Thread by @chonsyy

This thread 👇 contains VERBATIM clips from @GuardianNigeria editorial of August 30, 1985, three days after General Buhari’s govt was sacked by IBB & CO.

Looks like an editorial you'll read again after May 2019.

READ SLOWLY.

#NeverAgain

"It did not take long before the Buhari administration, so openly and so warmly received by Nigerians when it came to power, began to show it's true and frightful face. Soon enough, it became clear that his administration had a conception of government in which the governed..."

"...were regarded as a hostile, adversary force, and in which government was virtually an end in itself."

"Laws were made, as much through decrees as by administrative fiat, without any evident regard for the interest of the people, let alone their views. Regulations were casually put out, more as punitive devices than as measures designed to ameliorate the citizen's condition".

"Practically every segment, except, perhaps, the uniformed forces, was antagonised, sometimes humiliated"

"Civil liberties were always precarious in military regimes. But the Buhari administration perfected the attrition of elementary freedoms to the point where the average civilian was driven to see himself, often against his will, as a pariah"

"Criticism, even self-criticism, constructive or foul, was banned. Nothing could safely be said of a government that seemed determined to be remembered more for its self-righteous omniscience than for its decency or humanity"

"Blackmailed into silence, Nigerians watched as the traditional foundations of the state were eroded. Ethnicity became a principle of state policy. The economy sputtered along. Educational policy was in a shambles. Our hospitals became graveyards"

"Ultimately, it was the arrogance of the Buhari administration that led to its downfall. For arrogance always leads to moral and political blindness. Blindness leads to isolation, and when any government is isolated from the governed, it's end is always predictable" END.

This was 33 years ago. This was the man they beatified, erected a tattered halo around his head and propped up as President.

What has changed about him or his ways? Absolutely nothing. We warned then. We're warning again.

#LGNWA