most of which were mischievously manufactured to malign Vice President
Yemi Osinbajo on his working visit to the United States of America. When
one subject the various critics and their critiques to common sense and
logic, it is easy to uncover their wicked intentions. Chiefs among these
moral impostors are: Reno Omokri, an ex-aide to an ex-president; Kola
Ologbondiyan, National Publicity Secretary to a crumbled political
party, the People’s Democratic Party, and one Emmanuel Aziken, a man
with nebulous identity.
A quick trip through the watery commentaries of these unpatriotic
Nigerians on Prof. Yemi Osinbajo’s working visit to the United States of
America reveal that their interpretations of water the erudite Professor
said during the visit lack vista, as they are full of contradictory
propositions, suggesting the splitting moral hair of the commentators.
As a matter of fact, no reasonable human being with his full sense
intact will take such barrages serious as they are bereft of logic and
common sense.
Nigerians are not new to Reno Omokri’s naughty propaganda; ever since
the current government snatched yam from his mouth, his heart has been
full of bitterness and sourness. We therefore understand why he cannot
put off his wailing apparel. His new job since his Boss was chased out
of Aso Rock is to deliberately manufacture lies, half-truths, fallacies,
hoaxes and propaganda to sway gullible members of the society. Nigerians
are wise and smart people, as paid publicists and propagandists like
Reno Omokri lack the credibility to influence public opinion.
Those who have been following the commentaries on Osinbajo’s visit to
the United States of America by the three mischievous individuals
mentioned earlier would agree that some elements are giving journalism a
bad name. It is easy to identify such elements that give the noble pen
profession a bad name. One of the obvious traits is that they
deliberately manufacture and disseminate falsehood to score cheap goals,
and twist reality to suit the interest of their paymasters and
pseudo-sponsors. They are therefore merchants of fake news,
misinformation, disinformation and episodic reports that disdainfully
treat context with levity, isolate the event from series of happenings
that give birth to it, thereby obscuring reality.
For the purpose of clarity, it is important to state that Prof. Yemi
Osinbajo was completely misquoted and his words taken out of context.
Nowhere in the Vice President remarks at the Town-Hall meeting with the
Nigerian community in New-York did he say “kidnapping in Nigeria is
exaggerated and not entirely new” as peddled by those media
organisations that are known for fake news and misinformation.
For record purposes, this was exactly what Vice President said: “With
respect to general kidnapping which we have seen in certain parts of the
country, again this is not entirely new. When you listen to some of the
stories, some of them are simply not true anyway. Some are fueled by
politics, but there are cases of kidnapping, there is no question at all
about that. But I think some of the more dramatic cases that we hear
because every story we try to track and trace. When you track them, you
find out that people just tell some stories, but the truth anyway is
that there is kidnapping in places where it has taken place.”
The above statement made by the Vice President represents the true state
of kidnapping in Nigeria. First, kidnapping in Nigeria predates this
regime. Nigerians will recall with colossal disappointment and deep
soreness that the kidnap of Chibok girls, father of all kidnaps, was
hatched and executed during the infamous reign of the People’s
Democratic Party (PDP). Can somebody therefore remind the PDP what
happened in April 2014 at Chibok when their hero, Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan was president? Recall that on that fateful day, a total number
of 276 female students, in a single swoop, were kidnapped from
Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok. If the likes of
Omokri and Kola Ologbondiyan have deleted the gloomy and grotesque
memory of Chibok kidnap from their heads, Nigerians as well as the
international community have not.
Can someone boot Ologbondiyan’s memory that it was during the reign of
his Party that the mass kidnap that sparked the biggest global social
campaigns was heinously orchestrated? Till date, a kidnap of such
magnitude has never happened in Nigeria or any part of the world. Is it
not surprising therefore that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that
ought to apologise to Nigeria and Nigerians or cover its face in shame,
is the one running watery commentary on a government that is making
frantic efforts to improve on the security situations of the country?
Where were the Omokri and Ologbondiyan of this world when their hero,
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan admitted publicly and shamelessly that the
kidnap of Chibok girls was instrumental to his abysmal performance in
the 2015 elections? For a political party that superintendent the
largest kidnap in the history of Nigeria to issue press statement,
describing the current government as lacking “no iota of concern towards
the pain and suffering of Nigeria” shows how shamelessness has been
taken to another level. One of the critical questions that readily come
to mind is, what efforts did PDP make to rescue those innocent girls
that were horrendously kidnapped to show that they care? Was it not in
October 2016, during the administration of the APC-led government that
the first mass release of 21 of the Chibok girls was executed? Also, was
it not during the APC-led government in May 2017 that another set of 82
Chibok girls were released?
At the New York town-hall meeting with Nigerians, Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo acknowledged the fact that many of the kidnap stories that
often flood the media landscape were untrue. This was exactly what Prof.
Osinbajo said that was deliberately and mischievously taken out of
context: “When you listen to some of the stories, some of them are
simply not true anyway.”
