Reactions to the PUNCH editorial of December 11, 2019, have been fast, furious and fractious. They reflect, at one end, the perspicacity of our national and global audience, the groundswell of concern about the repeated and aggravated battery of the rule of law and the yearning of Nigerians for the genuine conversion of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to a respecter of the rule of law.
At the other end, a babble of minority commentaries, comprising misrepresentations, falsehood, obfuscation and threats has festered, fed by a welter of sentiments that mirror the usual ethnic, religious and partisan fault lines that hobble objectivity and inhibit the type of consensus that activate positive change.
The PUNCH is encouraged by the massive effusion of appreciation of our stand from our readers and other patriots and the strenuous intellectual exertions of others who, without prompting, attested to our unimpeachable track record in speaking truth to power. Some trawled the archives for proofs in the form of previous editorials that admonished past administrations to address the odious social, economic and political ills that are now commonplace in this dispensation.
The rule of law and a healthy respect for the principle of separation of powers are some of the fundamental building blocks of democracy. When governments trample on human rights, disregard court orders and allow security agents and agencies to act with impunity, democracy and progress are imperilled. When this is the case and citizens, patriots and the media refrain from speaking up, then anarchy will knock at the door and by its persistence, force its way into the polity.
This is the message that the editorial that has so roiled the Presidency and its supporters conveyed. Genuine patriots saw the editorial for what it was: a wake-up call propelled by the ennobling values of freedom, the sacred duty of the press and the desire of Nigerians for true democracy.
Our stand, a symbolic protest against the creeping autocracy under the Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) Presidency; his serial disregard for court orders; his regime’s detention of suspects beyond the stipulated constitutional time limit and the violent contempt for basic rights by the State Security Service, the police and the military, remain unchanged.
For the avoidance of doubt, our symbolic protest is against the prevailing high-handedness and military-style repression of the government of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). PUNCH (all our print newspapers, The PUNCH, Saturday PUNCH, Sunday PUNCH, PUNCH Sports Extra, and digital platforms, especially punchng.com) will continue to prefix his name with his rank (Major General) as a military dictator in the 1980s, and refer to his administration as a regime, until they purge themselves of their insufferable contempt for the rule of law. PUNCH is determined to play its part to ensure that Buhari’s impatience and intolerance for democratic ideals should not define or endanger Nigeria’s democratic experience.
It is gratifying to observe that the positives of our intervention outweigh the vitriol that emanated from expected and unexpected quarters. The editorial accomplished its purpose, and bore other unexpected dividends. It has given a voice to the sense of helpless outrage that right-thinking members of society feel towards the continued assault on the rule of law; galvanised groups and individuals to speak against dictatorship; amplified the voice of dissent against the regime’s serial abuse of power; highlighted its disregard for basic rights; returned, in a forceful manner, the twin issues of human rights and disobedience to court orders to the front burner; and, lastly, sent a strong message to the regime and its apologists that Nigerians, though silent, are not asleep.
In the main, the pushback against the editorial and our stand betrayed an acute ignorance of symbolism and its enduring and tremendous powers. Sadly, individuals and institutions whose education and corporate ethos ought to have apprised them of the finer nuances of the subject, and the diverse uses to which generations of intellectuals and change agents have put symbolism, exhibited a poor understanding of the weapon and the matters at hand.
This gross ignorance was also strongly reflected in the potpourri of lies, innuendos and red herrings that the regime’s apologists in the media and society tried, vainly, to use to deflect attention from the message conveyed by the editorial and the light shone on the excesses of the Buhari regime.
The noxious lie that PUNCH stripped Buhari of his title of president is one of the many examples of this poor intellection. By any and every measure, prefixing the President’s name with his military rank, which he earned and wore proudly for decades, is not the same as stripping him of his title as president. The simplest, briefest explanation of the objective that this half of PUNCH’s symbolic message was meant to achieve was given by Ahmed Raji (SAN): “The point being made is a subtle way of telling him that the government is not observing the rule of law.” As for the word “regime,” the ordinary dictionary meaning of the word should suffice: a government or system of government, “especially an autocratic one,” elected or otherwise.
The pushback has also included a cowardly, faceless attempt by Internet trolls of no-fixed addresses, to link PUNCH, and its editors to slush funds. Those who do so forget that this newspaper suspended its membership of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria to protest the association’s acceptance of government compensation through the back door in the months following the seizure of newspapers by security agents.
This decision reflects our fierce editorial independence and commitment to the finest ethos of the journalism profession. It also informed the company’s decision not to negotiate with a military regime, but to mount a legal battle against the closure of the newspaper, at a point in its history. This newspaper fought, in the open for 25 years, up to the Supreme Court, which this year declared the invasion and closure of PUNCH premises by the police and SSS operatives in June 1994 illegal, and affirmed the N25 million damages awarded to it by a Lagos High Court.
Our newspaper considers the allegation of hatred against Buhari and his regime, levelled by the regime’s apologists, as undeserving of a detailed response. It is an unimaginative allegation, poorly fabricated and the favourite hobbyhorse of successive regime spokespersons in the dark days of military rule, and government mouthpieces in the years thereafter.
In the not-so-distant past, during the Jonathan era, PUNCH’s serial, trenchant exposure of that government’s misdeeds, a matter of public record, drew attention to that government’s fiscal recklessness, incompetence and corruption. Now in opposition, its supporters, we are sure, will be amused by the childish accusation of partisanship levelled by those who are yesterday’s beneficiaries of the positive actions of the media and other pro-good governance agents, and today’s temporary occupiers of power.
The regime’s tendency of accusing critics of “insulting the President” is ominous and a qualified danger to our democracy. Buhari is neither a king nor an emperor. Nigeria is not a kingdom or an empire. Our constitution does not include lèse-majesté laws. Nigeria is not Thailand. Anyone who regards scrutiny or criticism from the public as an “insult” has no business seeking elective office. It is time for all Nigerians, including this regime, to place national interest above any other and work to make the country a viable democracy. Our message is simple: autocracy has no place in a democracy, and the laws of the land must be obeyed by all.
After the editorial, the President, himself, offered the greatest proof that the PUNCH editorial and the misgivings we called attention to were very well in order. Buhari, at his 77th birthday, again confessed his discomfort with the processes and institutions of democracy and voiced a worrisome nostalgia for his military dictatorial past when, as PUNCH detailed in its editorial, he simply corralled suspects into detention. This admission speaks volumes about the Buhari personae.
There is still time, however, for Major General Buhari (retd.) to convert into a true democrat and reshape his legacy. Speaking at a Chatham House event in London in 2015, he had said, “Before you is a former military ruler and a converted democrat who is ready to operate under democratic norms.” Nigerians are weary of empty promises: the retired Major General should walk the talk.
