By Obi Nwakanma
Let me begin here by saying that Mr. Femi Adesina is a very dishonest interlocutor of Nigerian history. I really do wish to emphasize the word “dishonest.” Perhaps a stronger word might even suffice, but I am in no mood for invention. I would like it to be as clear, and as plain as possible, that Adesina, a one-time newspaper editor is bent towards hagiography. Buhari found his Shadwell in Adesina. His memoir of his time as Buhari’s factotum, for whom he spent eight in Aso Rock as Spokesman, Working With Buhari, is an annoying insult on Nigerians. In this book, Adesina launched an EMP on truth in aid of Buhari.
*Adesina and Buhari
Nigerians cannot recognize the Buhari in that book, nor fathom the credentials of the writer of that tome full of all kinds of subaltern cliches that no serious writer should now be caught using, e.g. “ straight as an arrow…clean as a whistle” Very elementary use of language. Too many tired phrases that to me, indicate the stasis in which Adesina lived. But that is not the real point. The real point is that, that book, as much as its subject is a lie. When a book is a lie, it marks its time on the shelf. Eventually, it will end up in the dustbin of history; certainly not among the great chronicles of an era.
