us in government. So he is our servant who should be accountable to us. Not to talk of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who goes about boasting that it is his turn to continue to enslave us. We reject it. No more slavery. We want our freedom back. 

• Ekwowusi writes from Lagos