Those who understand the geo-politic of information in Nigeria would
recognise the fact that there are scores of stories on kidnap that are
merely coordinated media spectacles aimed at discrediting the current
government. Is it not true that on different occasions media are flooded
with ridiculous stories about fake kidnap? As far back as 2013, when
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was the President, the BBC News through this
link, https://www.bbc.com/news/world
“Police in south-eastern Nigeria have arrested a woman who allegedly
faked her own kidnap to demand a ransom from her husband. Nancy Chukwu
is accused of conspiring with a man to stage her abduction in the city
of Enugu and asking for 200,000 naira.
In 2018, there was another media report that that a teenage apprentice,
Adeboye Micheal, faked own kidnap to steal from his employer’s N500,000.
There was another story in the media which says that a teenage girl,
Dorcas Adilewa, faked own kidnap to defraud father. Just recently also,
a Methodist pastor in Ado Ekiti named Adewuyi Adegoke was reportedly
apprehended by the Police for allegedly faking his kidnap while
demanding for a ransom of three million naira from the church members.
Shortly after Adegoke’s disappearance, it was also reported that the
social media was awash with claims that he was abducted by herdsmen
while travelling. Is it not such kind of sensational stories that Prof.
Osinbajo said “are fueled by politics”? If not politics, what is the
correlation between self-kidnap and abduction by herdsmen?
With the above stories of fake kidnap, can anybody with his complete
sense still dismiss Vice President Osinbajo’s statement as fallacy and
untrue? For Reno Omokri to call the Vice President unprintable names
with different pejorative adjectives, just for saying what Nigerians
already know, shows that he (Omokri) has not been cured of the
protracted dementia that he was infected with as a result of the
colossal loss of his master. Many lines in the Omokri’s watery
commentary attest to his moral imposture; he forgets to note that his
past and that of his principal is just a click away. Disgustedly, many
Nigerians have not forgotten how they almost crippled the nation’s
economy by sharing its common patrimony among friends and families,
cronies and proxies. One could see how Omokri struggled so hard to place
the failed regime of his master above the current government by
comparing the poverty index of the two administrations. Not every
Nigerian has the penchant for Reno Omokri’s posture that lacks a speck
of moral integrity. Vice President Osinbajo, like President Muhammadu
Buhari, is committed to ameliorating the plights of ordinary Nigerians
who were denied of basic social amenities by the regime superintended by
Omokri’s principal.
Yes, it is true that the United Nations and the World Poverty Clock
(WPC) have tagged the country as the headquarters of poverty, but Omokri
failed to tell the world how Goodluck Jonathan’s brazen profligacy and
years of squandermania culminated into the current poverty status of the
nation. The good news however is that the Muhammadu Buhari-led
administration has adequately positioned the country to get out of
poverty through different social investment programmes. President
Muhamadu Buhari’s administration had initiated National Social
Investment programmes, SIP under the office of the Vice President, after
taking over the affairs of this country in 2015. The programme which is
predicated on the need for a more sustained and inclusive economic
growth, reduced poverty rates and closing the wide inequality gap
between the rich and the poor, is anchored on four pillars which include
N-Power, National Home-grown School Feeding Programme, Conditional Cash
Transfer (CCT) and Government Enterprises Entrepreneurship Programme
(GEEP). Nigerians know that the Social Investment Programme of the
current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is far better than
those of the previous administrations, including the ones initiated by
Omokri’s principal. For instance, one of the differences between N-Power
and SURE-P programme is that while ordinary Nigerians are beneficiaries
of the former, the beneficiaries of the latter were men and women in
high places who turned the SURE-P to SURE-C, where “C” stands for
corruption.
It was not only Reno Omokri and Kola Ologbondiyan that ran malicious
commentaries on Osinbajo’s working visit to the US; there was faceless
individual called Emmanuel Aziken. From his name one assumes he is a
Nigerian, but a Nigerian who is not consistent in the spelling of the
name of Vice President of his country should not be taken serious. In an
article titled “See what Presidency has done to Osibanjo” (sic) which
was published in Vanguard newspaper, Aziken describes Mike Pence, the US
Vice President and Prof. Osinbajo as a remarkable pair” who “claim to be
practising Christians.” He went further to say that “Both Vice
Presidents have seemingly controversial Principals that are in their
respective countries said to be divisive. Someone should tell Aziken and
his sort that Nigeria of today is more united than the Nigeria of
yesteryears. The only palpable division we have in the country today is
the division between the looters of our collective patrimony and those
who believe that the wealth of this nation is meant for all. If there is
any division in Nigeria today, it is the division between those who
destroyed the base of our prosperity through corruption and those who
are building what has been destroyed over time.
The NextLevel is about truth and war against all forms of indiscipline,
including corruption in high and low places; it is about entrenching
what is good while opposing what is evil. No matter the campaign of
calumny levelled against our amiable President Muhammadu Buhari and his
loyal Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the NextLevel has come to stay and
the duo cannot be distracted by the Omokris, Ologbondiyans or Azikens of
this world – they will deliver on all their campaign promises.