WHAT IDEA IS GENERAL BUHARI?

 Published 21/03/2011 19:34:19 Sahara Reporters

General Muhammadu Buhari‘s arrest on August 25, 1985 terminated his reign as
Nigeria’s seventh political leader. He was flown to Benin City, and placed in solitary
 confinement. No reason was given for his incarceration. A trial was not
countenanced, nor questions asked. His, remains the only regime in
Nigerian history, whose successor did not and could not justify its
ouster on grounds of incompetence, corruption or unpatriotic disposition.
Rather, his unwavering will and indefatigable commitment to stirring
national spirit along directions that were viewed as revolutionary by certain
domestic and external interest groups.

In a matter of weeks, his regime had demonstrated its ability and willingness
 to compel a paradigm shift in the attitude and mentality of Nigerians. The people
were prepared for a novel era in which the ship of state would be driven toward
bounds never contemplated.

Events that marked his era as Head of State and those that followed his ouster
left not a few people convinced that the conspiracy that ousted General Buhari
extinguished the flame he had inspired in the hearts of men and stifled the voice
of a
generation. General Buhari did not just tell Nigerians that they can be a great
 people.
In more than mere words and within a time frame of twenty months, he
convincingly demonstrated how Nigeria can be a proud and great nation. Yet,
in the
twentieth month of his reign, he was deposed, arrested and jailed. How did it
happen?
 Why did we let it happen?

His twenty months reign as Nigeria’s seventh political leader and the phenomenon
 of
General Buhari’s almost four year detention in house number 29, Aiguobasinmi
Avenue,
 GRA Benin-City, were contradictory realities.

Dismissed from the Army, why was the deposed military Head of State detained
without
trial for over three years? The plan was to erase him from the collective
consciousness
of a nation, to rub away twenty months experience of General Buhari's rule,
from the
hearts and soul of Nigeria...to erase a legend from the memory of a people...
To put a genie
 into a bottle, cock it and throw it into the deep Atlantic. Ask any sincere and
courageous
man who lived the age to speak his mind. The answer can almost be predicted.
Something
 in the heart died on the 27th day of August, 1985. That day, the lie that has
continued
to keep Nigeria down was born and daylight was swallowed by darkness. A
 burning
light was extinguished by a gale from hell, marking the triumph of evil over
 good.
It was
the day a serpentine creature slithered into the groove that held the Eagle's
nest and
swallowed a fledgling bird. Memories of the bird’s devotion to a people’s
desire to
be great, remains as perennial as

grassland that laps living water.

The serpentine creature took over the nest, and nested millions of its

kind...gobbling up much of everything. Dreams became nightmare… vanity,
national
order. Conscience were bought and sold, and oaths sworn for a lie to be lived fully.

At the threshold of atrophy, with the ship of state adrift in uncharted waters,
surfaces a
 bottle, with the message that our Eagle is alive. From wilderness, he swoops,
back to lead.
 The Eagle is back, stronger, spoiling for the final confrontation. Is the party of
serpentine creatures drawing to a close? Will they slither out the way they came?
Can a
divided nation unify,energize itself and find the strength to violently smash an
almost two
 decade old reign of serpents? Will the Falcon hear the Falconer's cry for it to soar,
 high
through the eye of the storm and higher still?

What kind of idea is General Buhari? Is it one which ninety nine out of every
hundred
times is doomed to failure, but the one time it scores its mark, changes the destiny
 of
 a people forever? If it attains its mark, what must General Buhari do to the
enemies?
These questions cannot be left hanging in the air.