THE ‘attacktics’ (attack tactics) of the attack dogs of Nigeria’s president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, appear to have failed them concerning one grave allegation against their master which has been trending in the media and group conversations for about two weeks. There have been no newspaper articles or social media posts debunking the allegation, and no choreographed radio and television appearances disputing the claim. There have been no threats to the person ‘scandalising’ Tinubu nor midnight visits by the clueless secret police or by the bungling regular police. The voiciferous defenders of the occupier of the Throne in the Villa have proved incapable of lifting a finger about what otherwise should be treated as slander and a calculated attempt to incite an insurrection aimed at regime change.
More troubling has been that the likes of Bayo Onanuga, a presidential adviser who is in bed with ethnic profiling designed to precipitate genocide on the Igbo; Daniel Bwala, who is said to be a lawyer but who has carved a niche for himself as a political jobber with no atom of shame and self respect; and Reno Omokri, an itinerant and self-exiled unstable (de)motivational speaker. Omokri believes in nothing except political harlotry. He has no religion. He has no faith in spite of his pretentious posturing on social media. These three persons have one thing in common – they salivate on, and then speedily swallow their own vomit.
For record purposes, Onanuga once headed a news magazine that determined that his current master was a dubious person and so unworthy of any position of trust. Bwala, on his part, was the person who during the electioneering campaigns of last year crafted a statement that went viral when he said that people separate themselves from their brains immediately they joined the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC ) political party. He just (re) joined the same APC about two weeks ago. His situation is worse because he actually lost his brain before he returned to the APC.
Omokri’s transgressions are so many that his attempts to delete some of his previous posts and positions on issues on social media are proving impossible. The one post that will haunt him for life was where he said that the then presidential candidate, Tinubu, was a drug lord and a convict. He said that if he (Tinubu) felt sufficiently offended and aggrieved with what he (Omokri) said, he should sue him. Omokri also said he would never imagine a world where he would address Tinubu as president. The same man now addresses Tinubu as president who can do no wrong, and the best thing to have happened to Nigeria since the amalgamation.
I almost got distracted. I was going to write earlier that none of these characters who have publicly demonstrated that they are challenged in the area of principle and integrity has done what they are noted for since a grave and damaging charge was levelled on their master, Tinubu. Their default mode is to drag Mr. Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections whenever darts are fired at Tinubu. Not this time for them. To do so will be to open a can of worms. They know that Obi’s supporters who are mostly young Nigerians do not take prisoners. In local parlance, Obi’s tech savvy and trenchant supporters will ‘drag them and press their necks’ no end.
What happened? Towards the end of July all manner of Nigerians were corralled and coerced into a medley of relays to the inner sanctum of the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja. The regime was in panic mode. Some Nigerians had set August 1 for 10 days of protests which they tagged #Endbadgovernanceinnigeria. But instead of addressing the concerns of the youths, this regime adopted the playbook of past military regimes. It elected to ferry religious, traditional, cultural and a section of the political elite to Abuja for them to be used as surrogates to pacify the youths. The template of bribing selected personages to quieten the populace failed under the military. And how the present rulers feel it would work this time beats the imagination. Of course, it failed. Woefully.
But there was something good in that distasteful exercise. One of the clerics who attended one of the meetings in the Abuja coven later came out with a ‘revelation’ about a confession concerning the controversial and hotly disputed presidential election of last year. Let’s say what the cleric related was more of a confession from the horse’s mouth than a revelation of a bad and despicable behaviour. A majority of Nigerians knew, while the rest suspected, that the Presidency was traded like a commodity during the last election cycle. No institution of the state (the armed forces, police, Independent National Electoral Commission, Directorate of State Services, co-contestants, voters, etcetera), no relevant individual and no process was spared from the buying and selling, and the brazen auction. A few spoke out condemning the charade that passed as election. Many spoke in hushed tones.
The same attitude applied to the latest August (sorry July) visitors to the Villa. Many came out from the coven talking gibberish bar one man.
