Outside the ‘Fine Feathers’! -By Ismail Misbahu

Sorry to say that my opinion may be very controversial today! But anyway, let’s talk about ethics first. President Muhammadu Buhari tweeted:

“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand!”

This is simply unethical. However, when it assumes the aura of a top official brass, this utterance is not only stodgy and primordially divisive, but also dangerously splintery to a nation that has been suffering from deeply-inflicted fissures of aged-old irreconcilable twins bigotries: the ‘North’ and ‘South’ — each still holding on to the blur, of assuming a distinct religious identity — Islam and Christianity respectively. This is apart from the growing ethnophobia that spells the country’s fragile mentality on the framework of peace initiative.

However, the calculated danger in the President’s seemingly unguarded utterance was not the concern of many, much as the action by the FGN to ban the Twitter operations provoked wide national and international reactions. Nigerians are too unrealistic! Although the action took by the owner of the Twitter social platform, Mr. Jacks Patrick Dorsey, to delete the PMB’s tweet and suspend his account for half a day cannot be unconnected with the ban; chances are the PMB’s flagrant decision will provide ground for national and international blackmail. As responses cast the gloom over his decision, more, not less of these responses, are condemnable ones — both ethical and unethical. Among the ethical ones, is a Joint Statement signed and issued by the Diplomatic Mission of EU, U.S., Britain, Canada and Ireland, and reads:

“The path to more secured Nigeria lies in more, not less, communication.” … ‘Banning systems of expression ‘, the statement says, ‘is not the right answer’. Precisely, it added, ‘(this) is the moment (of Covit-19 pandemic) Nigeria needs to foster inclusive dialogue and expression of opinions.”

However, though the above joint statement is guarded by ethical pronouncement, it sounds more plausible than real! This is the first time I have heard of a joint statement from the Diplomatic Missions despite the aggravating tendencies of constitutional impunity going on in Nigeria and elsewhere in the World.

Let’s admit President Muhammadu Buhari makes the foul, recent happenings similar to his own tell us he was not the first. This does not also suggest that his tweet is granted guilty-free. A good example on the cosmic scale, I must say, is Donald Trump. We haven’t heard any joint statement against his blatant trashing of norms, lying through his abusive twitter handle, and of course, his smearing of the press and political opponents. When at a meeting with Mr. Dorsey in the White House Trump complained why Twitter had limited (or ‘removed’) some of his tweets and followers, Mr. Dorsey’s cold tweeter reply only came after the meeting, that ‘we did that to make Twitter healthier and more civil’. Whereas the PMB’s tweet was not categorically specific compared with Trump’s, the response against the former by the same Mr. Dorsey seems even harsher: ‘President’s tweet violated the Site’s rules against abusive behaviour’!

Again with Barack Obama, we haven’t heard any joint statement by the Diplomatic Missions when he declared that “no more meddling with Iran ” i.e. suggesting the restriction of tweeter operators among the U.S. Army and officials in the White House. This was at a time when Mr. Dorsey was running a ‘maintenance program’ that would eventually lead to the shutting down of Twitter, just to manage not undermine the freedom of expression associated with the 2009 Green Revolution which the mass Iranians took across the streets. The same with various heads of various sovereign nations and independent Republics such as the Russian Vladimir Putin, the leader of the Korean Workers Party (KWP); also the supreme leader of the Republic, Kim Jong-un and China’s Xi Jinping who at certain point in time must have also shattered similar tweets. We still haven’t heard of any joint statement against people like Kim Jong-un!

We never heard of the joint statement BY THE Diplomatic Missions against the CIA alleged covert operation and calculated attempt to destabilize Nigeria while using Islam as a powerful vehicle. Greenwhite Coalition revealed how the CIA destabilization agenda was coordinated and promoted by the American Embassy in Nigeria. This include the use of secret training and indoctrination camps along the over 1000 porous borderlands (that were outside Custom command), of Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon. Youths largely from deprived, poor and disoriented backgrounds were recruited in the camps, and were lured into believing that what they were embarking upon as insurgency (or ‘insurrection’) was the work of Allah and therefore has a better life reward! There’s no any joint statement against this strongly convincing allegation, of arming militarily and financially, of poor and desperate Nigerian youths who, in most cases, answer Muslim names.

Above all, indeed, were the questionable attitudes of Mr. Dorsey [himself], who, as the owner of Twitter, also not free from posting and sharing hate speeches. His twitter account with about 3.9 million followers as at 2016 was suspended in November of this same year, by the Board Management, against a mistake that was not disclosed. Fortunately, two years later (i.e. on August, 30, 2019), this mistake, if at all so, was exposed when his twitter account was caught again by a Group calling itself the Chuckling Squad, of sharing and re-tweeting racist and abusive posts. Merely two months later (on October, 23, 2019), Mr. Dorsey again was accused of posting ads that were against the standard of global peace and harmony. To some U.S. analysts, this led to the fall in its stock price by 38.83 dollars to 30.75 dollars — all in the same year.

