President Muhammadu Buhari has been trending on Twitter since Saturday, under the hashtag, #tyrantbuhari.
The hashtag was obviously generated by Buhari’s bashers in the Peoples Democratic Party and the party’s army of cyber-warriors, also known as ‘the wailing wailers’ after Buhari queried the sense in a judge ordering the release of a person facing probe for stealing huge sums of money meant to buy arms to prosecute Boko Haram war.
Buhari spoke on Wednesday in his maiden media chat, during which he answered a broad range of questions on the state of nation.
But in its reaction, the PDP spokesman, Olisa Metuh declared Buhari a tyrant and after he was chided for rudeness by the APC chairman, John Odigie-Oyegu, Metuh reiterated his party’s position:
“The entire world listened to President Buhari during the chat and went away with different impressions. We did and came up with the theme of our initial reaction that portrayed him very appropriately as a tyrant. And for purpose of clarity, a tyrant is a ruler who has complete power over a country and who uses the power in a cruel and unfair way, which was why we recommended the suspension of the operation of the constitution so he can rule for the next four years as a maximum ruler”, Metuh said on Saturday.
Nigerians on Twitter have been divided ever since on whether President Buhari who was elected last year March is a tyrant.
Two tweets by parody Twitter account in the name of former Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo, encapsulated the reactions of Buhari’s supporters and both were hugely popular with hundreds of retweets :
Another suppporter of the president believes that the attack on him was a blackmail tool to wring some concessions in the N6 trillion budget awaiting passage by the National Assembly.
Philip Obin believes the accusation is baseless, if the state security apparatus had not descended on those engaged in the pillory of the president:
Bashir Ahmad thinks the campaigners are wasting their time as the President enjoys the support of Nigerians.
The same view is shared by Olala Seun Akioye and Dr Dipo Awojide, who said a tyrant Buhari would have arrested former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The #tyrantbuhari campaigners, however, are unrelenting in their crusade to robe the president as a tyrant.
The debate is still raging, but we end with this;