One would have ignored the ranting of Deji Adeyanju but for the position he holds in a faction of PDP, the neonate opposition party that ruined our nation and stole our collective joy as a people. Before the advent of PDP in our national political space, Nigerians were the happiest people on earth. But all that is gone now, within a short space of time- sixteen years!
For one whose party cannot run its own affairs and has fallen apart since the end of money sharing culture in 2015, it reeks of contradictions for him to on one hand, desire pomp and pageantry on October 1, 2016 and on the other, deep reflection on the socioeconomic situation foisted on the nation by the inept PDP government of ex-Pres. Jonathan and his more than forty thieves.
Reflection? Oh no! Pomp and pageantry were what Deji was really after. That’s what he was used to. It would start with Deji and his co-travelers in the ruination train of Nigeria, being invited to the Presidential Villa. At the villa, choice wines, spirits and champagnes, worth hundreds of millions of Naira would be gulped down, spilled and even vomitted. Food, mostly imported from America, South Africa and United Kingdom, would be consumed. At tax payers’ expense.
Exotic women would be flown in from across the world in private jets to meet the inordinate needs and desires of Deji Adeyanju and his big brothers. No ordinary Nigerian was invited to be part of this pomp and pageantry. None I dare say. Ordinary Citizens stayed home, reflecting on their socio-economic woes and being unhappy, at the insensitive pomp and pageantry photos coming out from the Presidential Villa.
Independence Anniversary Party packs could range from an invitation to the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, to cart away GHANA must go bagful of Naira, a briefcase full of Dollars or to submit an account number where our collective wealth would be frivolously given away. Ordinary citizens stayed home, in deep reflection of how to get rid of Deji Adeyanju and his big brothers and sisters!
Adeyanju is a PDP youth leader. It’s common knowledge that corruption became widespread and a national past time under the PDP led governments, particularly in their last six years.
How then can the one whose cohorts recolonized us talk about Liberty? How can not being able to feed our families, pay our children’s fees, afford basic health care needs, driven from ones ancestral homes, families separated from one another be termed “Liberty”?
It was the former coordinating Minister for the Nigerian economy, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, who told a delightfully shocked nation that the present economic recession cannot be blamed on the government of President Buhari. She said lack of political will to save oil revenue under former President Goodluck Jonathan was responsible for the challenges facing the country presently.
She went further to insinuate that our economy has been in recession for the last three years. Deji Adeyanju, What do you expect from an economy where the Central Bank was constantly under pressure from the President to print more money as was in the days of Uganda’s Idi Amin and Central Africa Republic’s Emperor Jean Beddel Bokassa?
The simple truth is that Deji Adeyanju miss his life at the Presidential Villa. That was where they arrived as ordinary boot lickers and departed as millionaires or billionaires. Their discussions were centred not on how to provide basic amenities nor the diversification of the economy but who bought the latest private jet. It was where they lived as Lords, removed from the reality of the hardship Nigerians were faced with.
Nigerians were not part of this pomp and pageantry. Nigerians wallowed in poverty, insecurity and suffered the consequences of the corrupt activities of Deji Adeyanju’s friends. Did he care? Of course not. As long as he had his own share of the national loot exclusively reserved for faithful PDP members, it didn’t matter.
Talking about division in our nation, it was not the election that divided our nation. Nigerians, ordinary Nigerians were united in their one goal of ensuring that PDP was buried, forever through the ballot box. On this one period and mission, Nigerians were United!
It was common knowledge that division deepened during the last administration. Our then President played tribal and religious politics, making policy statements in churches. He also did not reckon that those who play tribal or ethnic politics must come from ethnic groups with great and wide numerical advantage.
He ignored, thereby, tacitly encouraged the activities of Boko Haram in the North East, hoping it would drastically dissipate their population and destabilise the region, making it impossible for the region to vote in the 2015 general elections. But brave Prof. Jega’s INEC threw a handful of sands in their devious plans. The rest, as they say, is history.
