{"id":31817,"date":"2014-10-07T11:29:07","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T10:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=31817"},"modified":"2014-10-07T11:29:07","modified_gmt":"2014-10-07T10:29:07","slug":"mock-men-specialists-case-lai-mohammed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/articles-opinions\/mock-men-specialists-case-lai-mohammed\/","title":{"rendered":"Mock Men and Specialists: The Case of Lai Mohammed"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Femi Ayelabowo<\/p>\n

Wole Soyinka\u2019s\u00a0Madmen and Specialists<\/i><\/span>\u00a0is, at its heart, a satirical play featuring a perverted medical specialist whose lust for power during wartime leads him to imprison and torment his father, a well-regarded physician. It is in this context of perversion and misapplication of supposedly specialist skills that the recent diatribe of Lai Mohammed, the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, against the person and office of President Goodluck Jonathan, must be located.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Lai Mohammed, who has been referred to as \u201clying Lai Mohammed\u201d and \u201cLiar Mohammed\u201d, fancies himself a mass communication specialist.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>And perhaps he is one, though it has to be said, if the evidences of his manipulation of truths are anything to go by, his mass communication expertise must have been acquired from parodying the antics of Josef Goebbels, the notorious propagandist of Germany\u2019s Nazi era.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In his latest outburst against President Goodluck Jonathan, Lai Mohammed has upended all reasons and thrown basic decorum to the winds all in an attempt to \u201creclaim\u201d for the APC what he perceives as a stolen credit over the successful containment of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Nigeria.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>And yet in the same breath that he impugns the President for supposedly assuming credit for the containment of the EVD in the country, the same Lai Mohammed goes on to say, \u201cWe will also like to give credit to the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The question here is: did Lai Mohammed forget that Prof. Chukwu is a cabinet-level appointee who serves at the pleasure of the President, or is this another case of the man just being the usual \u201cLiar Mohammed\u201d? But then again, perversion of truths and manipulation of facts were hallmarks of Goebbels brand of mass communication, and it is clear that Lai Mohammed has clearly adopted these deviant practices.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It is also beyond the pale to see Lai Mohammed attempt to posthumously make the late Dr. Stella Adadevoh a member of the APC through Goebbelsian extrapolation and sheer evil machination.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Dr. Adadevoh most unfortunately lost her life in the fight against Ebola and it is the height of irresponsibility for Lai Mohammed to drag her into his mudslinging politics rather than allow her family to grieve in peace.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Strangely, that the states where the EVD struck are controlled by the APC seems to be a fact that fills Lai Mohammed with glee.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>His reasoning seems to be that President Jonathan\u2019s directive to Prof. Chukwu to lead the Federal Government\u2019s response to the virus has nothing whatsoever to do with Jonathan\u2019s leadership, simply because he was elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>This sort of defective reasoning must be what informed the same Lai Mohammed to recently rail against the Sovereign Wealth Fund and the Excess Crude Account, a faux pas of monumental proportions.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Since Lai Mohammed is all about the cheap political sound bite devoid of sound reasoning, it is important to slay the imaginary demons he is fighting where the Sovereign Wealth Fund and the Excess Crude Accounts are concerned.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Bloomberg, the international financial news outlet, recently reported that: \u201cForeign investors closely monitor the Excess Crude Account, which has helped attract high portfolio flows to Nigeria in the past two years.\u201d And Lai Mohammed should know that Nigerians closely monitor the Sovereign Wealth Fund as an indicator of how well the government of the day is preparing for future generations.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, it is not as if Lai Mohammed is not aware of these facts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>His grouse is simply because, instead of his beloved APC, the Jonathan-led PDP administration is the one that initiated the Sovereign Wealth Fund with three sub funds; the Nigeria Infrastructure Fund; the Future Generations Fund and the Stabilization Fund as its pillars. Lai Mohammed would have been pleased if these people-oriented initiatives were carried out by the APC, but since it was done by the PDP it must be condemned despite the benefits to the Nigerian people. What a crying shame!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For Lai Mohammed, the Federal Government, since it is formed by the PDP, must be saddled with the blame for any unfortunate happenings in the country, including those in APC states like the Boko Haram insurgency that has ravaged Borno and parts of Yobe and Adamawa states.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>However, if any success is recorded anywhere, only the APC deserves to take credit since, in Lai Mohammed\u2019s Goebbelsian logic, it is the only flawless entity in Nigeria. This is what makes Lai Mohammed a mock man, for the truth, as every discerning Nigerian knows, is far more complex; and real men accept their fallibility rather than glory in self-delusional infallibility.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Like the perverted medical specialist in Soyinka\u2019s\u00a0Madmen and Specialists<\/i><\/span>, Lai Mohammed would like nothing more than to imprison and torture President Jonathan with his version of events, however far-fetched or wrongheaded they may be.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>And while Jonathan maybe hampered by the decorum of his office to tell Lai Mohammed what he may do with himself and his pack of lies, those of us who are not similarly constrained have no problem whatsoever telling the Goebbelsian mass communication specialist to give up his needless mudslinging and seek help from a mentally-balanced medical specialist.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n