Hypocrisy Will Kill Nigeria Before Corruption

Reno Omokri

Recently, a number of people criticised pop singer, Davido, for donning a Peoples Democratic Party attire during the PDP mega rally for his uncle, Senator Ademola Adeleke’s gubernatorial bid.

They say that as a serving member of the National Youth Service Corp, Davido ought not to promote a political party. I thought long and hard about the criticism and my conclusion is that Nigerians are hypocrites.

According to the Police Act and the Nigerian Police Code of Conduct, serving police officers should not participate in partisan politics. Yet, the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, a serving police officer, appeared on a Channels Television programme on Tuesday, March 15, 2018, wearing a lapel pin bearing an insignia of the re-election bid of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Did those criticising Davido speak up then? No, they did not. I know for a fact because I led choristers who protested against that anomaly and even called for Magu’s sack.

The problem is that many Nigerians are cowards! Some might even say most Nigerians are cowards.
I thank PremiumTimes, for exposing Kemi Adeosun, Adebayo Shittu and Okoi Obono Obla as either NYSC draft dodgers or potential certificate forgers. But what about Muhammadu Buhari‘s children?

Three of them graduated a few years ago. Have they served? To be the best of my knowledge they have not served. Zahra Buhari graduated. Did she serve? Yusuf, the power bike rider, graduated. Did he serve? Or is his service to Nigeria done on top a multi-million Naira Okada?

Hypocrisy will kill Nigeria before corruption. Why should the children of ordinary Nigerians serve while President Buhari’s children do not? Yet the Presidency keeps regaling us about Buhari’s so called-integrity
And let me say that I am rather impressed at the effort the Nigerian Police put into investigating Senator Adeleke’s WAEC certificate. I just wish the Nigerian Police had also put in the same diligence in investigating President Buhari’s WASCE Certificate.

Three members of President Buhari’s cabinet, Kemi Adeosun, Adebayo Shittu and Okoi Obono-Obla, either forged their certificate or have no certificate, yet the Nigerian Police DID NOT charge them. The West African Examination Council confirmed Senator Adeleke’s certificate, yet he is the one police want to charge!

Does that even make sense? Are we living in an upside down world? Has life in Nigeria become so farcical that Alice in Wonderland appears Sandeep than life in Buhari-land?

How else do you explain the irony of Kemi Adeosun who admitted to forgery and was escorted to Nnamdi Azikiwe airport to board a business class flight to London, while Senator Adeleke who is accused of forgery is asked to report to the force headquarters for arraignment in court just days to Osun election. Meanwhile, Buhari, the man of integrity, does not know the whereabouts of his own certificate.

And the hypocrisy of Nigeria is so contagious that it is rapidly contaminating previously rationally minded individuals. Take for instance Senator Shehu Sani who on Monday, September 17, 2018, tweeted in response to the HSBC report warning that a Buhari re-election will spell doom for Nigeria as follows:

“HSBC is angry that African Heads of States are now going to the Chinese restaurant and stopped going to the Mc Donald’s and KFC.” This tweet went viral with many Nigerians cluelessly supporting the clueless Senator without realising that in actual fact, HSBC is a CHINESE bank.

The full name of the bank is The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. HSBC is actually the bank that issues the official currency of China’s HongKong province. The headquarters of HSBC is in HongKong. HongKong is a district of China. How can a Chinese bank be angry that Africans are going to China?
Even HSBC holdings in London, which styles itself as a ‘British’ bank, is actually a wholly owned subsidiary of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

These facts are actually listed on HSBC’s website. So why would a Senator open his mouth and spew such ignorant nonsense!

I guess one has to get used to such inanities from the All Progressives Congress and its members. After all, the leader of the party is a proud owner of a Bachelor of Science NEPA certificate. With such a leader, what else can you expect from the followers?

I have just read a statement by the Presidency accusing the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, of hypocrisy for disparaging President Muhammadu Buhari, who Mr Saraki called visionless.

That President Buhari is visionless is not debatable. It is an international fact. We are all witnesses to the publication by the Financial Times of London, which revealed that after meeting President Buhari, US President Donald Trump said: “I never wanted to meet someone so lifeless again”.

President Buhari’s visionless-ness is evident in the fact that even one of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates, looked President Buhari in the eye and told him right there at the Presidential Villa that “your economic blueprint does not address Nigerian’s needs”.

Even the President’s wife, Aisha Buhari, has borne witness of the President’s visionless-ness when she said “He is yet to tell me if he’ll seek re-election, but I have decided as his wife, that if things continue like this up to 2019, I will not go out and campaign again and ask any woman to vote like I did before”.

Evidence of President Buhari’s visionless-abounds. Under him, Nigeria became the world’s headquarters for extreme poverty as published by the World Poverty Clock, the World Economic Forum and British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Moreover, just three days ago, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation published that going by the current trajectory, if nothing changes, 30% of the world’s extremely poor people will be in Nigeria by the year 2050.

Ironically, the statement lambasting Senate President Bukola Saraki, was signed by Garba Shehu, President Buhari’s spokesman.

How can Garba Shehu attack Bukola Saraki for once supporting Buhari in 2015 and now saying that Buhari lacks vision in 2018? Did Garba Shehu not condemn Muhammadu Buhari while he was Special Assistant on Media at the Presidency during former President Obasanjo’s Peoples Democratic Party government? Evidence abounds. Does Garba Shehu deny this?

The Presidency’s statement is nothing less than a case of the pot calling kettle black.

Reno Omokri
Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years, and other books. Avid traveller. Tormentor of the APC.