By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
At the end of his tenure in 1985, the then Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, granted his last interview to Halilu Ahmed Getso of FRCN Kaduna. The answer to the last question in the interview was very informative. What last message do you have for Nigerians? Halilu asked. Buhari, aware of plans to topple him, simply said that if anyone thinks leading the country is easy, let him come and try it.
Barely two weeks later, Buhari was overthrown. My kind-hearted mentor thought then he would retire to a quiet life. No. It was to be four years of torturous isolation and a haunting nightmare for 30 long years.
A decade later, Buhari would tell the world that he did not order the search of the houses of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Sheikh Abubakar Mahmud Gumi when he was head of state. It was done by some fifth columnists, he revealed. Unfortunately, as he noted, neither Awo nor Gumi was alive to forgive him.
To Egypt. In their bid to topple Muhammad Mursi from power, the military and some prominent businessmen orchestrated fuel shortages and power outages in order to pitch the Egyptian populace against the Muslim Brotherhood and its regime. They then hired some youth organizations to carry out demonstrations that snowballed into the 3 July 2013 coup. I was shocked to watch the public confession of the sabotage after all was done. Dr. Mursi was immediately arrested and incarcerated until he died.
Sabotage
The sabotage script is among the standard templates of people who want to topple governments. Opposition parties that lack credibility in fledgling democracies do the same. The recent cry of the APC presidential candidate cannot therefore be far-fetched. He echoed two issues—fuel scarcity and shortage of new naira notes—that are spawning the anger of Nigerians barely a month to the presidential election. With his name representing the ruling APC.