I read the statement by the former Deputy Director of the Buhari
Presidential Campaign Council, Mallam Mohammed Lawal with great
amusement.
Mr. Lawal, who is one of President Buhari’s lopsided recent appointees
to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (AKA Northern Nigeria
Petroleum Corporation) wants Nigerians to believe that former vice
President Atiku Abubakar, has been plotting the downfall of President
Muhammadu Buhari since 2014.
I find the allegation laughable. Why, you may ask?
Well, because it is silly for any ally of President to say Atiku
Abubakar plotted President Buhari’s failure. Does anybody need to plot
the failure of a man who still calls Germany ‘West Germany’? Was it
Atiku’s plot that made Buhari wait and waste six months before setting
up a cabinet of square pegs in round holes? Atiku did not force Buhari
to make promises he could not keep like making $1 equal to ?1 or
creating 3 million jobs per annum.
Even before day one didn’t Nasir El-Rufai warn Nigerians in 2010 that
‘if you ask Buhari, he will think that Blackberry is a fruit.’
A serial plagiarizer who plagiarized Barack Obama’s and Charles De
Gaulle’s speeches, who surrounds himself with the likes of Amaechi, who
is still afraid of rats as an ex general, needs no one to plot his
failure!
Just as you have an auto-correct function on your phone, so does
President Buhari have an auto-fail function in his government. He does
not need an Atiku to plot his failure!
Let me cite an example. Two weeks ago, Benue state experienced a
cataclysmic flooding of almost biblical proportions. Many pundits,
including yours truly, appealed to the President to at least visit the
victims of the flood to give them moral support.
However, the President chose to ignore the 100,000 families that had
been rendered homeless and I thank God that this same Atiku Abubakar who
they claim is plotting the President’s failure was able to plot his way
to donating ?5 million to the suffering victims.
But that is not where the story ends. President Buhari who refused to
visit Benue shocked right thinking people by visiting Kaduna even while
the people of Benue (who coincidentally voted for him) had not had the
pleasure of his visit.
President Muhammadu Buhari is strong enough to visit Kaduna state to
commission a poultry but not strong enough to visit Benue to commiserate
with humans. You visit with poultry but not people. Why does it seem as
if this administration values animals over human beings?
Recall that when Nigerians were facing possibly the worst food crisis in
our history, Buhari’s minister of agriculture was more focused on
importing grass for cows from Brazil. And even after herdsmen killed
vast amounts of people in Southern Kaduna the APC Governor of Kaduna
admitted to paying them compensation for their cattle killed. Perhaps
the President would have postponed his visit to poultry chickens in
favour of visiting paltry citizens in Benue.
Can his handlers continue to blame Atiku Abubakar for these unforced errors?
President Trump who we unfairly like to criticize in this part of the
world has visited Texas twice to help out with Hurricane Harvey relief
efforts and to project hope to his people. His office has equally
announced plans to visit Florida after Hurricane Irma eases. And here
our President is visiting poultry!
And look at what is happening in the Southeast. Do we blame Atiku for this avoidable crisis too?
Until Nnamdi Kanu was arrested by Muhammadu Buhari he was unknown to
most Nigerians and this include Nigerians of Southeastern origin. The
president actually created Nnamdi Kanu, made him a celebrity and gave
him the power he has right now.
Right now he has empowered the young man to do a lot more damage to
him and his inept administration by making him a cause célèbre that even
foreign diplomats go to pay homage to. What was Nnamdi Kanu doing
before President Buhari had him arrested? Radio Biafra? How many people
were listening to it?
What President Buhari did by arresting Nnamdi Kanu was to turn him from a
Bright Chimezie to a Michael Jackson without releasing a Thriller
album!
And to make matters worse, he has now initiated this unnecessary, ill
thought out, ill advised and ill fated so called Operation Python Dance 2
in the Southeast.
The US Army is in Texas and Florida helping hurricane victims. That is
what I expect the Nigerian Army to do in Benue , where 100,000 families
have been rendered homeless by flood, not doing a ‘Show of Force’ in a
place that is need of persuasion not threats.
Four days ago suspected herdsmen killed 20 people in Ancha village in
Miango district of Jos. If the army wanted to do a ‘show of force’, that
would have been a good place to start. It makes no sense to do a show
of force in a peaceful community when you have violence prone
communities all over Nigeria.
Since when did the dictionary definition of intimidation change to ‘show
of force’? Please let us call a spade a spade and not a big spoon.
The injustices under the Buhari administration are just too glaring, to blatant and too obnoxious.
