Dogara, Basketmouth, Feyi Fawehinmi & more – these are the Winners and Losers from the past week

Last week, the budget padding row that has so far rocked the House of Representatives took a new dimension when the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara insisted that neither he nor any member of the House could be investigated or prosecuted for padding the budget.

Abdulmumin Jibrin, the man who blew the whistle on an alleged padding of the 2016 budget after he was ousted as the Chairman of the House Appropriation Committee had quite a lot o say too.

Also, in an unrelated event or maybe not, young and influential youths who supported the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as Nigeria’s president are recanting their support while some are unabashedly behind the president.

From the protracted budget padding row to the apologies of the former Buhari supporters, here are the winners and losers.

Winners

Yakubu Dogara

When Jibrin began what would be a continuous and tireless hurling of padding accusations at Speaker Dogara, the principal officer of the House of Representatives stayed away from the press on the matter.

It appears Dogara stayed off for strategic reasons- more like survey, plan and attack!

When he broke his silence over the budget issue, Dogara spoke from an elevated platform of constitutional correctness and he even had examples of the so called ‘padding’ as standard practice all over the democratic world.

He succeeded in making Jibrin’s continued accusation seem spurious, baseless and sinister.

The Presidency even confirmed that the copy of the 2016 budget that was signed into law was not padded like Jibrin claimed.

Feyi Fawehinmi

One of the core supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari in the build up the 2015 general election, Feyi could have evoked the ire of other staunch supporters on social media when he declared Buhari a failure and proceeded to apologize for campaigning for him.

Surprisingly, Feyi’s apology drew more of agreeable discourse from a large bulk of Nigerian youths save for a few dissenting voices who still hold steadfast in faith expecting a miracle from President Buhari.

Gbenga Sesan

Gbenga Sesan, the Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative Nigeria was also an avid supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari before and after the 2015 general elections.

Following the downward spiral of the economy under Buhari’s watch, a lot of Nigerians have lashed out the youths perceived to have garnered a large crop of President Buhari’s supporters- a group which Gbenga belongs to.

Before Fawehinmi’s apology, Gbenga had in a subtle and diplomatic way declared Buhari a failure through his Twitter page.

How he escaped the social media backlash that should have come after is still a surprise however, he won on this one.

Samson Siasia and the Olympic Dream Team

This is for obvious reasons. The Nigerian Olympic soccer team is currently on a cruise after securing a victory over Denmark to ease into the semi-finals.

Despite the poor financial preparation for this tournament, the team is determined to make a mark at the Olympics and come away with the gold medal.

Losers

@DigiComms

@DigiComms is the twitter handle of the Presidency’s Office of Digital Engagement. The handle came under fire during the week when it tried to reply a tweet with its usual sarcasm and smugness.

Probably a telltale sign of Nigerians’ frustration with Buhari’s government, the attempted joke by the government Twitter handle was not taken lightly as Netizens came out in droves to add their tidbits to the national bashing.

Hopefully, whoever is behind that handle gets a less horrible week moving forward.

Abdulmumin Jibrin

The former chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the House of Representatives had his 15 minutes of fame in the media as a public hero when he blew a non-existent whistle on an alleged padding of the 2016 budget.

Jibrin kept going on and on with his accusations, even to the point of stating that his revelations would start a revolution in the House of Reps.

It does appear although, that his expectation of a revolution is just mere talk as Dogara has given ample reasons why the so called padding is the legal duty of the legislative arm.

President Muhammadu Buhari

The President has since his emergence as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress enjoyed a lot of goodwill from Nigerians which looked to have run thin following the series of apologies from his supporters last week.

The president looks to have lost more than a few followers due to his apparent mismanagement of the country’s economy.

Basketmouth

The comedian, Basketmouth also had quite a rough week as Nigerians bashed him for his lack of loyalty to former President Goodluck Jonathan after he posted a message on his Instagram blaming the erstwhile President for the recession in the country.

Nigerians attacked Basketmouth in droves to the point he had to release another post apologising to anyone who might have felt aggrieved by his comments about Jonathan.

He reiterated his respect and support for the former President but not after he had been pummeled and bashed by angry Nigerians on social media.

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