Reno Omokri states that One of the biggest mistakes the Unity Party of Nigeria and the Nigerian People’s Party made after Shagari’s re-election was to stay silent as its members egged on the military to overthrow the democratic government, as had happened in Ghana in 1981 and almost reoccurred there in 1983.
Why? Because after the coup, Former President, Shehu Shagari was placed under a comfortable house arrest, while all those politicians who encouraged the military were jailed under brutal and inhumane conditions. Some of them got sick in prison, and when General Buhari saw that they were about to die, they were released and died at home.
Fast forward to forty years later, and in 2023, members of the Labour Party are committing almost outright treason by egging on the military to replicate what was done in Niger Republic in Nigeria. And their leaders are refusing to call them to order.
Instead, they held a thanksgiving service for the pathetically hopeless case they have at the Presidential Election Petitions Court, where their candidate is not even claiming to have won.
Do they think that if they get their evil wish, Peter Obi will become President?
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is perhaps too gentle. There was a military coup in your neighbourhood, and you tolerate people coming out openly on social media to call for the same in your country? When there are legitimate, democratic and expedient ways of dealing with their ringleaders as an example to the rest?
History does not repeat itself. Men repeat history. Obidients are today repeating one side of our terrible history. My prayer is that President Tinubu will not repeat the other side and be a Nero-like hand wringing Shagari.
If President Shagari had been more assertive and less engaged in navel-gazing, Nigeria would not have gone through sixteen years of extremely kleptocratic military governments that saw the Naira go from ₦1 to $1 under Shagari in 1983, to ₦120 to $1 by 1983,
Calling for a military coup under any guise, even if you are ‘joking’, is treason. Circulating fake news attributed to President George Weah of Liberia is inciting (Weah is actually in support of “all measures” to restore democracy in Niger). Deal decisively with anybody that dares to do so on social media and deal even more harshly with any TV station that allows anyone to espouse such views on air.
