Written by Emediong George
A former ally of President Muhammadu Buhari, Buba Galadima says the recent demonstrations against Police brutality as captured in the #EndSARS protest have removed the cloak of invincibility from the Buhari administration.
In an interview with newsmen on Friday, Galadima stated that the Buhari-led government was setting the stage for a major revolution in the county.
Galadima also kicked against the Northern Governors over what he described as their “shameful” declarations that the youth-led protest which was engineered by injustices meted out to them by the administration and its enablers was an attempt to force a change of government.
According to him, unless those in government were playing ostrich, the #EndSARS protests, he said, went beyond seeking an end to police brutality. He stressed that Nigerian youths were demanding end to systemic corruption in Public Service and the exclusion of qualified Nigerians from access to existing opportunities.
He further stated that Nigeria needs a leader who has a large heart and would carry everyone along.
In his words, “We need a leader that is a large-hearted, who will carry us all along, not because he is an Idoma man or a Barde man. Do they know? One of my friend’s sons wanted to join the police force. He was asked by these faceless people to pay an amount of money for him to be recruited.
“My friend told his son, ‘even if I had the money, I won’t pay, besides, I don’t even have the money. If you are recruited because I paid the money, you are also going in there to help yourself to make the money back.”
He said he has worked for Buhari more than any other person yet his children are not employed in the public service.
“Now, I have about seven children with master’s degrees. I have medical doctors, but none of them could be employed (into the public service) because I don’t have the money to give,”
“Even my friends in the government are running away from me because they wouldn’t want to be seen with me, let alone for me to ask for a favor.
“A favor from a government formed by Buhari, whom I worked more than any human being, including Buhari himself, to bring into office, that I can’t even bring a son or a daughter to be employed?”
“Or my daughter could work in the (Presidential) Villa for four years without salary? Not one penny. If they claim they don’t know they will read it in Sunday PUNCH now, let’s see whether they can pay her.”
“In this respect, the government at all levels including the states in the north have failed. Youths who are victims (of police brutality) came out to protest. Is that wrong? And some people now come out to say they want to overthrow the government.”
He mentioned that the youths protest had made the regime “jittery’’ and that its “feeling of invincibility disappeared; they melted like oil on fire.”
“That is why they prefer to keep their people in ignorance and abject poverty so that they can continue to appeal to their sentiments. We also know that some clergy men were commissioned and paid humongous amounts of money to be preaching in mosques about this. Hunger, deprivation, poverty and disease do not know tribe or religion.”
