Read the piece by Reno Omokri
below...
Being half literate is like a
piece of meat being half cooked. From the outside, the meat looks cooked. It is
only when you taste it that you realize that the cook is not cooked through.
This is the problem with
Muhammadu Buhari. The President does not like to read. If he was a reading man,
he would not have made the statement he did about $16 billion being wasted on
power projects by the Obasanjo led administration.
The President had said while
playing host to the Buhari Support Group as follows:
“One of the former Heads of State
between that time was bragging that he spent more than 16 billion American
dollars, on power. Where is the power? Where is the power? And now we have to
pay the debts.”
The figure of $16 billion does
not exist and it is sad that a President, with records available to him can
make such a reckless accusation, especially when the facts are available to him
if he would only read!
Since President Buhari is so enamored
with Nasir El-Rufai, the manipulative Governor of Kaduna state and uber Buhari
sycophant, I would like to quote from an interview that El-Rufai gave on
October 17, 2009.
In that interview, entitled ‘My
Grouse With Yar’adua, El-Rufai said:
“When Yar'Adua came in, he made
statements while receiving Oby Ezekwesili in her new capacity at the World Bank
to the effect that he believed that the amounts spent by Obasanjo were wasted.
He came up with a figure of $10 billion. When his own Senior Special Assistant
(Engr. Foluseke Shomolu) wrote him a memo to the effect that the figure quoted
was inaccurate, the president fired him. Very conveniently, the House of
Representatives began a probe of the NIPP under Obasanjo and sensationalised
it.
The National Economic Council
also had a committee under Governor Suswan of Benue reviewing this NIPP. After
a year, both committees were not able to establish any wrongdoing against
Obasanjo and in fact confirmed that the actual amount spent was not $10
billion, but actually a fraction of that amount (less than $6 billion committed
and $3 billion actually disbursed - the exact amounts quoted by Engr.
Shomolu).”
If the report of the various
committees that investigated these allegations are to long for a President who
prefers to read cartoons as his own spokesman admitted, then perhaps he can
spare the 25 minutes it would take him to read his protégé’s interview.
But the question that discerning
Nigerians should be asking is why is Buhari bringing this up? After all he and
Tinubu once begged former President Obasanjo to be their ‘navigator’. Did they
not know he was a crook when they started their bromance with him?
Last year on Obasanjo’s birthday,
President Buhari called him a statesman ‘with commitment to good governance’.
Today, he is hinting at probing Obasanjo’s alleged $16 billion power project
contracts just because Obasanjo is against his reelection. This is just
vindicating my stand that we have war on C?o?r?r?u?p?t?i?o?n? opposition!
As long as you are on the
President’s side and praising him, all your sins are forgiven like Musiliu
Obanikoro. But the minute you get a bout of conscience, your old real and
imagined sins are dredged up.
On this matter of Obasanjo
however, President Buhari has met his match. I like Obasanjo’s response to
Buhari. Trust Baba Iyabo. He said, inter alia that:
“If he (Buhari) cannot read the
three-volume book (My Watch), he should detail his aides to do so and summarise
the chapters in a language that he will easily understand”.
Buhari is an ungrateful ignoramus
for saying he is paying Obasanjo’s debt. Obasanjo did not spend $16 billion on
power. Obasanjo actually paid ALL our foreign debt and left a total reserve of
$67 billion.
Thank God it was an All
Progressive Congress Senator that got up on live television and revealed that
this administration has borrowed more money in three years than the Peoples
Democratic Party borrowed in 16 years, yet what has been the impact?
Imagine a man like Buhari, who
has not initiated, started and completed any project in three years (beside the
helipad he built for his personal use in Daura) attacking men who initiated and
finished thousands of projects.
The President’s comments
overshadowed an even more important issue which very few journalists appear to
have picked on.
The Buhari Support Group, whose
visit excited the President and moved him to indict Obasanjo, is led by the
Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service.
A serving Comptroller General of
Customs heading the Buhari Support Group without resigning, a serving Chairman
of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission publicly wearing a Buhari
re-election lapel pin on live television is how low the Buhari administration
has taken Nigeria.
At that same event, the President
also lavished praise on former head of state, General Sani Abacha.
What type of anti-corruption
crusader chooses Abacha, a proven thief, who was also a blood thirsty buffoon,
as his mentor? When I schooled in England, my university had a module on
Abacha’s thievery. This is the man Buhari aspires to be? The man who exiled
Tinubu and NADECO!
