President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, July 19, visited Katsina State to commission the First National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) Integrated Farm Estate, and expectedly, high profile dignitaries were on ground to welcome the father of the nation. Of utmost attention were the school children who were also mobilized to act a script on how the President has been benevolent to them.
Shortly after the iconic event, Buhari’s Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina on his official Facebook page, shared a photo of pupils carrying a cardboard that has the inscription of praising the President for feeding them and their fathers through the newly commissioned program. See the photo below:
Adesina, since his appointment as the Special Adviser to the president, has demonstrated a high level of commitment to his job – he has stamped himself as a good PR personnel. He has, so far, answered the president’s critics in the language they understand and more remarkably, he has completely demonstrated what it means to be a ‘boot licker of the paymaster”.
By his actions and in-actions, some of us have been convinced that Adesina can go to any length to defend his master irrespective of what is at stake but what we didn’t know was that he can defy one of the sacred laws of the profession that paved way for him to the position he is just to defend his master. That Adesina could share a cardboard with wordings that have grammatical suicide just to promote his mater’s name and put him in the good books of Nigerians is but a clear indication that he has completely bargained away his conscience in the market place under the weight of poverty to assuage his hunger and his master’s will.
Adesina was so concerned about projecting the scripted cardboard that the school pupils carried that he forgot he is the mouthpiece of not just his master but the nation at large. It is worrying that Adesina forgot who and what he represents at the international scene – maybe he didn’t remember that other nations are keenly watching his actions and in-actions especially on social media. Femi Adesina, in his quest to showcase the president’s infamous works, embarrassed the nation before the whole world – he brought shame and ridicule to this nation. And for some minutes, I kept asking what was he thinking, was he drunk?
Adesina shot himself in the foot the day he accepted the offer to become Buhari’s Adviser – perhaps, he didn’t know he would turn a chronic lair and also a defender of those who oppress the poor with their might. The appointment also revealed who he really is, or perhaps, he is just dancing to the tune just to cash out.
I recall that Adesina, in one of his columns on the Sun Newspaper in 2008, while condemning the current chief of staff, Ibrahim Gambari for his support for dictatorial governments, referred to Gambari as a man who enslaved himself to please his paymasters. “Gambari enslaved himself to please his paymasters. Now, 13 years later, the shackles are still tied round his neck. Bootlicking grovellers fail to learn,” Adesina wrote.
Being a Special Assistant especially to a president who has pushed the nation into all-time high hardship, with bandits and hoodlums romancing the streets and operating freely, has completely unmasked Adesina’s personality. But then, how is it that a man who described others as bootlickers, has now become an epitome of a bootlicker? Adesina even has the audacity, (perhaps the President’s immunity is giving him courage) to tag those who air their grievances over the excesses of this egregious government as wailers. Need I remind him that Aso Rock is not a permanent home for anyone – not even the President?
Well, the good thing is that about three hours after sharing that cardboard with caterwauling grammars, Adesina was knee jerked back to live and he deleted it. And I ask, so Adesina can delete a national disgrace? That means there is still some element of conscience in him.
This is not the Adesina we knew!
ugagbestanley@gmail.com
