By Dan Onwukwe
He evokes different images to different people. He’s a talker and a tackler. He lives in denial just like the government he serves. Anybody who has been following his political career carefully and his comments, will understand that this man has an irritating habit of talking too loosely and telling yarn that amounts to nothing other than rough humour. That’s just one of his numerous personality traits. Other traits include peddling half-truths and outright lies. But there’s a darker side of living in denial. It doesn’t give one the ability to look facts, very unpleasant facts – in the face – without deluding oneself with wishful thinking.
*Lai Mohammed
As the
Publicity Secretary of the party, his fingerprints were all over the propaganda
offensive to unseat the PDP. Lai Mohammed looked self-assured, tireless in
churning out half-truths against the Jonathan government. His job was simple:
make Jonathan look worse than a wimp. He called him “clueless, “incompetent”.
In fact, he was Jonathan’s tormentor-in-chief. The former President’s wife,
Dame Patience Jonathan was not spared. What the Information Minister lacks in
eloquence of speech, he makes up with hard-hitting jabs. Lai’s
lies were successful. Muhammadu
Buhari defeated Jonathan in the Presidential election. Expectedly, Lai Mohammed was handsomely rewarded with a Ministerial
appointment.
Anyone who thought he would
change and give out facts as facts, had been proved wrong. He has carried on
ever since, to borrow a management concept, because he believes in “half-truth
of first-mover advantage”. This is a status that brings initial important
competitive advantage, but it offers a cautionary lesson that backfires later
on. Looking back, the Lies and half-truths emanating from the Information
Minister are legion. Few will suffice. Not long ago, he said Nigeria had become
“safer”, only for insecurity to worsen. Two months ago, disturbed by the
incredible ascendancy of Labour Party Presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, Lai
Mohammed threw another bombshell of a lie, alleging without evidence, that Obi
was the unseen hand behind the #Endsars movement two years ago.
That, of
course, didn’t stick. Rather, “Obidient” has become a political movement, an
ever-present conversation in Nigeria and beyond. And his message is resonating
everywhere. Anytime
Lai Mohammed speaks, things seem to get even worse. I don’t know why. His latest gaffe that the “worst is over” as far as insecurity is
concerned, is by all accounts, out of touch with the present reality. At a
press briefing last week, together with two other Ministers and three heads of
Ministries, the Information Minister said the “worst of insecurity in the
country is over”. Really! On the
surface, this is supposed to be good news, but the truth is that, it was
half-truth. Few days later, about nine persons were abducted in Ondo state on
their way from a funeral and a hefty ransom demanded. Insecurity is still
squeezing everyone to a corner.
Two days ago, the convoy of
Sen. Ifeanyi Ubah was attacked near a market in Enugwu-Ukwu, Anambra state.
Ubah however escaped assassination, but some of his security aides were reported
killed. For sometime, that brusque style of Lai Mohammed of telling the truth
selectively was somewhat effective politically for the government he serves. No
longer. For over seven years, his demagoguery gave him that all-important
oxygen of publicity in the position he holds.
But
hubris sometimes do catch up with people who have this proclivity for maligning
the truth. Unfortunately, it’s the country that pays direly for their mistakes. As I stated in this column in April this year, Lai Mohammed likes
defining truth downwards. For him,
the event of the moment supersedes all things else. As we all know, Nigeria is
still sailing through rough seas. Every sector of our national life is
bleeding. Contrary to his claim that the “worst of insecurity is over”,
insecurity has taken a new dangerous dimension. Senator Uba can better tell his
traumatic experience when he recovers from his close shave with death.
But the ruling APC, and it’s
spokesman, are still in denial that insecurity is ravaging the country. The
evidence of that is everywhere. The other day, he claimed that a string of
successes had been recorded in the fight against Boko Haram, ISWAP, bandits and
other criminal elements. He boasted that the Federal Government had done well
in ensuring safety in rail transportation. “We are proud that in our time,
Nigerians are once again able to travel by rail, this time in total comfort and
safety”. He added,
“I am very proud of our security forces , our men and women in uniform, they
are living up to the billing.
The camps of the terrorists
have been decimated, and thousands of the terrorists and their families are
surrendering in their droves”. He feebly argued that the effectiveness of the
security forces had been enhanced by the leadership of President Buhari and the “unwavering commitment of the Armed Forces and its
leadership”. Few hours
after his vain boast, terrorists attacked Kaduna-Abuja bound train. About 970
passengers were on board the train. Few were killed and hundreds abducted. They
are being released in piecemeal, with a hefty ransom by a negotiator now in the
net of the security agency.
This is
where we are today: As long as our political environment breeds opportunists
who excel in pure demagoguery and telling lies, so long will Nigeria remain
unsafe. There are many Lai Mohammeds in this country. Admitted many of us have
hidden flaws, what psychologists call “personality quirks”, but some people
have mastered how to control them successfully and resist their exploitation by
people around them. The flaws in the likes of Lai Mohammed could be as result
of overweening pride. Such people, psychologists say, view admitting the truth
as a sign of weakness.
It’s also a reflection of the inner character of the individual concerned. Many in political offices today tend to be so immersed in the specifics of strategy that they really pause to think how much they miss useful insights if they had paid attention to analogical reasoning which is a powerful tool for sparking breakthrough ideas.
That’s not just Lai Mohammed’s dilemma, but that of others entrusted with information management governments’ agencies. Recall few years ago, when the same Lai Mohammed said, matter-of-factly, that Boko Haram had been “technically defeated”, only for the insurgents to carry out a deadly offensive in the North East, taking hundreds of female students into captivity. The parents of the victims are still in turmoil.
*Onwukwe is a commentator on public issues
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