Sheikh Muhammad Bello Aliyu Yabo is an Islamic scholar in Sokoto. He was among the tourists to the Villa in July. Back to base, he was reported to have told his congregation in a sermon that he was enamoured of Tinubu and his (Tinubu’s) candour about how he became Nigeria’s president. Sheikh Yabo said that Tinubu was unabashed when he told them that he deployed his money to capture the presidency. Yabo’s ‘revelation’ on Tinubu’s confession that he bought the presidency with his personal money, when stretched, could be interpreted to mean that he owed nobody, including Nigerians, any allegiance or obligations.
An online entry recorded the date of birth of Sheikh Yabo as January 1, 1962, so he could not be accused of youthful exuberance in his reporting of what Tinubu told them that he bought his way to the presidency as published in the Peoples Gazette newspaper of July 29. He said: “Tinubu has really impressed me; he invited all the traditional rulers from the North, West and East and told them bluntly that: ‘l bought this seat I’m on with money”.
Then he went on to add that “Tinubu has never impressed me like now for coming out to tell the naked truth. Whoever pays the piper dictates the tune; isn’t Tinubu telling the truth?”
The sheikh whose reputation precedes him also had a word for Nigerian voters. “You have eaten the spaghetti and macaroni you have been given to vote, and now it is finished, it’s all over, so what next? Tinubu says he spent huge sums from the primary elections to the actual presidential election.
“It’s all over now; let us pray and wait for the next election in 2027. If you like, collect his money again and vote for him, and I assure you, you’ll remain in pain, that’s all”.
It is now two weeks and counting since this public revelation of a private confession by the ruler and owner of Nigeria, and there has been no ‘pim’ (angry reaction or denial) from the usually loquacious and often misguided presidential aides. No name calling of Sheikh Yabo. No derogatory remarks about how ‘backward’ the north is. No attacks on the sheikh for using the pulpit to incite Nigerians. No warning from the presidency about the dangers of losers in last year’s presidential election using Sheikh Yabo to orchestrate or trigger regime change. No branding the sermon as an insurrection. The secret police have not moved in to arrest and quizz the insolent sheikh.
Well, let’s take it that the regime has been pre-occupied with the violent suppression of the protesters who were calling for an end to bad governance and the arrest of the spiralling cost of living crisis. Now that the regime has driven the protests underground, the expectation is that it will focus its attention on the errant sheikh. Yabo should not be allowed to get away with his allegation that the president said he bought Nigeria’s presidency like a commodity in Jankara market in Lagos.
The presidency knows that Sheikh Yabo does not need to break a law for him to be arrested, and at the minimum humiliated and subjected to a media trial. That alone will send a strong message to anyone who may be minded to trifle with our dear leader. Over to Bayo, Bwala and Reno. Nigerians are waiting.
But as we wait for the fury of the presidential attack dogs, it’s important to know that Yabo does not suffer fools gladly. His reputation as a fiery cleric precedes him. And nobody among the ‘agbadorians’ (Tinubu’s unthinking supporters) should think (pun intended) that Sheikh Yabo is speaking out in this manner because Tinubu is a Yoruba man. Far from it. Yabo said something worse and probably more damning about Buhari and some other people of northern extraction.
In 2022 during the kidnap of train passengers who were travelling from Abuja to Kaduna, Sheikh Yabo publicly called on the terrorists to abduct the then president, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s affliction; Kaduna stiate governor, Nasir el-Rufai; and, presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu. The kidnappers had released a video showing them administering corporal punishment on their victims and threatening to kidnap Buhari, el-Rufai and Garba.
Yabo’s anger was aroused by the response of the regime to the kidnappers video wherein Shehu had said in a counter video that “terrorist activity using propaganda and the use of violence to force governments to accept or submit to political demands is not new all over the world”.
The sheikh was miffed at the government for describing the terrorists’ video as propaganda. He said that Shehu was insensitive to the plight of the captives and prayed for the kidnap of Garba. “We are praying for you kidnappers. May God grant you success in carrying out your threat to kidnap those people.
“If these were the kind of people you have been abducting all this while, we wouldn’t have bothered ourselves. We would instead pray and bless you because they have become a disaster (to us). These are people who promised heaven and earth, and now they have the opportunity but (they) became incompetent. Take them to the bush and flog them, instead of humiliating innocent citizens who are striving to make ends meet. And please make good your threats, and we will support you with prayers”. Sheikh Yabo was a staunch supporter of Buhari in 2015.
