By Charles Okoh
Femi Adesina is shameless. To think that he is even a supposed cleric makes him even more shameless. Only a shameless man would make bogus claims and with a straight face still insists that the gibberish he spews forth is the truth.
Personally, I had resolved not to react to whatever Adesina or those who are media minders of President Buhari say, because it’s obvious that they have completely made a mess of whatever their assignment is and inadvertently done a great deal of disservice to their floundering principal.
To be sure, Buhari will go down in history as the worst
president Nigeria has had to date. Under Buhari, the nation has experienced a
decline in every aspect of its existence. Under Buhari Nigeria is a huge
killing field. Under Buhari the economy is comatose. What are the worth of the
naira and the rate of inflation in the last eight years? Not only has the APC
failed in all the promises it made, but it has also left the nation worse off than
it met it. While APC, led by Buhari, was seeking the votes of Nigerians they
promised to address the issue of insecurity and labeled the then President
Goodluck Jonathan lame duck and clueless.
While the killings pre-2015 were restricted to Borno and probably
some other parts of the north, today under Buhari it is a case of total
breakdown of law and order across the country, so much so that even the
President’s home state of Katsina and Abuja where he stays as President is not
safe. Did the Kuje jailbreak and the attack on Buhari’s convoy occur under
Jonathan? Yet, a man with a ‘clear conscience’ is claiming that under Buhari
the situation has improved.
Last week,
Adesina who works as Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to President
Muhammadu Buhari, in his usual vitriolic disposition to any form of criticism
against the regime, exposed the fact that he is either out to deceive his
listeners or he totally does not have a grasp of what he was speaking about
when he resorted to abusing Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Most Rev. (Dr.) Matthew
Hassan Kukah, over his Easter Message.
Ordinarily, this
should not bother one since I had resolved to ignore him and the government he
represents, but because it has become a tradition with him to insult all and
everyone that speaks against his government, therefore, ignoring him may give
him and the regime a false sense of accomplishment. This culture of intolerance
has remained with him since the coming of the government. This is the reason he
has categorised those who do not share the half-truth and outright falsehood
that his government has continued to dish out to Nigerians as wailers. Yet, his
principal and party leaders while in the opposition did worse.
There is no
Nigerian, no matter how revered, he has not insulted just because they refused
to be swayed by the falsehoods of his government. How on earth can Adesina
think of himself and Bishop Kukah or the members of the leadership of CAN as
being equals? If he has no regard for his superiors, he should know that all Nigerians
are not abusive and irreverent as he is. Kukah remains the conscience of this
nation and is rightly seen as such and no amount of derisive vituperations from
Adesina and his ilks would change that. He must learn to respect his seniors.
What did Kukah say that has not been said by a lot of Nigerians?
Apart from Buhari’s bootlickers, cronies, or those who are benefiting from his
misfiring regime, how many people would corroborate those lies of Adesina
during that recent interview on Channels television?
In his Easter message to Nigerians, the Bishop had a word for
the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for President Buhari, the judiciary,
and the youths. Those listening to Adesina and who had not read the full text
of the Bishop’s message may think that there was something in the letter to
warrant his umbrage.
In the message, Bishop had told Buhari: “As you prepare to
return to Daura or Kaduna, I do not know if you feel fulfilled or that you met
the tall dreams and goals you set for yourself such as: ending banditry,
defeating corruption, bringing back our girls, belonging to everybody and
belonging to nobody, selling off our presidential fleet and travelling with us
etc.
“You may have followed my engagement with you through these
Messages over the years. You publicly referred to me during one of our visits
as your number one public critic with a huge smile. I commend you for the fact
that you have known that none of this was done out of malice but that we want
the best for our country. May God guide you in retirement while we all embark
on the challenge of reclaiming the country we knew before you came.”
In his reaction, Adesina had said the president will be leaving
the nation far better than he met it. He said in 2015 a minimum of 17 local
governments were under the control of insurgents. He talked about the Chibok
kidnap occurring before Buhari came into office. But did APC not make political
capital out of that unfortunate incident? Eight years later, have they kept the
promise to rescue the schoolgirls? Can he also tell the world the whereabouts
of Leah Sharibu, the lone Christian girl in the Dapchi school kidnap?
The same Jonathan’s government that some northern elite accused
of trying to eliminate their youths in the guise of fighting terrorism, they
now blame for not doing much. What did their elite do when the insurrection of
Boko Haram started? What was the reaction of the then-Borno governor, Kashim
Shettima, now vice president-elect, when he was advised to allow the innocent
Chibok schoolgirls to write their exams in the state capital?
February 2018,
Boko Haram abducted female students of Government Girls Science and Technical
College, Dapchi, Yobe State. Bandits attacked Government Science Secondary
School, Kagara in Niger State, on December 11, 2020, it was Government Science
Secondary School Kankara, in President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state of
Katsina, northwest Nigeria, was it under the Jonathan regime?
On banditry and insecurity, who does not know that the president
treats bandits and killer-herders differently?
In his bid to defend what is clearly a failed government,
Adesina lied that oil used to contribute over 90 percent of our GDP before now.
Did he mean 90 percent of our GDP or 90 percent of the revenue earnings of the
government?
Also, he said, “The government met a mono-product economy? An
economy that depended solely on oil so that anytime oil prices crashed in the
international market, Nigeria crashed with it. But it is no longer so, today
oil contributes less than 10 percent of our GDP. For the first time in our
history, Nigeria has a diversified economy. Diversification had been a promise,
but today it is no longer a promise, it is a reality.
“I think people must credit the Buhari administration for that.
You now have agriculture, you now have ICT. You now have manufacturing to an
extent. You have so many things contributing to Nigeria’s GDP apart from oil.
The economy has been diversified for the first time in over 60 years. This is
something nobody will deny the Buhari administration about.”
All lies. Oil has never and can never contribute 90 percent of
the nation’s GDP. According to the NBS the Oil sector contributed less than 9
percent in 2014 and 2015.
The Obasanjo/Jonathan government did a lot on agriculture. After
Akinwumi Adesina, has there been any minister that did as much on agriculture?
By the way, is it the same farmers that killer herders have chased from their
farms that produce this food or did Adesina mean only cattle, whose breeders
have continued to enjoy unfettered access to people’s farms that contributed to
the increased GDP he talks about?
On ICT Buhari has simply fallen short of expectations. What has
he achieved other than populating that sector with appointments driven by
clannish, tribal, and religious considerations? If the nation had maintained
the meteoric rise of the Ernest Ndukwe years, what we now have would have been
child’s play.
Did you notice that Adesina did not mention rail services?
It was deliberate because he knows that nothing best summarises the tragedy of
the Buhari government as the rail sector. Buhari completed some work started by
previous governments but because the government has ceded those rail tracks to
bandits and killer herders, Adesina stylishly ignored it as part of their achievements.
*Okoh is a commentator on public issues
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