Following reports that
President Donald Trump ridiculed Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari by
calling him ‘lifeless’, former aviation minister, Femi Fani-Kayode has reacted
to the statement.
The greatest threat to
national security and the national interest is a President that cannot
appreciate the sanctity of the rule of law and the sacrosanct nature of the
constitution.
If this rhetoric of
national interest and national security being more important than the rule of
law continues it will have grave, disasterous and cataclysmic consequences for
our country. It will lead to strong resistance, subversion of the state,
conflict, war and the disintegration of Nigeria.
This is because we are not
prepared to live in or accept the imposition of a totalitarian police state
where dissent, opposition, free speech, human rights and civil liberties have
no place.
This is Nigeria where
freedom flourishes and where democracy thrives and not Saudi Arabia or North
Korea where it is dead.
Martin Luther King said “if
you are not prepared to die for something then you are not fit to live for
anything”.
He said “If we are wrong,
justice is a lie and love has no meaning”.
Every Nigerian was born
free: we will not allow anyone, including a lifeless President, to turn us into
slaves.
The only things that we
have asked for and are insisting on are the preservation of our liberty and
cherished values, the right to an unhindered and unencumbered life and the
establishment of an equitable, multi-cultural, multi-racial and multi-religious
modern and plural nation-state in which there are no masters and servants and
in which every man, woman and child is regarded as being equal and having equal
opportunities regardless of his or her faith, ethnic nationality and
circumstance of birth.
We insist on the
establishment of a nation in which we are free to make our own choices and in
which our respect, pride, sense of self-worth and dignity are guaranteed and
preserved. Anything less than that is unacceptable.
We hear the threats and
boastful words of those that are in authority today, that control the levers of
power and that man the organs of state.
We see and acknowledge
their awesome power to crush, kill, maim, jail and destroy those of us that
they hate and that they consider to be their enemies and adversaries yet we are
not intimidated and we harbour no fear.
We refuse to bow and
tremble before them or to bend the knee. We refuse to be cowered or to be
silenced.
Instead we challenge them
do their very worse because we serve an awesome God whose name is the Ancient
of Days and the Lord of Hosts, who is mighty in battle.
We defy them and laugh them
to scorn because the things that we have asked for are worth fighting and, if
necessary, dying for.
We would rather live as
free man for a single day than live as slaves for one thousand years. And make
no mistake about it: we are not alone.
We are the voices of the
voiceless and the servants of truth: when we speak, we speak for millions.
When we are killed, locked
away or declared missing in action, in the name of the Living God, others will
rise and continue the noble struggle and glorious fight.
We cannot be deterred, we
cannot be defeated, we cannot be subdued and we cannot be overwhelmed.
Ultimately, in the name of
God the Great and He who holds the universe together by the power of His word,
you will fall and we shall prevail.
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