By ‘Fisayo Soyombo
Three things about President Muhammadu Buhari’s expense-of-his-own-life threat to ballot box snatchers.
One, please stop telling us this wasn’t a death threat. We may not understand the English Language but we are not novices either. The law is clear: snatch ballot box, spend two years in jail.
Buhari could have warned us that those who snatch ballot boxes do so at the expense of two years in prison. I’m sure he wasn’t aware of that particular subsection of the Electoral Act.
In any case, a President who never obeys the law doesn’t bother to know it, much less live by it. Saddening.
Two, do you know that Buhari was actually threatening his own party members — not the general public? Yes! Don’t feel too bad if you didn’t know. I didn’t, myself; someone drew my attention to it. And when I watched the video again, I saw the step-by-step evolution of the threat. Buhari explained how he wanted Nigerians to vote for whomever they wanted, how his party men should not bother about his victory chances because he’d gone round all 36 states and the FCT and had secured enough support, and finally how anyone who thinks he has enough influence to snatch boxes risks his own life.
Actually, Buhari only threatened his own party men with death. So, if APC members are fine with the President wishing death on the ballot box snatchers among them, please let them be. Baffling.
Three, I’m astounded by the extent of sympathy mileage PDP is trying to extract from this matter. PDP Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, was very unprincely yesterday when he said Buhari was threatening “our fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters” with death.
Haba Mallam! It is true Buhari’s comment was unpresidential; however, if your “fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters” are ballot snatchers, you should be too mortified of yourself to come to the public to implicitly admit it. Shameful.