ATIKU AND HIS REINVENTION CAMPAIGN

There seems to be no more shame in our land.  Or the level of impunity is far beyond what we are all thinking.  How do you explain the recent boast by erstwhile vice president that graduates of public universities cannot compare with those of his secondary school?  What gall!  Have we reached the stage where those who steal from our till, will rub it in our face by reminding us how unfortunate we are?  Have we so lost our humanity that we can berate the poor and the honest for being unable to send their kids to schools established by modern day pirates?

Atiku Abubakar was the vice president of Nigeria when he established his American University of Nigeria in Yola.  He and his supporters didn’t see anything wrong in establishing a private institution while superintending over the systematic destruction of all government social services, education inclusive, while serving as the vice president.  The unprecedented decline in the capacity of public schools to accommodate, train and graduate students reached its zenith during the period he was vice president.  The former vice president’s schools were established when Boni Haruna, his political son was holding sway in Yola as governor of Adamawa state, therefore conventional wisdom has it that the schools were established using public funds – the same funds meant to run these same institutions that the former vice president is running down its graduates.  As a matter of fact, the American University was established at a time the Adamawa state government was not able to pay WAEC/ NECO fees for students of public institutions.

I think it is the height of insult for this carpetbagger to come out bragging about the quality of his students, rubbing it in the face of the those less fortunate to occupy public offices thereby availing themselves of our common patrimony and sending their kids to such schools; established by pirates for the nouvea riche. Yes, the quality of graduates of public universities may not be at par with those who passed through his schools – but how about the satisfaction of knowing you don’t have to deprive the less unfortunate in order to send your kid to such schools like American University and Bells University?

I know that the likes of Atiku Abubakar feel the poor lacks understanding of their social importance to the society and to the politician.  This lack of understanding may not be unconnected to the deliberate policy of those in government to pauperise the people and destroy government social services and making sure those they established becomes unaffordable to us.  Thus the poor have been conditioned to think of themselves as only important to the politician either only as a voter or a political thug with no higher purpose than to be at the beck and call of the same people that turned him into a zombie.  Isn’t it time to pause and redefine our position and importance to the politician?

I do not have any problem with Atiku’s desire to be the president of Nigeria.  I equally do not have any problem with firing his first campaign shots this early in the life of an administration he was supposed to have midwifed (though anyone observant enough knew he never gave Buhari a chance of winning).  But for him to have the guts to come out and tell Nigerians what he was credited to have said is the height of insensitivity.  But this is Nigeria where criminalise are canonised – the more you steal the more you are revered.

Anyone with a modicum of compassion in his heart won’t be so callous as to denigrate the same system that he once benefited from and help in destroying.  Most of those from Atiku’s generation attended public schools because it was free.  Whatever position they attained in life was largely due to this free education they were given by a caring and result-oriented government of that time.  Most of them might not have been lucky to attend school for the same reason we now have school-age children hawking and begging on our streets.  The few that are lucky to attend public schools are now facing ridicule from the likes of Atiku, who helped in no so small way in destroying the very foundations of their successes.

Atiku Abubakar lined up activities to mark his 70^th birthday – doling out handouts to IDPs, visiting his various business interests in and around Yola and hosting political jobbers.  I don’t have any quarrel with that.  But to think he can use the serene environment of his University to denigrate us? Ah, ah!  Feeding IDPs who made IDPs in the first place by the (in)actions of the same man Atiku was wining and dining with on the eve of the 2015 elections is bad PR as far as I am concerned.  We still remember vividly the night Goodluck Jonathan visited him in his house in Abuja in the heat of the 2015 campaigns.  When all thought he was leading the campaigns in the north for Buhari, he was actually hosting Goodluck to a nocturnal visit.  Atiku should therefore be held vicariously liable for the plight of the IDPs since he played a passive role when Goodluck was fiddling while the villages of these IDPs were set ablaze.

We attended public schools from LEA primary schools to public universities and we are proud of these institutions.  For anyone to think he could put them down, good luck to him, but first he must tear his certificates.

ABDURRAHMAN ABBA: CHIEF OF STAFF OR THUG-IN-CHIEF?

