This article is a response to Dele Momodu’s article titled “Before They Mislead President Buhari”. The article like most of the writer’s recent articles is a subtle castigation of Buhari’s administration and support for the corrupt and dirty past that brought us to this position as nation.
To appeal to his audience, which presently is populated by the disciples of the old order and ignorant young men and women, the writer employs often half baked truth, intellectual manipulation and sometimes outright lies. These are what I intend to set straight.
Let me start by stating my respect for the person of Egbon Dele Momodu. I may not agree with him always but I respect his personality and brand. Here is a man who dragged himself from the lowest rung of the society to the pinnacle of his career. I must confess that he is good at what he does.
His work and talent has opened doors of kings and queens and have taken him to places where mere mortal can only dream. Saying I am supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari will be stating the obvious.
Anybody that follows me on any social media and read any of my articles before, during and after the last election will already know this. One thing that may not be known is that I have not always been Buhari’s supporter not because I don’t believe in him but because of other constraints that may have nothing to do with his ability to perform. My father is a politician and my family suffered a direct impact of Buhari’s tsunami in 1983. I am an ardent reader of Dele Momodu’s Pendulum every Saturday.
His grasp of national issues is apt. However, his write ups have significantly drifted in the past months. Sometimes he tried so much to be politically correct that you are at a loss about his stand.
This should not be a surprise; a man of his standing in PR job should not be seen to be directly at loggerhead with potential clients. His most recent article titled “Before They Mislead President Buhari” is a typical example of his recent misinformation riddled articles with subtle castigation for the current administration and support for the corrupt class the administration is trying to rid the nation of. In a divided society like ours, coupled with high degree of ignorance among the populace, any lie can fly and hence the high degree of followership.
These lies should be demystified not for the sake of the mischievous, who see anything against Buhari as a cause they must identify with, but for the sake of the ignorant, especially the young ones that need to be put in proper perspective. Lies often repeated begin to assume the semblance of truth.
Every right thinking Nigeria should guide against allowing the enemies of progress dictate our narratives at this critical stage of our national development. The fight against corruption of Buhari’s administration is not about the President alone. If anything, it’s more against the President, because, he is setting a very high moral standard on which he and his aides would be judged after living the office. The fight is about the soul of the nation.
What is going on is a class war. A war between the haves and the have nots. A war between the privileged and the downtrodden. A war between the forces of evil and good. But the consolation is in the maxim that “The victory of evil over good is temporal”. In this battle, the good will definitely triumph. The first fallacy in the said article is in the first sentence of the first paragraph where he said “let me say categorically and emphatically that our dear beloved country is dangerously hemorrhaging again and this perfidious drift must be halted urgently before we all end up in perdition”. This statement is far from the truth.
How can a nation where the financial leakage of the past is being blocked be said to be hemorrhaging? How can a nation recovering stolen assets be said to be drifting?
When a nation that has just recovered back it lost territories to Boko Haram is described as drifting, when a nation that is clearly steering its economy away from a single source of income and diversifying into hitherto neglected areas is described as drifting, it’s either the person making the description does not have the understanding of the unfolding events or chose to be mischievous. If the change mantra is misconstrued, it’s probably due to lack of understanding of what change actually means.
Change means doing things differently. I also disagree with the insinuation that the world is worried about Nigeria. If what we read and saw in the international media is anything to go by, world leaders from America to Canada to UK have recently applauded the effort of the present administration. Where the worry is as expressed by the writer beats my imagination.
The President’s campaign was based on the tripod of security, fight against corruption and job creation/economy. Let’s not forget also that at the point of assumption of office of the present administration, Boko Haram was ravaging the country, seventeen local governments were effectively under the control of the insurgents.
Bombs were going off in various locations across Nigeria including Abuja as if explosions were going out of vogue. On the economic front, twenty eight states of the federation owed between three to eleven months salaries, about N600 billion owed petrol importers in subsidy payments, the country’s reserves were almost completely depleted and oil price was spiraling downward at an alarming rate. Stealing was not corruption at the point of assumption of the administration and the ‘goats’ were having a field day with the ‘yams’.
This was the summary of the state of the nation when Buhari came in. The current state of the Boko Haram insurgency will make every objective mind to agree that the President is doing something and did not take Nigerians for granted. We now take it as aberration to talk about bomb blasts or Boko Haram attacks. This shows the President is actually doing something. New security challenges such as herdsmen attacks, militancy in the Niger Delta and Biafra in the Southeast. The herdsmen case I believe is getting solved looking at the decrease in such attacks in recent times.
Also attackers of Nimbo community in Enugu State have been apprehended, the attackers of the Igbo lady in Kano were also promptly apprehended, and the killers of the kidnapped army Colonel in Kaduna have been apprehended. Every nation has lived through its terrible moments but no nation progresses by pretending that the terrible moments never existed as being suggested. Nigeria must internalize our recent past. We must learn from the mistakes made, punish those that took the country for a ride and put in place a system that ensure the mistakes will never be repeated.
“We have a President that stands head and shoulders above all else and he clearly leads the way”. We owe the country the duty of supporting the President irrespective of ethnic, religious or party affiliation. All it takes for evil to thrive is for men and women of goodwill to look away while evil is perpetrated. Nigeria is certainly on its way to greatness once more.
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