By Moses E. Ochonu
We live in a hyper-partisan
time, in which the desire to score political points and spruce up the record of
one’s political camp has replaced responsible citizenship. We concede that
misinformation, distortion, overzealousness, and exuberance grow naturally from
excessive partisanship. Even so, the current situation in Nigeria
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| *Buhari |
Propaganda has become the
political currency of the time, traded, exchanged, and valued by partisans on
both sides of the political divide. And the biggest culprits at this time are
Buharists. This is ironic because President Muhammadu Buhari, the man whom the
Buharists adore and are eager to present in good light, has a reputation for
truth telling, candor, and self-effacing bluntness.
During the last government, former
President Goodluck Jonathan's supporters were given to exaggerations of his
successes — if they can be called that. They were also notorious for
downplaying or refusing even in the face of evidence to acknowledge his
failures.
It was under that government
that the Chibok kidnapping and other tragic failures were shamelessly denied or
trivialized while routine government businesses were promoted to acts of
elevated statecraft, of transformative success.
In truth, the Jonathanians were
sometimes responding to the taunts of critics, mostly supporters of the APC,
who would not acknowledge any achievements of that government and were eager to
exaggerate its failures. Even in the domain of terrorism where people were
dying, many of the former president’s detractors sounded like cheerleaders for
Boko Haram, while the Jonathanians, who trafficked denials and willful
ignorance, sounded like mean-spirited people who did not care about human life.
To compound matters, the
Jonathanians were embellishing or outright fabricating achievements to make
their hero appear more competent that he actually was.
Unfortunately, we are seeing
the same with Buharists.
