Nigerian and indeed the world history is replete with astonishing cases where champions of the welfare of the economically dispossessed and politically disenfranchised have met stiff opposition from remnants of the bourgeois elite who are determined to halt any attempt to uplift the living standards of the masses and fortuitously end their socio-economic predicament and depredations.
In the 70s’ Salvador Allende, leftist president of the South American State of Chile was overthrown by right wing military officers funded by the American CIA, while in neighbouring Argentina, another right wing putsch ended the populist regime of Peron, the charismatic leader of the grassroots oriented parodist party.
In the United States, the emergence of Senator McGovern as the Democratic Party candidate backed by the youths, students, blacks and other oppressed minorities on a plank committed to ending the vicious Vietnam war was stoutly resisted by the powerful American military industrial complex made up of serving and retired generals, defense contractors like Boeing, McDonnel Dougles, Northrop, etc that were feeding fat on the sale of fearsome weapons of war utilised in the Vietnam conflict.
However examples also abound where the tribunes of the poor and oppressed have triumphed despite the shenanigans of the corrupt elite, moving forward to empower the people and enfranchise them in all material particulars. The famed Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, prevailed over the powerful objection of the United States of America, while in Angola Marxist leader Agostinho Neto led his people to independence from Portugal despite brutal opposition from the colonial power, South Africa.
Coming nearer home in Nigeria, particularly Ogun State, a titanic struggle is in the offing that has pitted a committed industrialist and philanthropist, Senator Buruji Kashamu against a motley but highly influential group consisting of retired generals, failed politicians and conservative apparatchiks who are determined to continue their nefarious schemes of permanently subjugating the wishes and aspirations of the people for their own narrow minded, clannish and oppressive whims and caprices.
Sensing that Senator Burunji Kashamu was on the cusp of a victorious inauguration as a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the desperate clique hurriedly enlisted the services of the NDLEA under the leadership of the now discredited Ahmadu Giade to abduct the senator under the guise of a dubious extradition request from the United States’ drug authorities. However the absurd illegality of the NDLEA premeditated action was exposed when the presiding judge queried the nature of the NDLEA operation which should have been preceded by a judicial order of extradition rather than jumping the gun before such an order was made.
The judge also slammed at the malicious and clearly lawless siege imposed on the senator’s residence as a throwback to the dark days of the military and ordered the lifting of the unholy siege without delay.
At other fronts, the plot against Senator Buruji was to assume ominous proportions as the National Assembly tribunal sitting in Ibadan nullified his election, calling for a fresh election within 90 days as stipulated in the electoral body, a decision that the sure footed senator has since appended. However a lot of insinuations and reverberations point to certain underhand dealings that may have characterised the tribunal verdict including allegations that over 150 million may have changed hands to enable Kashamu’s opponents claim victory both at the tribunal and the pending Court of Appeal deliberations.
It is instructive that given the nature of the opposition against Senator Buruji Kashamu by the entrenched retrogressive forces within Ogun State and the South West in general who have not forgiven him for astutely repositioning the PDP in the South West while having the tendency to enfranchise and empower the dispossessed masses, these grave allegations of judicial misconduct should be probed exhaustively by the National Judicial Council and all other relevant judicial bodies.
As for the NDLEA issue, the new leadership at the helm of the anti-graft body may do well to caution their overzealous officers in order to redeem the image of the agency which has suffered sustained bashing and battering under the profligate regime of the ousted Ahmadu Ciade.
As events unfold, it is manifestly clear that the stature and profile of the resilient and indefatigable Senator Buruji Kashamu continues to grow in leaps and bounds. As it has been posited by Napoleon, no army in the world can stop an idea whose time has come.
–Aliyu is a public affairs commentator