by Godwin Aleke

“Buhari has been running for President since 2003 and … For one, a lot of intellectual energy is usually expended analysis him and the many baggage he represent. In the process, core issues that should be tackled at election time get suspended” – Abimbola Adelakun, (Back Page) The Punch, Thursday 23rd October 2014.

 The heavy contradiction and self-indictment inherent in the above lines summarises the essence and meaning of her essay. How can intellectual energy be channelled to analyse a non-core issue? Such energy cannot be said to be of any intellectual value; it is at best an emotional one. If Abimbola can admit that herself and the people she represent has channelled all their energy in analysing Buhari – of course, we know it to be the manufacturing of and creation imaginary fears to scare the poorly informed masses away from him; refusing to focus on that which is important; she should go ahead to tell us more of the interest they protect by so doing.

You cannot eat your cake and have it. You cannot take to corrupt ways and expect development. Corruption kills all it comes in contact with, and Abimbola should get this.

We all know the real “baggage” that Buhari represents. This the shameless Nigerian elites who have brought our country to her kneels will never admit. They will rather manufacture the lies of religious extremism, and continually twist Buhari’s words, to scare away the masses. They have been able to use this; in addition with the massive rigging capabilities of PDP to put off the day Buhari will climb back to our seat of power, to cleanse our land. As is natural in our world, every lie expires one day. As also as expected, the force of nature conspires to bring up one capable of cleansing a polluted land. This, Buhari represents.

As a humble and humane character that he is; Buhari, unlike most Nigerian leaders have proved over the years, to be at best in utilizing the positive energies of his deputies. In an outstanding manner, he enabled Idiagbon to work to his fullest that the government of 1984/85 is till date called Buhari/Idiagbon government. The scaremongers in PDP have tried to credit only Idiagbon with all the positive ideas of that Government, in an all-out attempt to undermine Buhari’s record. Yet the writer wants us to believe, against all contrary evidences, that Buhari will never grant his deputy the free hand to deliver, where necessary, as is the norm in PDP since 1999. To achieve a pre-determined goal of pulling down Buhari, to stop his emergence come 2015 a President we so desired; she cooked-up every possible dirty to paint Buhari bad.

I put it to her that hers is not an intellectual work, but a poorly articulated marketing script that is bound to fail. The last days of their deceits are here with us. The scales have fallen out of our eyes, and we can clearly perceive who is out to protect the interest of our nation and our people among the Presidential contenders. For this reason has Atiku with all his stolen billions, and thousands of agents among the press, lost their voice. For this has Buhari, just days after declaration, become the centre of attraction. Not even the government in power, command the amount of interest and enthusiasms that follows Buhari.

If I am Abimbola, I will start by confessing that my Proprietor by instructing us, in a written memo, during the build up to 2011 election to report none of the numerous negatives about the then acting President Jonathan, and to dig deep to pull down Buhari; took away a sound intellectual discuss of the candidates. This was well reported by Sahara reporters then. I will hold him responsible for the lack of debates centred on core issues; and most importantly for laying the ground for the present clueless sorts, in-charge of our national affairs.

She should tell us more about the brown envelops that fly around the media houses which determines what is reported and the lies that are manufactured. She should do a comparative analysis of the contents of the Newspapers and Magazines coming out from our lazy corrupt Journalist with that of their overseas colleagues.

If she is free and clean, she should be bold enough to admit that all corrupt Nigerian Elites are scared of Buhari. That once the name Buhari prompts up, corrupt Nigerian elites rally round each other to stop him; for no other reason than to protect their corrupt ways.

Buhari is anathema to corruption. Buhari is a man preserved by God and nature as a cure to Nigerian corruption. We know what it takes for one to withstand the innumerable challenges of our day; the devious billions flowing from our seat of power, seeking to buy every willing hand; and persistently remain on the side of the masses and truth. This is no mean achievement. Buhari, even in death, will ever be remembered as the man that stood against Nigerian corrupt ways; and God willing, Buhari will inhabit Aso Rock come 2015, to give a final knock to our corrupt ways.

If Abimbola does not know, I will put it to her that it is down to corruption that her Proprietor could not pay her salary regularly. It is as a consequence of corruption that their sales volume has been continually dwindling. It is as a result, that the content of their papers are worthless. On several occasions, I have regretted buying the papers, because they do not represent values for money. All they contain are lies concocted from their office seats; poorly written lies at best.

When I read Times and Economist Magazines, the sentence structures, the grammatical presentation, the factual presentation and the flow of the construct makes my day. But when I pick Nigerian newspaper, the reverse becomes the case. I have discussed this with several reporters who admitted it to be so. I have made attempt to get a book reviewed by all the top Nigerian papers, only to meet open demand for twenty thousand bribe. Abimbola should tell us more about these; and why the crème-la-crème of Nigerian editors is afraid of Buhari.

I do not want to write on the emergence of the present day elites of our time; needless to say they are product of colonization, and such is expected from them. The world is constantly evolving and the days of the ex-slaves ad never-do-wells prompted by colonialist to rule us will soon come to an end. At such time, heroes and worthy characters like Buhari will be celebrated.

At such time, the positive energies of my country will be taken away from corruption and acquisition of stolen wealth; toward creative and inventive ideas. At such time, we will know what it takes to have a country we can call home, and a President that truly cares for his people. At such time character like Abimbola who control our press will take the back-seat.

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This article was first published on Sahara Reporters

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.