Femi Adesina is shameless. To think that he is even a supposed cleric makes him even more shameless. Only a shameless man would make bogus claims and with a straight face still insists that the gibberish he spews forth is the truth.
Personally, I had resolved not to react to whatever Adesina or those who are media minders of President Buhari say, because it’s obvious that they have completely made a mess of whatever their assignment is and inadvertently done a great deal of disservice to their floundering principal.
To be sure, Buhari will go down in history as the worst president Nigeria has had to date. Under Buhari, the nation has experienced a decline in every aspect of its existence. Under Buhari Nigeria is a huge killing field. Under Buhari the economy is comatose. What are the worth of the naira and the rate of inflation in the last eight years? Not only has the APC failed in all the promises it made, but it has also left the nation worse off than it met it. While APC, led by Buhari, was seeking the votes of Nigerians they promised to address the issue of insecurity and labeled the then President Goodluck Jonathan lame duck and clueless.
While the killings pre-2015 were restricted to Borno and probably some other parts of the north, today under Buhari it is a case of total breakdown of law and order across the country, so much so that even the President’s home state of Katsina and Abuja where he stays as President is not safe. Did the Kuje jailbreak and the attack on Buhari’s convoy occur under Jonathan? Yet, a man with a ‘clear conscience’ is claiming that under Buhari the situation has improved.
Last week, Adesina who works as Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, in his usual vitriolic disposition to any form of criticism against the regime, exposed the fact that he is either out to deceive his listeners or he totally does not have a grasp of what he was speaking about when he resorted to abusing Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Most Rev. (Dr.) Matthew Hassan Kukah, over his Easter Message.
Ordinarily, this should not bother one since I had resolved to ignore him and the government he represents, but because it has become a tradition with him to insult all and everyone that speaks against his government, therefore, ignoring him may give him and the regime a false sense of accomplishment. This culture of intolerance has remained with him since the coming of the government. This is the reason he has categorised those who do not share the half-truth and outright falsehood that his government has continued to dish out to Nigerians as wailers. Yet, his principal and party leaders while in the opposition did worse.
There is no Nigerian, no matter how revered, he has not insulted just because they refused to be swayed by the falsehoods of his government. How on earth can Adesina think of himself and Bishop Kukah or the members of the leadership of CAN as being equals? If he has no regard for his superiors, he should know that all Nigerians are not abusive and irreverent as he is. Kukah remains the conscience of this nation and is rightly seen as such and no amount of derisive vituperations from Adesina and his ilks would change that. He must learn to respect his seniors.
What did Kukah say that has not been said by a lot of Nigerians? Apart from Buhari’s bootlickers, cronies, or those who are benefiting from his misfiring regime, how many people would corroborate those lies of Adesina during that recent interview on Channels television?
In his Easter message to Nigerians, the Bishop had a word for the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for President Buhari, the judiciary, and the youths. Those listening to Adesina and who had not read the full text of the Bishop’s message may think that there was something in the letter to warrant his umbrage.
In the message, Bishop had told Buhari: “As you prepare to return to Daura or Kaduna, I do not know if you feel fulfilled or that you met the tall dreams and goals you set for yourself such as: ending banditry, defeating corruption, bringing back our girls, belonging to everybody and belonging to nobody, selling off our presidential fleet and travelling with us etc.
“You may have followed my engagement with you through these Messages over the years. You publicly referred to me during one of our visits as your number one public critic with a huge smile. I commend you for the fact that you have known that none of this was done out of malice but that we want the best for our country. May God guide you in retirement while we all embark on the challenge of reclaiming the country we knew before you came.”
In his reaction, Adesina had said the president will be leaving the nation far better than he met it. He said in 2015 a minimum of 17 local governments were under the control of insurgents. He talked about the Chibok kidnap occurring before Buhari came into office. But did APC not make political capital out of that unfortunate incident? Eight years later, have they kept the promise to rescue the schoolgirls? Can he also tell the world the whereabouts of Leah Sharibu, the lone Christian girl in the Dapchi school kidnap?
The same Jonathan’s government that some northern elite accused of trying to eliminate their youths in the guise of fighting terrorism, they now blame for not doing much. What did their elite do when the insurrection of Boko Haram started? What was the reaction of the then-Borno governor, Kashim Shettima, now vice president-elect, when he was advised to allow the innocent Chibok schoolgirls to write their exams in the state capital?
February 2018, Boko Haram abducted female students of Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State. Bandits attacked Government Science Secondary School, Kagara in Niger State, on December 11, 2020, it was Government Science Secondary School Kankara, in President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state of Katsina, northwest Nigeria, was it under the Jonathan regime?
On banditry and insecurity, who does not know that the president treats bandits and killer-herders differently?
In his bid to defend what is clearly a failed government, Adesina lied that oil used to contribute over 90 percent of our GDP before now. Did he mean 90 percent of our GDP or 90 percent of the revenue earnings of the government?
Also, he said, “The government met a mono-product economy? An economy that depended solely on oil so that anytime oil prices crashed in the international market, Nigeria crashed with it. But it is no longer so, today oil contributes less than 10 percent of our GDP. For the first time in our history, Nigeria has a diversified economy. Diversification had been a promise, but today it is no longer a promise, it is a reality.
“I think people must credit the Buhari administration for that. You now have agriculture, you now have ICT. You now have manufacturing to an extent. You have so many things contributing to Nigeria’s GDP apart from oil. The economy has been diversified for the first time in over 60 years. This is something nobody will deny the Buhari administration about.”
All lies. Oil has never and can never contribute 90 percent of the nation’s GDP. According to the NBS the Oil sector contributed less than 9 percent in 2014 and 2015.
The Obasanjo/Jonathan government did a lot on agriculture. After Akinwumi Adesina, has there been any minister that did as much on agriculture? By the way, is it the same farmers that killer herders have chased from their farms that produce this food or did Adesina mean only cattle, whose breeders have continued to enjoy unfettered access to people’s farms that contributed to the increased GDP he talks about?
On ICT Buhari has simply fallen short of expectations. What has he achieved other than populating that sector with appointments driven by clannish, tribal, and religious considerations? If the nation had maintained the meteoric rise of the Ernest Ndukwe years, what we now have would have been child’s play.
Did you notice that Adesina did not mention rail services? It was deliberate because he knows that nothing best summarises the tragedy of the Buhari government as the rail sector. Buhari completed some work started by previous governments but because the government has ceded those rail tracks to bandits and killer herders, Adesina stylishly ignored it as part of their achievements.
