The
continuous rivalry between formal President, Olusegun Obasanjo, his
loyalists and the Jonathan’s team has raised serious dust amongst
political analysts who have concluded that Nigerian politics can not
enjoy any other nomenclature other than the jungle of ‘fame’.
As this deluge of denigration continues to heat up the polity, the
gladiators have decided to use various tactics to bring down their
opponents. It has therefore become obvious to many Nigerians that
Abati’s duties and responsibilities as Jonathan’s Adviser have become
more challenging as he is meant to defend one comment or the other at
each passing day.
People now believe that the ongoing media war, and his constant
defence of his boss has created the impression that most writers only
play politics with their work.
Just like yesterday that Abati enjoyed people’s supports and positive
comments due to his analytical and thoughtful presentation in the
guardian newspaper, sooner than one could pause over his days, people
have suddenly realized that the writer’s aim of attacking Jonathan then
was politically motivated. Some say he wanted an appointment which he
got. The critic of government ironically became the mouthpiece.
His latest article, where he took on Obasanjo, and other supposed
enemies of Jonathan’s government, Abati ridiculed some Nigerian
politicians whom he said the time has come for them to step aside.
However one respondent who read the article queried: “Shouldn’t it
have read “Hypocrisy of today’s men”? Is this the same Reuben of
Patitos’ Gang? I am yet to see the difference between today’s men and
yesterday’s men. Reuben you are just one of them”. Another said: “This
must be a rejoinder to your Guardian Editorial of 4th May, 2010 – “Hurry
up Jonathan”.
In the said item, Abati had among other things written: “When will
his initiative on electoral reform begin? What is his blueprint for the
Niger Delta? When will the construction companies begin the task of
providing needed infrastructure in that region? Or if that is not
possible, what structural and constitutional reforms does he want to
push through to resolve existing conflicts? On corruption, is he really
interested in the anti-corruption war or he is out to use the
anti-corruption agencies to settle conflicts within the ruling PDP?
These are not the key signals coming out of the Jonathan Presidency.”
At this instant though, the aide in the piece published on his
website defended his boss as any other spokesperson would do. His
reaction was not unexpected. Only short of labeling Obj, Nasir and Oby
as enemies of the state, he did a good job proving that not only his
boss’ critics were blessed with punching attacking lines. Even in the
entire defence, he rained quiet over the trending $67 billion question.
With stocky lines and direct outrage, the aide in the “ hypocrisy of
yesterday’s men” article left no one in doubt that his choice of
‘Yesterday’ was a reference to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s period
in office, while ‘Men’ was a leotard axiom for the three personalities
who were part of that regime but have been most vocal in the evaluation
of Jonathan’s leadership.
According to him: “A loosely bound group of yesterday’s men and women
seems to be on the offensive against the Jonathan administration; they
pick issues with virtually every effort of the
administration…“Arrogantly, they claim to be better and smarter than
everyone else in the current government. They are ever so censorious,
contrarian and supercilious. They have no original claim to their
pretensions other than they were privileged to have been in the
corridors of power once upon a time in their lives. They obviously got
so engrossed with their own sense of importance they began to imagine
themselves indispensable to Nigeria. It is dangerous to have such a
navel-gazing, narcissistic group inflict themselves with so much
ferocity on an otherwise impressionable public. We are in reality
dealing with a bunch of hypocrites.”
Obj, as fondly called, has remained tireless in his attack. His main
grouse as it were, is the president’s handling of the Boko Haram
insurgency. Asides casting persistent vociferous slander on the man he
helped win the presidential election about twenty-two months ago, he is
reportedly rooting for his ouster come 2015. These days, the former
General seizes every opportunity with the media to lampoon Jonathan, a
development that usually cause chaos in Aso Rock.
But in the article, Abati took Baba headlong and pounded him this
way: “When one of them was in charge of this same estate called Nigeria,
he shut down the Port Harcourt airport and other airports for close to
two years under the guise of renovation. The Port Harcourt airport was
abandoned for so long it was overgrown with weeds after serving for
months as a practice ground for motoring schools. It was reopened
without any improvement and with so much money down the drain, and the
pervasive suspicion that the reason it was shut down in the first place
was to create a market for a new airline that had been allowed the
monopoly use of the other airport in the city…Perhaps the greatest
hypocrisy from our see-no-good commentators comes from the one who
superintended over the near-collapse of the aviation sector who is now
audacious enough to claim to be a social critic.”