Arewa youths gave their fellow Nigerians a Quit Notice and they get a
song and dance from the Buhari administration. IPOB youths who did not
threaten other Nigerians get Python Dance from the same government. How
is that fair?
Ignorance is a disease and the Buhari administration appears to be
heavily inflicted by this disease. If not, they ought to have known that
no nation on earth has permanently put down a separatist movement by
force of arms alone.
History does not repeat itself. Men repeat history. The United States
has 14 separatist movements. England invited her own separatist
movements to form regional govt in Ireland and Scotland. In the case of
Scotland, they even threw in a referendum into the bargain!
President Buhari could have defeated Nnamdi Kanu’s IPOB and its
separatist agenda if he had only been equitable and just in his
management of Nigeria.
Buhari’s appointments overwhelmingly favour the North. The military and
security agencies are almost entirely in the hands of not just
Northerners, but core Northern Muslims.
The chief of army staff is a core Northern Muslim from Borno. The
National Security Adviser is similarly a core Northern Muslim from
Borno. The Chief of staff to the President is likewise a core Northern
Muslim from Borno. The acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission is, you guessed it-core Northern Muslim from Borno.
The chief of air staff is a core Northern Muslim from Bauchi. The
Inspector-General of Police is a Northern Muslim from Niger state. The
Controller General of Prisons is a core Northern Muslim from Kebbi. The
Comptroller General of Immigration is a core Northern Muslim from
Jigawa. The Comptroller- Generalof the Nigerian Customs Service is a
core Northern Muslim from Bauchi.
The Director General of the Department of State Security Services is a
core Northern Muslim from Katsina. The Chief of Defence Intelligence is a
core Northern Muslim.
These are the appointments in the security agencies. Even if you are a
core Northern Muslim, as long as you fear God, you can see that this
list is obviously lopsided in favour of the core North.
In fact, the President has even stopped pretending. At the last
eid-el-fitri, President Muhammadu Buhari discarded all pretense and
addressed the nation in Hausa, the language of the core North.
When you take into consideration his famous comment, to wit “the
constituents, for example, gave me 97% cannot in all honesty be treated
on some issues with constituencies that gave me 5%”, you can now see how
alienated he has made the South feel from Nigeria.
Since his swearing in as President of Nigeria, President Buhari has not
seen it fur to visit the Southeast yet this is a man that said “I belong
to everybody, and I belong to nobody” (never mind that he plagiarized
Charles De Gaulle.
If President Buhari wants to end the Biafran agitation, he needs to,
with urgency, retrace his steps and start acting like he is the
President of Nigeria, and not the President of core Northern Muslims
only. The day he makes this paradigm shift, will mark the day that
separatist agitation will start to fizzle out.
President Buhari does not need guns to quell any separatist movement. All he needs is guts.
Reno’s Nuggets
This week’s nugget is very special to me. It is directed at one Peter
Odumosu, a man who has for weeks been going around social media
spreading false and wicked lies about me to the effect that I stole
government money. In this regards he was helped by one Olumide Dada, a
certain Dr. Yomi Ogunyemi and one Kola Arubayi who joined him to cast
aspersions on my character that have no bearing on reality. To them I
prayed to God whom I have served with what I believe is a pure
conscience from my childhood, during my recent pilgrimage, that if their
allegations against me are true may God punish me and do so publicly.
However, if they have falsely accused me, may God fulfill the word He
confirmed in 2 Thessalonians 1:6.
Congratulations guys, you made it onto my column in ThisDay newspaper. To all of you I say the following
If you see someone ‘flexing’, don’t hate or falsely accuse them of
flexing ‘with other people money’. Instead, study what makes them flex.
If you hate a successful person, you can NEVER attract what you hate.
The Bible says “He that walks with wise men shall be wise: but a
companion of fools shall be destroyed”-Proverbs 13:20. The main reason
haters don’t succeed, is because they walk with bitterness instead of
walking with God! #RenosNuggets
And to Enebeli Theo, Adamu Usman Attaboh, Ogbonnaya Kanu and Ebi
Warekromo. I say God bless you for coming to my defense without being
asked. That’s what true friends are for.
And for all those who sat on the fence, joking and exchanging banters
while these people engaged in the vilest form of character
assassination, I pray that in your own time of false accusation, you
will have friends like Enebeli Theo, Adamu Usman Attaboh, Ogbonnaya Kanu
and Ebi Warekromo and not friends like yourselves. In Jesus’ name I
seal all that I have written here.
Reno Omokri