April 23. 2025
The recent admonition to Nigerians to defend themselves against terrorists was by a fearless outspoken Retired Army General, Theophilus Y. Danjuma of Nigeria. This was the umpteenth time that this same admonition came from this same man. He started during the tenure of Muhammadu Buhari as the president of Nigeria from 2015 to 2023. It was obvious that Buhari was a sympathizer of Fulani jihadist terrorists in Nigeria, and that’s putting it very mildly! Many critics of Buhari, Nigerians as well as non-Nigerians, did declare that Buhari was a jihadist himself. At the time, I quoted in my book and blogs a former American Ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, who said that Buhari’s attitude and many of his acts portrayed him as a jihadist.
Once upon a conference in 2021, John Campbell made a very controversial statement on jihadism in Nigeria. Campbell had been an Ambassador of the USA to Nigeria, from May 12, 2004, to July 19, 2007. He was an ex-Ambassador when he made his observation in 2021. That was towards the twilight of Buhari’s eight-year presidency. Campbell’s assessment of Buhari’s character and rulership supported my own assessment of Buhari in my blogs. Campbell was speaking from his observations of Nigeria polity for six-years as ambassador in Nigeria. He spoke on the criminal effects of Buhari’s extreme clannishness in favor of his Fulani race. In summary, Campbell said, “Buhari created the belief among Nigerians from other parts of the country, that he is a jihadist with a hidden agenda. Nobody wants a jihadist president.”
Mind you, I am always quick to make the point that there are great people in the Fulani tribe, and there are bad people in the Fulani tribe, too, just as they exist in every other tribe and every other nation of the world. The problem was that Buhari destroyed the image of the great people of the Fulani race by encouraging and supporting the terrible jihadists among the Fulani people in various ways. This has resulted in stereotyping of the Fulani race as jihadists by so many members of the other tribes of Nigeria.
Retired General T. Y. Danjuma was one of the Nigerians who openly declared that Buhari was backing Fulani jihadist terrorists with Nigeria armed forces. That was the first time that Danjuma admonished Nigerians to defend themselves and stop expecting Buhari to fight the jihadists with Nigeria army because Buhari was their supporter.
Now, Bola Tinubu is president, and T.Y. Danjuma has repeated that same self-defense admonition to Nigerians. This time, the situation is a little different from when Muhammadu Buhari was president. Buhari was accused of actually supporting the jihadist terrorists. Tinubu is not quite being accused of supporting the terrorists, but his weak effort to stop jihadist terrorism has not been any better than what it was during Buhari’s era. Just last week, I lambasted Tinubu for admonishing Governor Mutfwang of Plateau State to, I quote, “Stop the bloodbath” in his state. Nigerians are being massacred in great numbers by jihadist terrorists every doggone day. The Commander-In-Chief of Nigeria armed forces, Tinubu, abdicated his primary responsibility as president to protect lives and property of Nigerians. He jetted out of the country to France on a so-called “Working Vacation,” and senselessly admonished Governor Mutfwang of Plateau State to fight the terrorists.
For non Nigerians who may not know, state governors have neither the control of the Nigeria Police, nor the control of Nigeria Army. For their evil self-serving reasons, the people who have ruled Nigeria since independence have bastardized Nigeria’s original federalism constitution. Hence, Nigeria has one centralized police force under the control of the president of Nigeria. For their own self-serving purposes, the rulers have refused to create State and Community Police structure for effective policing of the country. The point here is that President Tinubu knows that state governors are not in charge of the country’s security apparatus, yet he nonsensically admonished Governor Mutfwang to “stop the bloodbath” by terrorists in his state.
Now, back to my topic of the day, and that’s General T. Y. Danjuma’s admonition to Nigerians to defend themselves against the jihadist terrorists who President Bola Tinubu has been unable to conquer. I do appreciate Danjuma’s sincere concern over the plight of Nigerians in the hands of terrorists due to the failures of the past president Buhari and the present President Tinubu. However, the question is, HOW THE HECK ARE NIGERIANS SUPPOSED TO DEFEND THEMSELVES??? The terrorists are armed to the teeth with sophisticated weapons and Nigerians are not allowed to own even the least sophisticated weapons like ordinary den guns, meeeeeeeen!!!!!!
So we have a country where the terrible rulers are unable to protect the citizens, and they refuse to allow the citizens to protect themselves. Worst of all, the terrible rulers refuse to ALLOW THE DECENTRALIZATION OF THE STUPIDLY CENTRALIZED POLICE SYSTEM OF NIGERIA. They refuse to allow the creation of State Police and Community Police structure for EFFECTIVE POLICING to address the terrorism menace.
In conclusion, I say that it’s easy to believe the information making the rounds that many rulers of Nigeria are criminally involved in the terrorism that is ravaging Nigeria today, meeeeeeeen!!!
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