Abacha’s killer squad killed many
Nigerians during his reign of terror including Kudirat Abiola, Chief Alfred
Rewane, Major General Shehu Musa Yar’adua (rtd) Bagauda Kaltho, Sola Omatsola
amongst others, yet this is the very same man a democratically elected
President like Buhari praises as his mentor. A murderous thief! Are we then surprised
that there are killer squads of herdsmen going round Nigeria killing people?
Like mentor like mentee!
What was the point of Chief MKO
and Kudirat Abiola’s sacrifice if Abacha is today the hero of our President?
Why stop at Abacha? President Buhari should also declare Anini and Shina Rambo
as national heroes. How unfortunate for a nation when a thief is the
President’s role model.
In the year 2000 Osinbajo, then
the Attorney General of Lagos, prosecuted members of Abacha’s killer squad
including Hamza Al-Mustapha, who was sentenced to death for Kudirat Abiola’s
murder. In the year 2018, Osinbajo’s boss, President Buhari, eulogizes Abacha
as his hero and mentor. Can someone help me ask Osinbajo, what he is still
doing in this wicked government?
On the same week that the Buhari
administration charged Shekarau to court for ALLEGEDLY looting ?950 million,
the head of the government, was busy praising Abacha a man that has been
CONVICTED for looting over $5 billion. Buhari charges small thieves and worships
big thieves!
This is the same Buhari, whose
government brought back, reinstated and double promoted Nigeria’s biggest ever
thieving civil servant, Abdulrasheed Maina. How can anybody in their right
minds believe that Buhari still has integrity?
And this is the man who wants
Nigerians to re-elect him next year? A man who thinks Nigerian youths are lazy,
who thinks Nigerians are criminals (as he told the Telegraph of London), who
goes about telling international investors that his country is corrupt?
That is why he has surrounded
himself with people like Lai Mohammed and Garba Shehu.
Lai Mohammed said President
Buhari’s re-election in 2019 will be easy because the APC has kept their
campaign promises. Can someone remind Lai that he is meant to be fasting during
Ramadan and that fasting is not just abstaining from food, it includes
abstaining from lies! Lai, fear God!!!
Why should Lai Mohammed still Lie
even in Ramadan when he is meant to be fasting? The name Lai is not enough for
this remarkable liar! We should just add Linus, Liability, Lion, Liebaran and
Lieraba to his name. Someone that lies during Ramadan that Buhari has fulfilled
his campaign promise can never be trusted to ever tell truth!
And as for Garba Shehu who told
me to tell my friends in the PDP that they are not coming back to power, my
response to him is that he should buy a mirror and what he will see is the face
of PDP.
Garba Shehu was Special Assistant
on media for years during the Peoples Democratic Party administration of
President Olusegun Obasanjo. Garba did not resign from that government.
In fact, Garba Shehu was
affiliated with the Peoples Democratic Party for 12 good years. He has been in
the PDP for more years than he has been APC. He was in the PDP longer than I,
Reno Omokri, have been associated with the PDP.
Garba Shehu cannot deny this
because his office was opposite mine at the Presidential villa between 2003
when I returned from the United Kingdom and 2005 when I went to the US.
Garba shehu used to craft very
strong anti-Buhari press releases for the PDP during his 12 year sojourn as a
PDP member, which included years spent as SA media under Obasanjo. Now he
crafts press releases for the same man he once attacked against the same people
he once praised! Garba is the epitome of AGIP-Any Government in Power. I am the
epitome of loyalty. There is no basis to compare myself with him. I follow my
conscience. Garba follows his stomach.
Let me stop here for now and
continue to observe the unraveling of Buhari. I warned Nigerians but they never
listened. Sadly, the man had to ruin the nation before my fellow countrymen and
women saw him for who and what he truly is-a pretender who used subterfuge to
get to power.
What can separate Abacha from the
love of Buhari? Certainly not the over $5 billion Abacha stole. Certainly not
the people Abacha killed. Certainly not the June 12 Mandate that Abacha
frustrated by throwing Abiola in jail where he died. Nothing can separate
Abacha from the love of Buhari.
What do you expect from a small mind?
ReplyDeleteThank you for this incisive missive. We who read the News and listen to Daily News know your post is full of facts and history of Nigerian Politics.
ReplyDeleteWhat bothers Nigerians is this new boldness of PMB that makes him talk out of point. Are we sure PMB image makers are not being mischievous?
While attending Professor Jega's Lecture, PMB asked why Orubebe was not invited He reminded Nigerians how Orubebe disgraced himself rather than use opportunity to remind us of Projects started and finished by his regime. Our case is made worse by hungry Politicians who lack integrity and clout to do things for the good of All.
Nigeria shall rise again, God willing.