Investigate Buhari, Now!

 By Obi Nwakanma

Nigeria is in dire straits. That is no longer news. It is not even news anymore that Nigerians are going through the worst economic crisis of their lives. The very lean Structural Adjustment Programme years – the SAP years – may not even compare. I have been told that the kind of desperation seen now in Nigeria is apocalyptic. It is strange and foreboding. An eerie and very fatalistic despondence gnaws at the very core of the Nigerian psyche.

*Buhari 

For many of us growing up in Nigeria from the late 80s and the 1990s, Nigeria had turned into something of an economic dustbowl. Many middle class folks suddenly found themselves thrown down the scale. Many families were destroyed because of the stress on family life and income. I came home one holiday in 1986 from University of Jos, and asked for jam, and nearly got kicked off the dining table by my enraged father who thought my request both insensitive and unintelligent.

Imoke Denies Lobbying Emir Of Kano To Stop EFCC Investigation

Press Release 

Senator Liyel Imoke, the immediate past governor of Cross River State has dismissed an online news report alleging that he is running from pillar to post trying to lobby the Emir of Kano, His Royal Majesty Sanusi Lamido Sanusa to stop EFCC from probing him as the height of falsehood and a ploy ostensibly to smear his image and instigate a war of attrition against him by the Federal Government. Sponsored by his detractors and political opponents, the story seeks to malign the former governor and to portray him in bad light to the reading public.

Titled: "Imoke Lobbies Obol Lopon, Emir of Kano To Escape EFCC Noose", the story is a mendacious miscarriage of the politics of hate by sociopaths who promote politics of vendetta and acrimony in an era of growing political maturity in the country. The only substance in the story is that  Senator Imoke's chief antagonist, Chief Okoi Obono Obla has written series of petitions to anti-graft agencies urging them to probe the immediate past administration of Senator Imoke. But this after-dinner grandstanding is not capable of causing the former governor his sleep since every activity of the state government under his watch is in black and white for all to see.

Interestingly, the claim by CrossRiverWatch that the former governor was 'clandestinely' reaching out to Obla with an appeal to soft-pedal using Abi Chiefs and the Obol Lopon of Ugep, is spurious and fallacious, to say the least. It is pathetic that people could go to any length to pull others down just to score political goals. In fact, since his coronation in June, 2015, Senator Imoke who was out of the country at the time, has not met the Obol Lopon in person and has never had any communication with the monarch. It is simply the figment of the imagination of pimps in the state who have no other means of livelihood than petition writing.

Not only has the publication lied through its news source, that the former governor insulted President Muhammadu Buhari during his campaign tour of Calabar, it also averred that Senator Imoke reached out to HRM Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Emir of Kano to get the ear of the President for him. Imoke has never met with the Emir of Kano since he ascended the throne of his ancestors. Undoubtedly, Senator Imoke has never been known to be arrogant or boisterous in the course of his political career not to talk of insulting anybody. 

You may not like his style, and call him whatever you will, but no one can deny the fact that Imoke has handled all his assignments, from national to state levels with uncommon composure, tolerance, candour and patriotic fervour. He believes that criticisms, even ruthless ones are part of the democratic culture provided they are not meant to tarnish one's reputation.


Dan Amor
Media Adviser to Senator Imoke
Abuja,
August 15, 2015.