Nigeria's Unending Comedy 2

The old man might have been attacked all of a sudden by a surge of nerves and join the present bandwagon of Buhari bashing, or someone might have been preying on his name in this toxic political atmosphere where anything a big name says is lapped up by a fickle public as political gospel. In either case, it is necessary to continue with a catalogue of Shagari's achievements as president of Nigeria, to let us assess properly the political gains that might accrue from his criticism of Buhari.
Shagari, ably assisted by the then governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Kangiwa, was the architect of the Bakolori  Massacre. In 1982, huge swathes of land had been seized from peasant farmers in his own Sokoto State to construct the Bakolori Dam without any form of compensation being paid to them. The poor fellows naturally protested. Shagari moved in with troops and tanks and by the time the smoke from the tanks' exhaust cleared, more than two thousand farmers had been butchered. He was, with Kangiwa, later to earn the sobriquet, 'Butcher of Bakolori.'
The 1983 general elections were the only ones he had the opportunity to conduct and his handling of it shattered all the illusions left about his regime. The polls were not rigged, they were hanged. Packets of voting papers were being openly sold in the streets. Votes were simply allocated not only to the highest bidder, but to anyone who could bid. In the old Ondo State, Akin Omoboriowo, who had just defected to Shagari's NPN, was declared winner of the gubernatorial elections, an electoral heist as brazen as it was hefty. Violence erupted instantly. Laco Stores, a prominent landmark of Akure was sacked by an irate mob and prominent businessman, Agbayewa, and handsome publisher, Olaiya Fagbamigbe were butchered into pieces and set ablaze in their homes. Hundred of lives perished and property worth billions were destroyed in this torrid conflagration, a loss the entire south-west region is yet to recover from.
Shagari's genial features has long been widely propped up as the human face of his regime. By the end of 1983, the handwriting was on the wall for anyone to see. Buhari and Babangida wanted to avoid bloodshed as much as possible in the looming putsch and so they sent Brigadier Bako, more or less a godson to Shagari, his father having been friends with the president, to persuade him to see the handwriting to. They all hoped he would see reason with his 'son.' Big mistake. Bako had hardly pronounced the first letter of coup, when Shagari pressed the red button that controlled his security. A bloodbath ensued and by the end of the day, Bako's blood had been so conspicuously shed.
Shagari's removal was widely celebrated in his own home state of Sokoto.