HEARTLESS: Listening to the President speak during the last media chat I dare not say my President is stupid. No, no, I dare not. The statement uttered that corruption is not the number one problem of this nation can only come from a head that thinks nothing but ogogoro. I have not seen corruption so pronounced in my years of existence in this country than it is under this ‘transformation agenda”. How can just few people that are employed by us, paid from our collective revenue tell us we are not seeing what they are seeing?’ Ask the Coordinating minister of the Economy’ the President retorted; that is, talk to the Prime Minister, Ms Okonjo-Iweala.
The recent Oduahgate is long expected when many of us did not deem it fit to talk about the shams that are being done at the airport, especially Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), and we started praising Ms Oduah for her adroitness. Good work my foot. Billions were quoted for the renovations but what do we have to show for it: Leaking roofs, dark passage way to the tarmac, nauseating toilets, I know we all are thanking God that finally our airports are getting the much desired facelift that will make them to be regarded as world standard but in all we are much scammed than served, I think, this time worse than in the past. Billions have gone but our roofs are still leaking. They should have stuck to the earlier claim that Madam is rich enough to buy the armored cars worth 225 million naira from her personal purse, after weeks of noise from Nigerians, we would have swallowed that better. I would not want to talk about the blood sucking vampire in her because how can a reasonable person submit that these excusable air crashes are God’s doing even when we all know that God does not do evil. I am waiting to know the outcome of all the Administrative and Investigative Panels set up to investigate an obvious case of scam that the blind-cum-imbecile could even attest to. Anyway, it is typical of this government’s Transformation Agenda for billions to get missing and not a single pulled off the perpetrators. Oil Subsidy Scam is a current and will be a recurrent example. SURE-P is another, I wonder how Baba Christopher Kolade allowed himself to be so used in this regards. Baba!
They said we are not broke as a nation but only having issues with Cash Flow. Madam Prime Minister, I don’t get. Why do some people try as much as possible to present black as white? Aunty, it is obvious we are in a mess as it has been obviously stated by the Governor of Central Bank and Governors of some states as they said never have their allocation been so delayed and deducted like under the present dispensation.
We have accusations and counter-accusations. The economy is affected by about 400,000 barrels of oil being stolen everyday by oil thieves. One would wonder if the NNPC and the almighty Minister of Petroleum could give us an estimation of barrels of oil being stolen, how come we do not even have an estimate of oil that is legally being taken out of our wells to be refined in other countries. I have searched records I have not found such account anywhere. Please, if anyone has it, I will be glad to have a copy. I looked with so much anger as Ms Diezani fondled herself in front of millions of Nigerians, dipping her arm inside of her blouse and caressing herself during the Subsidy Regime Investigation Panel in the National Assembly and I asked what happened to decency? Was she practically telling the men or whoever on that panel ”let me go free and I service you free”? That attitude could only come from a whore, and that kind of buttresses the insinuations of the great services she renders to Mr President which makes her untouchable.
Promises upon promises but this government is never ready to deliver on anyone of them. Our universities have practically been comatose for months due to the government irresponsibly reneging on the agreement entered into by ASUU and the Federal Government in 2009. “LET YOUR YEA BE YEA IN ALL YOUR DEALINGS WITH ONE ANOTHER”, so says the Bible and one would have believed that after a return from Israel the President would have thought to act in line with the admonition of the Bible in dealing with people. The President, rather than honour agreement, foot-dragged to the point where a life was lost in the bid to finally resolve the crisis, a life taken by a government vehicle, on a road neglected by the government. Professor Iyayi, God bless his soul, paid the ultimate price.
TACTLESS: Governors have been deified, the G7 Governors most especially. Take Amaechi for instance, he has become more popular than he was before the President picked on him wanting to make him a scapegoat but like the story of the donkey that fell into the well and refused to die shaking off the pieces of earth meant to bury him and turning such to make steps that brought him out of the well. Such is the case of Amaechi. He has used the media so well making him to be seen and read by all and sundry even in the remotest parts of the country and the world at large. I wonder what the aides of the President do. Any student of politics will know that sometimes in politics you court the friendship of your purported enemies in order to drown their popularity. Obasanjo Vs Tinubu and Obansanjo Vs Osoba should be case studies for them. I am using recent events so that the President’s aides will see themselves for the inept clowns they are. In the former, Obasanjo refused to give Tinubu, an opposition Governor, the allocation due to Lagos state on the premise that Lagos state created more local governments than enshrined in the constitution, the intention was to muscle and starve Lagos state of her allocation believing the state will not be able to perform well enough to be credible enough to win the next election so that the almighty PDP will take over the state. Tinubu being a tactful politician sourced funds internally and he left a mark that stands him out, such that even till today Lagos state has become a model for Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) that other states in the country look up to, inadvertently making Tinubu a godfather. Rather than Tinubu going into oblivion, Obasanjo’s muscle made him to realize his potentials to go beyond the ordinary. Today, Bola is a political superhero, take it or leave it.
On the other hand, during the 2003 Gubernatorial Election, Ogun state, the homestate of Obasanjo needed to be “captured” by all means to give the sitting President, Obasanjo, the credit of delivering his state to his party. Obasanjo devised what I call “eat from the same pot but poison the enemy” tactics. He went to Ogun state on the day of the election, invited his brother, Osoba, to his home, they ate, chatted and played the game of draft while the election was ongoing. That is, Obasanjo courted Osoba’s friendship and doused his vigour on the day of the election so that he won’t be able to make any last minute moves he might have had up his sleeves.
These current President’s aides are not even trying to rescue their boss’ image from the pit of incompetence where it is currently wallowing. They are making him look so incapable of playing the politics that is expected of him. The years of “wet e” politics are long passed. What is happening in Rivers state is just making Amaechi more prominent because he is not coming back for a re-election so he has nothing to lose in a way but it would have been a plus for the President if he has one more friend in Amaechi. Muscle does not beget friendship especially when you are playing this game called POLITIK.
Ms Okonjo-Iweala, when she came during Obasanjo’s government, helped in negotiating many deals that took us out of our deficit quagmire, but lately I do not think this Madame Prime Minister is doing what is right. She is the only one seeing that the economy is good even when her brother in CBN is saying otherwise. Kudos should be given to Obasanjo, though he is a man fraught with faults, he should however be commended for standing his ground by not allowing anyone to come with CVs to intimidate him and today it is obvious that he himself did some brain work , I think more because he had shoes when he was in the military so nothing must have entered into his system to have gone to affect his thinking to believe that once you have a CV that reads IMF, AFDB, and some numerate skills that do not translate to obvious developments and growth of the common man, then you should be taken as the almighty even when you yourself claimed to have a PhD.
I will urge the President’s aides to let him know that one does not cut a red tape at the foundation laying of a house, but until such a building is completed; one does not talk from both sides of the mouth, such will betray one’s mental acumen when as a sitting President you respond “I don’t give a damn” on national television to an issue bordering on national malaise. They need to arrange his schedule to allow him do some reading and get him books on topical issues bothering on nation building because it is demeaning for the office of the President to refer questions on job creation and national growth to a private individual. “Dangote has said he will help us….”
Please let the President do more brainwork that will translate to national development so that he can salvage his present sorry records. The world is a civil place where election and re-election is based on records and achievements respectively. And I must confess that people are wiser and will not fall for I HAD NO SHOES the second time.
ADEBAYO COKER
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