BUHARI, A CRIMINAL PRESIDENT FOR NIGERIA?

Icheoku says did the fact that Robbin Hood distributed his loot to the poor and needy of England make his criminal brigandage acceptable? Did the fact that Ma Baker stole from the rich and gave to the poor, give him a pass from the law against his many bank robberies? What about the infamous Lawrence Aninih of Benin, former Bendel State of Nigeria armed robbery saga or rather notoriety, who robbed banks and distributed his loot to the poor and needy of Benin? When he was caught, did he plead his charitable contributions to secure his freedom from the hail of police bullets that ended his life? Ditto Ngene Omu of Enugu State who robbed everyone including banks but gave the proceeds to the needy of Enugu State. When the end of his life came, did he plead his being Mr Generosity to blunt those police hot leads? 

So what is Icheoku saying traveling down these memory lanes of some world notorious robbery kingpins who thought they were doing good with their loot while breaking the law? Icheoku has been doing some research lately, on a few words, particularly the word "coup d'etat" and who a coup plotter really is?  The word coup d'etat, which is French, means to cause a "stroke of the state," i.e. to cause a state to have a stroke or to give a "blow  to or against the state or government." Continuing, "a coup de'tat is the unlawful taking control by some group of military personnel of some active portion of the military while neutralizing the remainder of a country's armed forces. This group captures or expels the leaders of the country or government, illegally seizes physical control of important government offices, means of communication, and the physical infrastructure, such as streets and power plants. The coup succeeds if its would be opponents fail to dislodge the plotters, allowing them to consolidate their position, obtain the surrender or compliance of the populace and surviving armed forces, and claim legitimacy. 

A coup d’etat is an illegal quick and decisive seizure of governmental power by military or political coup plotters. It is the sudden convulsive overthrow of a government by a small group of army personnel who then arrest the incumbent leaders, seizes the national radio and television services and proclaims itself in power. A coup plotter is therefore someone, usually a military person, who secretly makes plans with others to do something illegal, wrong or harmful alongside his other conspirators such as the overthrow of a legitimate subsisting government. Planning and/or carrying out a coup d'etat is therefore a crime and so are coup plotters, criminals, both in the illegality of their act and in the conspiracy to carry out same. Icheoku therefore queries, had Muhammadu Buhari not succeeded with the coup d'etat of December 31st 1983, would he still be alive today? 

As a conspirator to an illegality - coup plotting and its execution, had he not succeeded, would he have been hailed as a hero or rather shot as a common criminal who levied insurrection against the state? If the answer is the later and Nigerians agree that what Buhari did on that cold December 31st night 1983, when Nigerians were awaiting the arrival of the new year, was both illegal and unlawful, and that he would have been executed if he did not succeed, and given that only criminals are executed for their criminal act or conduct, does it not therefore necessarily follow that Muhammadu Buhari is a criminal, but one who succeeded in carrying out his crime? So why does murderers and armed robbers as well as other criminals who successfully carried out their crimes, later get hunted down to face justice? At least until there is a state pardon extirpating the said crime, a crime remains a crime and a criminal involved thereto remains a criminal? So why should an established criminal be running for the office of the presidency of the Nigerian state or is it a case of what is good for the goose not being good for the gander? Why must different rules be applied to different criminals or is someone now saying that some crimes are more reprehensible than others? 

Now follow it up by asking whether successfully committing a crime or doing something illegal removes the repugnance which society attaches to  such conduct? So except the end now justifies the means as with almost everything Nigerian, and that the crime of coup plotting is now an acceptable crime in Nigeria, why would someone tainted with the crime of overthrowing of a legitimately elected democratic government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and who has not been granted a state pardon, now be hailed as a hero and the knight in shinning armor charging on horse back to the rescue of Nigeria? Icheoku says, for a man who violently overthrew an elected government of President Shehu Shagari in a bloody coup d'etat, at least Brigadier Bako was killed during the putsch, to now become so elevated by a society that has been aptly described as 'too fast and too furious', leaves much to be desired and a very sour palate in the mouth of many decent human beings the world over. How can a man with blood in his hands and who conspired to wreck havoc on a state be allowed to shamelessly stand for election into the same office he deprived another? 

What sensibility is left in these Nigerians that cannot condemn and frown at a criminal behavior but seem to celebrate criminals of every kind and description. If such a criminal could now be so celebrated as a corruption czar extra-ordinaire, why is nobody also querying how he first became opportune to get into the position to so profess or prove his mettle fighting corruption? Icheoku says if it is indeed agreed that the end does not justify the means and that a criminal behavior should always and forever remains opprobrious in the eyes of the society, then a man who committed such an abhorable crime of levying insurrection against the state and which qualifies him as a very hardened criminal, should not have anything to do desiring the office of Nigeria president or be allowed anywhere near the office. 

But in any other event, it is Nigeria and in Nigeria, everything is virtually possible, including the current celebration of Muhammadu Buhari for his perfidious and inimical conduct of overthrowing a legitimate government, which in other civilized societies would be greatly frowned at. As far as Icheoku is concerned, coup plotting and/or its execution is as heinous as it gets, if not worse than armed robbery and murder combined. Therefore every coup plotter, whether successful or not, should be summarily executed whenever the opportunity calls and so should Muhammadu Buhari have been. Icheoku laments that it is as a result of a society that condones indecent behavior and infra-dig conducts that a person who should have since been executed or at least locked away to rot in prison has become a continuing nuisance in Nigeria  and shamelessly desiring to be her president? What a tragedy - the tragedy of an unconscionable polity that allowed the likes of Muhammadu Buhari to thrive among them. What a perfidy!