By Reno Omokri
When I read Garba Shehu’s threat to Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, over the latter’s call on General Muhammadu Buhari to resign due to the spate of insecurity in the country, I knew there and then that Garba Shehu has no shame, or integrity or any modicum of self-respect left in him.
It is too bad because what Senator Abaribe said is not different from what General Buhari, his wife Aisha, and their crony, Bola Tinubu, said when former President Jonathan was in office.
I ask Garba, is the sauce for the goose no longer good enough for the gander?
On August 1, 2014, Aisha Buhari, then the wife of Presidential aspirant Muhammadu Buhari, called on then-President Jonathan to resign due to what she claimed was his inability to stop the Boko Haram insurgency. To quote her:
“follow the example of former South Korean Prime Minister, Jung Hong-won, who resigned over his government’s handling of the ferry accident which left more than 300 people dead.”
“As he saw grieving families suffering with the pain of losing their loved ones and the sadness and resentment of the public, he took responsibility as prime Minister; he apologised to his country and resigned because of service to humanity…Jonathan should emulate such a leader, because Nigerians have been dying daily, for the four years, hoping that government is going to do something, but we are tired of this insecurity and increased attacks on innocent people.”
Well, in 2020, the Global Terrorism Index, Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), has declared that Nigeria is more insecure under General Buhari than at any time under former President Jonathan, and that more Nigerians have died in the four years of General Buhari’s rule than died under the five years of former President Jonathan’s administration.
Moreover, whereas Nigeria was rated by the Global Terrorism Index as the fourth most terrorised nation on Earth in 2014, today, we are rated the third most terrorised nation.
So, is it not hypocritical of Garba Shehu to defend General Buhari and blast Senator Abaribe? Is it not sheer duplicity for Aisha Buhari to hold her peace today, while things are worse under her beloved husband?
Again, on November 6, 2014, the National Leader of the All Progressive Congress, the bullion-van loving Asiwaju Bola Tinu, also called on then-President Jonathan to resign over the insecurity in the country. His exact words were:
“In any civilized country Jonathan should resigned. But if he will not resign he should wait for our broom we will sweep them.’’
Today, in the face of a manifestly worse state of insecurity, what has Bola Tinubu said? In fact, things are so bad that his home region has come up with Amotekun, since the Buhari junta has proven incompetent at protecting them.
What about the Big masquerade, General Buhari? Twice, he asked then President Jonathan to resign over the insecurity in Nigeria. On May 22, 2013, he made the first call. And then again, on January 2, 2014, he made the second call. Today, the same Buhari is threatening Senator Abaribe for doing what he did!
His exact words on May 22, 2013 was as follows:
“Jonathan should vacate and give way to competent hand to govern the country”.
How these people can continue to prance about Nigeria while hypocritically making a fool of themselves is beyond me.
And when Garba Shehu said, in his attack against Abaribe, that “Abaribe’s party raped the nation and left it collapsing in 2015 and President Buhari is fixing things up all the years he is in office”, I could not help but gasp at Garba’s shamelessness.
This remark is coming exactly a week after Transparency International released its 2020 Corruption Perception Index, which showed that Nigeria is now more corrupt today than at any time under former President Jonathan.
The just-released 2020 Corruption Perception Index shows Nigeria has retrogressed from the progress made under the Jonathan administration, when we made our best progress in 2014, moving to 136, compared with today, when we have slipped ten places backwards to 146.
And it is obvious why. Former President Jonathan would never have travelled to Kano to raise the hand of Umar Ganduje. He would never have made Senator Akpabio a minister. He would not be caught dead with Rotimi Amaechi in his cabinet. Who knows the true identity of the owners of the Ikoyi apartment billions? What has happened to Aisha Buhari’s ADC who went about extorting billions from people? Why has the case of the Grass Cutter former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal fallen flat?
As I end this piece, let me remind my readers of what Lai Mohammed said when Transparency International released its Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in 2012. At that time, the prophetically named Lai Mohammed said:
“President Jonathan must wake from his slumber and face the reality that corruption is fast eating deep into the soul of Nigeria, having already decimated the body. He must stop playing the ostrich and lead the way in the fight against corruption before it consumes the country.”
However, when the latest CPI was released last week, the same Lai Mohammed said “we are not fighting corruption because we want to impress any organization.”
And this is a man that said “I have never told a lie in my life”.
The truth is that Nigeria will hardly progress with these characters in office. What we are experiencing are the years of the locust — the years of the cankerworm.
Since 2015, Nigeria has retrogressed in almost every sphere of the human development index. For the year 2015, under former President Jonathan, both the World Economic Forum and CNNMoney projected Nigeria as the fourth and third fastest growing economy in the world respectively. Under General Buhari, we are now the world headquarters for extreme poverty.
Or is it the Global Hunger Index of the International Food Policy Research Institute, which praised Nigeria, under former President Jonathan, for reducing hunger levels by 1.5 points, but has upbraided the Buhari administration for making Nigeria one of the world’s headquarters for hunger.
General Buhari is a curse on the Nigeria nation. And may God judge people like Garba Shehu and Femi Adesina, for adding salt to injury, by trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the people, and selling this abomination as the next best thing after sliced bread.
When I remember how Garba Shehu criticised Dr. Reuben Abati and I pre-2015, I just chuckle. In future, he will learn not to criticise things of which he does not have any experience.
Reno’s Nuggets:
Japan is proof that success doesn’t come from prayers. If a country should be poor, that nation is Japan. The smallest African nation has more minerals than them. Japan is not prayerful. Yet, they are a wealthy nation because of hard and smart work. Ephesians 4:28 says “WORK HARD, so you will have something to GIVE to PEOPLE in NEED”. This principle is the reason why Japan and China, two non Christian nations, are two of the single largest individual donors to Africa. They WORK, while Africa PRAYS, and as a result of that Godly principle, they PROSPER while Africa BEGS. God does not bless those who believe in Him. Even demons believe in God. No. God blesses those who OBEY Him. He says WORK and be BLESSED. If pagan nations, like China and Japan, obey Him, God will bless them!
FreeLeahSharibu #RenosNuggets
Reno Omokri
Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Avid traveller. Hollywood Magazine Film Festival Humanitarian of the Year, 2019.
First published in my column, #TheAlternative, in Sunday ThisDay of February 2, 2020.
