CAVEAT EMPTOR: MURIC WARNS MILITARY AGAINST COUP

18^th January 2016,

PRESS RELEASE:

CAVEAT EMPTOR: MURIC WARNS MILITARY AGAINST COUP

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State yesterday cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari on the investigation ordered into the involvement of immediate past military chiefs in scams in the purchase of arms. Fayose euphemistically referred to the likelihood of the military resisting such investigation by toppling Buhari’s government.

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) finds Fayose’s warning unnecessary, distasteful and alarming It is short in sincerity but long in hypocrisy. It is also provocative. It falls within the rank of hate speech and incitement.

There is no gainsaying the fact that there has been no love lost between Governor Ayodele Fayose and President Buhari. The governor has never been known to wish the president well. Is this not the same governor who placed a full page death-wish advertisement in the newspaper before the presidential elections? This same governor has become known for his blind and unobjective criticism of Buhari’s policies since the inception of this administration. So who is he trying to scare?

It is also an open secret that Fayose is the unofficial spokesperson of Nigeria’s executive thieves. Nigerians should check the records. Why was Fayose impeached as governor during his first tenure? The motive for his second coming is not unknown: to finish the unfinished ‘business’.

Fayose’s opposition to the current war against corruption should therefore not surprise anyone. His allergy for probity and accountability led him to insist that he would not embrace the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy. We shall know them by their fruits. Just yesterday, Sokoto State was able to discover a N1.5 billion excess through the TSA. This alone proves that TSA is in our best interest. So who is Fayose deceiving? What purpose does his grandstanding serve?

MURIC advises the rank and file of the Nigerian Army to ignore Fayose’s euphemism. The army should not allow itself to be incited to mutiny by a man who is still licking the wounds of defeat, a man who had built castles in the air believing that his rigging abracadabra would save his principal, a man facing damning indictment for election rigging.

If there is any governor the inmates of Kirikiri are waiting for to join them today, it is Ayodele Fayose. Here is a frustrated man looking for ways of sinking the whole ship.   

We remind the Nigerian Army that military rule has become an anachronism. Any involvement of the military in politics is a misadventure. Nigerians have not only breathed the air of democracy, they have tasted its delicious juice. They have bitten, chewed and swallowed its fulfilling morsels.

There is no going back. Let no frustrated politician deceive our soldiers. Nigerians have long declared a caveat emptor: military rule must not come back again.

We cherish our gallant soldiers in their professional role. They are the defenders of our territorial integrity. They have put Boko Haram to shame though the war is not completely over yet. They are our heroes so long as they remain in their professions without venturing into politics. They must remain vigilant as new roles continue to emerge when unscrupulous elements become cogs in the wheel of peace, law and order.

We warn that only thieves and corrupt elements in the military will contemplate mutiny at a time when the Nigerian people, the academic, civil society, and the professionals have declared their unalloyed support for the war against corruption. Discipline is the hallmark of the military and the height of military discipline is the readiness to submit to constituted authority. We therefore remind Nigerian soldiers of the need to be ready to submit to civil authorities who are currently in power. Failure to do so is rebellion and every Nigerian soldier knows the implication of this.

On a final note, we assert clearly, unambiguously and unequivocally that the current war against corruption is neither partisan nor clannish. It is only logical that a probe of past misdeeds can only involve those who supervised the misdeeds. Those complaining of victimization and vendetta are merely shedding crocodile tears. The war against corruption must continue unabated. Aluta Continua. No Retreat, No Surrender.  

Professor Ishaq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
08182119714