Well, good people of Adamawa both at home and in the diaspora, here is a fairy tale with a moral.  Seems there was once upon a time a little boyman with a face resembling a mashed melon who thought he could always say what he wants and get away with it.  So to prove it, over a period of ten years or so, he usually put his mouth in motion before his brain (if he has any) is in gear.  He has perfected the art of verbal hemorrhage to the extent he believe he has become an untouchable; that he can insult anyone and any group of people and be applauded.  But his last outing may yet proof to be his Achilles heels.

The chief of staff to the Adamawa state governor is known for his belligerence towards anyone who disagrees with his brand of thuggish politics, or anyone with an independent mind to disagree with his bosses at any given time.  His attitude defies the age-old saying that “dress makes a man”.  Despite his being clothed by people far superior to him in character and comportment, he has failed to lift himself up from the gutters others have been trying their best to bring out from.  Rather true to his nature he has been doing his dandiest best to drag his benefactors in to his pigsty.

He has been severally reported in the past as daring (in insultive terms) anyone who may not like his brand of politics to do his worst  - he is the new kid on the block. May be he is yet to come to terms with his new elitist status and therefore failed to rid himself of his in-born thuggish insolence.  In the past ten years he was thrust into leadership positions by leaders who weren’t ready for leadership roles; leaders who were only willing to use him as a battering ram against their people knowing that he lacks scruples.  Honesty to him and his bosses is just another word and not a way of life and therefore makes dishonesty a way life.

An honest man had to be of one piece and one faith.  What constituted the life source, the idea in any man and why if any smallest part committed faux pas to that idea – in this case the mouth – the man is dead to al practical purposes.  The good, the high and the noble in society are only those who keep their integrity.  The chief of staff is not capable of reaching such heights because he is flawlessly inconsistent.  We will all be a heap sight better off if we will consign the likes of Abdurrahman Abba to the rubbish heap and continue with what our predecessors did – build a state.  Not ethnic alliances meant to bring down or exclude those regarded as not “qualified” to be of the unholy alliance.

The very idea the chief of staff is trying to promote was the precursor to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 which clamed the lives of no less than 1million people.  Garrulous and uncouth public officials who happen to find themselves in power like our chief of staff and using government propaganda machinery got their people in trouble in those days in Rwanda.  In emulating his precursors actions, the governor’s chief of staff is recklessly running his mouth without thinking the consequences or ramifications of his verbal diarrhea.  Even if he believe he is not touchable now, it will do him a world of good to pause for a moment, get his head out of his ethnic laager and beam his myopic eyes on the Hague.  He will find his soul mates behind bars waiting for their day of judgment.

Such alliances as he and his fellow travellers hasn’t worked in the past and will certainly not work now nor in the future - not in Adamawa and not anywhere.

The emptiness in the verbosity of our chief of staff is scary because the gullible, the undiscerning and the truly ethnicists may latch onto it thinking it is government policy and therefore unleash mayhem on the unsuspecting.  I had deliberately given him and his ilk a wide berth thinking they are not important enough for any verbal assassination.  But he is becoming a danger to the civilized society.

Nobody begrudges him his “Bataness” and he should therefore not hold anybody’s tribe or ethnicity against him.  If he believes strongly about who he is, so do others and where you have such a mix, there is bound to be combustion.  There has been pockets of ethnic related crisis in the state in the past where no one was held responsible.  Whenever there is any reoccurrence in the forseeable future, we know who to hold responsible.

As to those who were seated when the thug-in-chief was making his incendiary remarks and chose to keep mute, posterity will have no pity on them, to paraphrase Fanon.  This, in my book is either tacit approval or complicity in the tirade.  I strongly believe most of them are well beyond board but if they choose to associate themselves with such garbage in the future, we should find it difficult to spare when they are docked before the peoples’ court in the future.

Verbal thuggery is not a preserve of any individual – we can choose to be nasty when the time and occasion demands.  I am therefore belatedly asking my readers to forgive my language for this particular piece.  Much as I tried to be civil, I find this piece is as civil as I feel today.  This was my reason for trying to give the likes of Abdurrahman Abba I wide berth.  I fear I may pick up their bad habits – bad language inclusive.