By Adekunle Adekoya
I really don’t think there is anybody living in this country at the moment that is satisfied with the state of affairs. Don’t let me bore you — everyone knows where it’s pinching hardest — whether in the cost of transportation, or the risen and rising cost of food, or near-unaffordable accommodation, sky-high cost of fuel energy (gas, petrol, diesel), insecurity, etcetira. If there is anybody as yet untouched by these, such a person, or group of persons must be doing things we can’t do, or know not how to do to make money. As a result, people are worried, and perplexed at the state of affairs.
This Friday morning, not a few people would have woken up from disturbed sleep caused by an empty stomach, and worse, they can’t even see the prospects for a breakfast, no matter how little. So, when top clerics of the Catholic Church, specifically the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria sought and obtained an audience with the president on this undesirable state of affairs, I think they were doing a duty to seek better options for all of us, irrespective of our diverse faiths.
To be candid, what the Catholic Bishops went to tell the president is what I think the National Assembly should have done, howsoever they will. Afterall, we like to tell ourselves that they are our elected representatives. Just that since when this National Assembly was inaugurated, there has been very little to show on their part they are really our elected representatives. One of the yawning gaps between what they were elected to do and what they are really doing is what the Catholic Bishops decided to fill.
The outcome of that engagement has not been pleasant, especially for the Presidency. One of the bishops appeared on a television service, and adumbrated on their encounter with Mr. President. Thereafter, all hell was let loose, especially after spokesmen in the presidency started issuing statements lampooning the bishop. Then, various opinions on the whole matter were being aired, especially in the social media, and at the end of the day, even if it would not be admitted, it became clear that responses from presidential spokesmen and reactions to them had tarred the presidency, badly.
It would then seem that government had a rethink about the entire episode, and caused the Secretary to the Government of the Federation to issue a statement that seemed to have toned down previous hardline postures by presidential spokesmen. This is why I thought those that issued responses to the bishop, in their bid to defend the president, inadvertently became his attackers. This is because their responses to the bishops triggered far more acidic responses than would have been if they had kept their peace, or been less strident.
To put it another way, spokesmen, in a bid to impress their principals, often breach the boundaries of decorum when they issue statements to defend oga. And since nobody has monopoly of wisdom, and because action and reaction are said to be equal and opposite, responses to them get more and more acidic at every turn, eventually achieving the exact opposite of what was intended at the outset. It is not only spokesmen that do these things; heads of many agencies at both state and federal levels often do this to impress oga. For instance, opposition parties have been denied the use of public facilities and have been forced to change venues within minutes because they were denied the use of such facilities.
In a recent happening, a particular party denied the use of a venue resorted to using an event centre and the owner of the centre again came under pressure to deny them, after he had been paid. Policemen have been known to disallow rallies by opposition parties. In some instances, posters and billboards of opposition parties have been brought down, or levied exorbitantly, just to make them feel uncomfortable or weaken their resolve as opposition. Most of the time, the president or governor never gave directives to deal with the opposition, even if they did not rein them in. The point here is that servile appointees who behave like this generate more public odium for the president or governor that a millennium of PR cannot whitewash.
The latest example of defenders who actually are attackers is the matter of the EFCC freezing Osun State Government account. Let me quote the president, in part: “It has come to my notice that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) obtained a court order on August 5, 2026, freezing the accounts of the Osun State Government. I must state that I feel deeply embarrassed not by the EFCC’s exercise of its mandate backed by a court order, but by the timing of the agency’s action. This is so because every action taken by an institution of State, especially at the Federal level, is always credited to me, as the President, even when I may not have had any prior knowledge of the action.”
With Osun governorship election just days away, shouldn’t the EFCC have known that it would be politically incorrect and injurious to the president to do what it did? As we get nearer the election date, I think there would still be more of these shenanigans, especially from servile appointees eager to please the powers that be.
They are not doing their principals any good, they are generating bad blood instead. Spokesmen and appointees who behave like this are actually doing the work of the opposition for them. With them, the opposition can go to sleep. Unfortunately, they are the type of people who always get space close to governors and presidents; they even have their ears and in trying to please, actually do more damage than the damage control they are paid for. There should be less of them in office, don’t you think?
*Adekoya is a commentator on public issues
No comments:
Post a Comment