And how, Adeyanju, have your people reacted to their defeat? Still with the bulk of our resources stolen from the days of pomp and pageantry, they reached out to some confused criminal elements in the Niger Delta as well as hijacking the Biafrans. They empowered them, not with education nor useful skills, but skills to blow up oil facilities across the region.
Even in the face of the global dwindling oil prices and revenue, Pres. Buhari’s administration was poised to unleash prosperity on the nation through prudent and judicious management of our resources, provision of much needed infrastructures, renovation of dilapidated and abandoned projects, social net for our poor and proper implementation of agricultural policies that would make Nigeria self-sufficient in food. But that would have easily exposed the ineffectual buffoonery of the last administration. Your people, Adeyanju, had to act to ensure that Nigerians continue in the poverty and penury you created for them.
For those whose hands are dripping with fresh blood of Nigerians who died needlessly, it’s cute talking about human rights. The same lawlessness that pervaded under the rule of PDP was extended by a religious sect that held Zaria and its environs to ransom for years. Lawlessness is not an option in a free nation where everyone has a right to move about freely.
It was also under a PDP administration, Jonathan’s to be precise, that some members of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, held a peaceful demonstration in Onitsha. Over sixty of them were arrested and a few months later, their dead bodies were seen, floating on Ezu river. Deji Adeyanju, do you by chance know when these more than sixty young Nigerians would come back to life?
In 2012, Nigerians rose up against the government of President Jonathan’s decision to remove the fuel subsidy. The reason being that it was a corrupt government that was not trusted as it did not act in the interest of Nigerians. That PDP government rolled out the tanks and some of the protesters were murdered in cold blood.
President Buhari, a man trusted by those who were not part of the pomp and pageantry, has since pulled off the same feat, backed by those who opposed it under Adeyanj’s PDP.
Do we even need to talk about the young men and women who were scammed by paying to be killed, when they were lured to stadia across the nation for jobs that had already gone to families and friends of Deji Adeyanju, et al.
Or do we need to rehash the genocide that happened in the North East of Nigeria which affected over 30 million Nigerians, bringing with it, our nation Nigeria, being labelled a terrorist nation?
You said and I quote, “The military has gone on to summarily execute 100s of members of IPOB without recourse to the rule of law.” I ask, “Where? When?”
Unless of course, you are trying to tell us something. Are you saying that those who blow up our pipelines and run back to their camps in Arepo are IPOB members? It was only at Arepo that our security forces engaged and killed economic saboteurs. But thanks for that information.
Nigerians suspected already! Some Nigerians have always known that someone who is clever by half would confirm that IPOB HAD A HAND IN BLOWING UP OIL INSTALLATIONS.
Thanks for not disappointing us.
There’s something Adeyanju cannot understand. We have rules and laws in this nation. Coming from PDP, a lawless organ, it will be hard or impossible for his likes to understand that our laws are no respecters of persons. When people break the laws, they are pulled in by the law. Ask your brothers and friends who are facing charges for various crimes of money laundry and outright theft.
The whole world is aware that Nigeria is a much secure and safe nation under Pres. Buhari. The American Secretary of State, Rt. Hon John Kerry has been dashing around Nigeria in safety. The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, was seen on the streets of Nigeria, jogging with ordinary Nigerians. In safety. Nigerians, even those in the North East are moving about in safety.
The truth is that, unlike the insensitive PDP bunch, Pres. Buhari and his team are sensitive Nigerians. They are aware of the present sufferings and hardships Nigerians are going through. They are not just empathetic to the plight of Nigerians but they are working round the clock to bring succour to them. They are prudent in the management of our scarce resources. The best part is that our resources are safe with President Buhari.
He will not spend our hard earned resources on pomp and pageantry while Nigerians suffer. He has assured that the present recession is temporary. We believe him.
God bless Nigeria. God bless us, everyone.
Lauretta Onochie
@Laurestar