Mr. Dorsey was also challenged against his concerted effort to dampen the effect Twitter had on U.S. political elections. Besides, several attempts by the Twitter Board Management to oust Dorsey as its C.E.O must have proved that, indeed, something about his character and attitudes is shady! His previous speech at the U.S. TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Conference was not without his suspicion of spreading racist ideas. In all these, we never heard of a joint statement by the Diplomatic Missions against the owner of Twitter, Jacks Dorsey.

It may therefore be reasonable at this stage to hold on to a limited extent about the fact that PMB’s ban on twitter may not be unconnected with the ENDSARS protest. However, ENDSARS was not without its impunity. Part of the protest was allegedly supported by the West; and the ‘hashtag’ ENDSARS Twitter protest did not gain the subscription of all the 39+ million Nigerians using the platform since 2017. The suspicion is that there’s a hidden move outside the Police reform by some of the protesters to proceed with impunity and shake the feet of the nation, and here, Mr. Dorsey’s Twitter was not without its contribution i.e. in its selective manner of taking up and pushing forward side campaigns! The protest was not an all-inclusive genuine, and sincere one despite the unstoppable Police brutality, still against some of the ENDSARS leaders that had their bank accounts frozen and their properties seized, which in other ways, re-awaken its spirit.

The argument so far promoted here is that there’s, today in the World, a gross violation of the principle of Democracy, Rule of Law and Constitutionalism, and that has presented a global decay in the standard of ethical journalism and social media handles, morality and sense of obedience among both the rulers and the ruled all over World. There’s, as well, no room for selective blackmail therefore. It is just unjustifiable.

Again we haven’t heard of any joint statement against similar and even more combative utterances by popular separatists including the IPOB’s! Along with MASSOB, Ohana-Eze, the BZF (Biafran Zionist Federation), individuals in these organizations, together with some of their Governors couldn’t be guilty-free of tweeting and sharing dangerously misconceived ideas and potentially divisive chit-charts. They still believe that Fulani herdsmen are the children of the President and his flag bearers working towards the Islamization of Nigeria. It’s an old instinctive syllable though but it re-echoes in all their destabilization attempts. It was a belief of course, and it was not a joke because it was fired by hostile responses both in theory and practice.

While building on this belief, how could someone measure up the extent to which the ever-ready destabilization attempt through the re-activation , by Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, of a standing militia ― the dreaded Bakassi Boys ― the new rebranded ‘Anambra Vigilante Services’ to counter the Fulani herdsmen. What of the sheer utterance by separatists like Fani Kayode that ‘Southerners and their kinsmen were being killed by the Fulani’! How does someone measure up the extent of the destabilization attempt by the 22 members of the BZF who sought to take over the Enugu State Government House and hoist the Biafran flag on the Biafran Day of May, 30th, 2018?

Ismail Misbahu

PMB’s anger was not vomited without nausea; and this was of course the killings in the South-east upon which the ban on cattle wrestling was not also the concern, but the unabated killings. Whether or not IPOB ― and its standing militia ― the Eastern Security Network, is allegedly the masterminder of these outrageous killings, its suspicion cannot be null-and-void. PMB should not be distracted by the Biafra aura that keeps exploiting the perceived instincts of people like Nnamdi Kanu with lies and half truths. If Nnamdi Kanu is right by what Biafra stood upon, then everyone could answer with the same name, “I am Biafran”! The secession attempt by the Igbo was a reaction, by no means the only option, to the tragic event of the 15th January, 1966 ― the event that had never intended, in its agenda, to pull out the East. Indeed a secession move, in its perceived ideology, is not just a fashion of rebellion by the desperate few ― neither is it the courage or determination granted by the unjustifiable fanfares. It is deliberated with sound reasons and acceptable facts. These facts of course, must not remain oblivious to many Nigerians, i.e. on the very question of their gross misrepresentation, self-determination, environmental degradation, and of course mal-administration and de-industrialization etc, which every community, not only the IPOB’s, decries upon. Nigeria as a nation must survive and sustain with these challenges as a nation. Biafra is unjustifiable!

But then why must the PMB answer the name of the ‘Fulani President’? Is he really? He, of course, officially deconstructed himself, so to say! His tweet indeed, is not free from this curiosity. He is still living in the Military re-echoing the unworthy memories of Nigerian misconstrued history. He seems to have forgotten the hemorrhoid role they played as military actors; with their military imprint decipherable in almost every political event since 1966. Hopefully this will come to an end with the termination of his tenure in 2023!

God save Nigeria!!

Ismail Misbahu wrote via:
ismailmusbahu15@gmail.com