Treason, that word that used to be dreaded in Nigeria’s public sphere, is fast becoming hackneyed. It has become something of a cliche so much so that its dread and dreadfulness have been lost to misuse and overuse.
We owe this culture of trivialization and frivolity to the Bola Tinubu administration. In the bid to determine the meaning of meaning, a quest that tasked 20th Century intellectualism to no end, the Nigerian government of 2024 is disrupting and toying with the meaning of treason. A new meaning and connotation is being imposed on a word whose import is clear to the averagely literate Nigerian. All this is aimed at arriving at a predetermined objective which serves not the national interest but that of the repressive government of the day.
Anybody who was in these shores in the heyday of military incursion into Nigerian politics will readily connect with the observation we are making here. Then, it was a big deal to be accused of treason. Such an accusation spelt death. It usually came with trepidation and lethal finality. But not so any longer. The Bola Tinubu disorder has taken the customary dread out of the world. The word has been so abused and cheapened that it has lost its originality. It is now carelessly deployed especially by those who should know better.
Under the present dispensation, anybody who disagrees with any action or policy of government is accused of treason. Whatever you do, no matter how public-spirited it may be, once government has any reason to frown on it, just be sure that you will be accused of indulging in a treasonable act. That is how debased the word has become.
This debasement has a story behind it. It is the direct consequence of February 25. The outgoing government of President Muhammadu Buhari had conducted an election on this date. The election gave the country the direct opposite of what the majority of the people voted for. But the rape of the people’s will did not go without a whimper. It was trailed by widespread condemnations. So many things were wrong with the conduct and outcome of the election. Even the candidature of the man who was returned elected was patently questionable.
The Buhari government and its electoral commission had no defence for their actions and inactions. The government was just single-minded about what it wanted to achieve. Tinubu must be installed president by all means. This, the government reasoned, would not be achieved if it did not bare its fangs. It must harass opposition elements into stupor so that none would have the temerity to continue to question the outcome of the election. Government’s most potent weapon then was to unleash the specter of treason on the scene. Naysayers must be reined in with accusations of treason.
Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in that election, who claimed victory with unassailable facts and figures, was the first to be accused of treason. Two ministers under the Buhari administration started it all. First was Mr Festus Keyamo, then Minister of State for Labour. He said Obi’s claim to victory, contrary to what the electoral commission declared, was an act of treason. He then charged the Department of State Services to arrest Peter Obi for that imaginary offence.
Second was Alhaji Lai Mohammed, then Minister of Information and Culture. He picked up from where Keyamo stopped. But whereas Keyamo used the Nigerian soil as his locale, Lai Mohammed chose to appeal to a foreign audience. He travelled all the way to the United States to tell his story of how the election of February 25 was won and lost. He told the foreign audience that Peter Obi was guilty of treason for questioning the results of the election as announced by the electoral commission.
Since then, treason has become the government’s battlecry. It is the most poisonous weapon in its arsenal. It is actually the lash with which it whips its detractors into line. It is also a well-worn piece of blackmail employed and deployed by government to clip the flapping wings of naysayers.
This defense mechanism is ceaselessly being applied by the Tinubu disorder without let or hindrance. Some three months ago when Organized Labour called out Nigerian workers to a nationwide strike, it was accused of treason for shutting down the national grid. Government and its hatchet men cried blue murder. Labour leaders were labeled enemies of the state.
Then came the #EndBadGovernance protests. Distraught Nigerians filed out to register their frustrations with a government-engineered disorder that was snuffing life out of millions of Nigerians. Government fidgeted to no end about this. Having failed to stop the protests, the authorities adopted all manner of strong arm tactics. Its security operatives placed a criminal tag on peaceful protests. It arrested and detained as many protesters as fell into their dragnet.
As you read this, those arrested by security operatives for their participation in the August protests are being charged for treason.
But that is not all. The mother of them all was the treasonable felony charge that government tried, and is still trying, to hang on the neck of the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Joe Ajaero. The police had, days after the protests, invited Ajaero to answer questions bordering on criminal conspiracy, terrorism financing, treasonable felony, subversion and cybercrime. Even though no formal charges have been brought against Ajaero, government has succeeded in putting him on edge. It is a warning signal to Labour leaders and other elements who are up in arms against government and its bad policies that such protestations can land them in trouble. The whole idea is to frighten, weaken and, ultimately, cow anti-bad governance elements.
The bottom line here is that the Tinubu regime is intolerant of dissent. Anybody who dares it on this score is an enemy. Such a person has to be called a treasonable felon so as to silence him and get him to conform. Those who fail to conform may either be hounded into prolonged detention or forced into exile. Either way, the government will be the happier for it. This is the strategy that government has deployed to stave off any form of agitation. It is a totalitarian scheme. Sooner or later, those who are yet to appreciate its full import will come face to face with this fresh brand of fascism.
QUOTE:
“Treason has become the government’s battlecry. It is the most poisonous weapon in its arsenal. It is actually the lash with which it whips its detractors into line. It is employed and deployed to clip the flapping wings of naysayers.”