As proven, the Ota farmer is not alone in his fault-finding mission.
His “accomplice” and estranged acolyte, Nasir el-rufai, has also been
aboard the hypocrisy (in Abati’s word) train until lately joined by his
former colleague and pioneer head of Bureau of Public Procurement (aka
Due Process Unit), Oby Ezekwesili.
El-rufai’s grumble in the last two years is, according to him, the
nation’s unexciting economy. With column in a number of news tabloids
and sites, the one-time Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, has
taken on the administration in a way you would think he was getting paid
for it. He however opined that this was necessary in order to let the
electorates know that the government of the day was incapable of solving
the present economic woes. He once said that the government was
exhausting N1 billion daily on wasteful spending. With two or three
instances of harassment by the State Security Service, the Congress of
Progressive Change stalwart is undoubtedly one of Jonathan’s nightmares.
Referring to the ex head of Bureau for Public Enterprise, the former
Guardian Editorial chairman mocked his upcoming book “The Accidental
Public Servant”, his editorials and his “Introducing Young Voices”
series, a platform through which he prints commentaries by young social
critics.
“The accidental public servants who have turned that privilege into a
life-long obsession and profession must be told to go get a life and
find meaningful work to do” said Abati. “Most people become public
servants by accident, but they soon get so used to the glamour of office
that they lose sight of their own ordinariness. They use the system to
climb: to become media celebrities, to gain international attention and
to morph into self-appointed guardians of the Nigerian estate. They
exploit ethnic and religious connections where they can or join
political parties and run for political office. They even write books
(I, me and myself books, packaged as cerebral stuff); if that still
doesn’t work, they lobby newspaper houses for columns to write.”
“Unsatisfied with the newspaper columns, they open social media
accounts and pretend to be voices of wisdom seeking to cultivate an
angry crowd which they feed continually with their own brand of
negativity. They arrange to give lectures at high profile events where
they abuse the government of the day in order to gain attention…The fact
that they boast of some followership and the media often treats them as
icons, makes their nuisance factor worse. They and their protégés and
proxies are united by one factor though: their hypocrisy”
Abati in the article, did not spare ‘Madam Due Process’, the
articulate former World Bank vice president. Recently at the convocation
ceremony of the University of Nigeria Nsukka, she mentioned that the
President Umaru Yar’adua and incumbent, Jonathan frittered away a
monstrous USD $67 billion dollars (or N10.3 trillion). It was one
statement too many. That single allegation has seen not less than four
government officials issuing different statements, with most filled with
personal attack. Information Minister Labaran Maku accused Ezekwesili
of misappropriating the special intervention fund allocated to the
Education sector during her tenure as minister, even as presidential
assistant on media and public matters, Doyin Okupe in his lament,
described her as an individual who should be ignored by Nigerians.
Curiously, both kept mum on the issue of a public debate proposed by
Ezekwesili.
On his part, another presidential assistant (this one in charge of
New Media) Reno Omokri, took to twitter to dish out his assault.
Tweeting in a parable of the wicked stepmother, he said: “Youths think! A
wicked step mother who’s been displaced by a new wife does not lose her
wickedness because she offers you sweets…When the wicked step mother
displaced by a new wife settles with the husband of the house, the step
kids soon find out she was never a friend.”
Not minding her gender or brilliance, Abati dished up a slice of fit:
“Those who believe that no one else can run Nigeria without them must
be told to stop hallucinating. The former Ministers, former Governors,
former DGs, and all sorts who have been busy quoting mischievous
figures, spreading cruel propaganda must be reminded that the Jonathan
administration is in fact trying to clean up the mess that they created.
They want to own the game when the ball is not in their possession.
They want to be the referee when nobody has offered them a whistle. They
seek to play God, forgetting that the case for God is not in the hands
of man.”
As events unfold, one thing clears, we will continue to have a lot to
discuss in our homes, offices and relaxation spots. In the coming
weeks, it is likely that more revelations will emerge about how the
country was/is being run.
From all indications, the government camp and the determined “hypocrites” are on a ‘no retreat, no surrender battle’.
Certainly, the last has not been heard of the heated argument.
DailyPost