Let it be stated that I am ashamed of my president. Yes my president and supposed president of Nigeria, Mr. Bola Tinubu. It’s not because he’s not good looking. I am not particularly good looking myself. It’s not because he’s not from my ethnic group. No. My best friends and benefactors are not of my tribe.
I am ashamed of my president because he never gets anything right. He is what we used to call a bumblebee in those early school days. But worse is that he doesn’t seem to know nor does he care. He carries on like someone so much out of his depth, out of his league and doing all the wrong things.
Let’s buttress with a few examples. Yesterday, my president reportedly jetted out of Nigeria again. ‘Reportedly’ because we are not quite sure of the situation, (we are not quite sure of anything anymore since he became our president).
According to his media aide, he’s going away on vacation for three weeks after about six months of hectic work at home (really? We hardly see him. He never talks to us!).
Now he’s away for about 21 days. He didn’t handover to the vice president. They say he will be attending to work even from his vacation outposts. President Tinubu has never, ever handed over to his able vice president, Kashim Shettima. Not once in all of three years. Obviously doesn’t trust Shettima. He keeps him at arm’s length and only sends him on ceremonial events. This must explain why Kashim never smiles. He must be very unhappy.
So why do we bother to have a deputy if he’s never good enough or trusted to be able to handle state affairs. Yet Kashim has been picked yet again to be running mate in the second term bid.
Back to the supposed three weeks leave. Only unserious presidents would leave his country and travel to another president’s domain for all of three weeks. Imagine Trump or Macron or Ramaphosa in Nigeria for three weeks. Even John Mahama of Ghana would never spend three weeks supposedly vacationing in Nigeria. Unless of course he’s sick and needs special medical care. Even then, there are good hospitals in Ghana that tend to their president.
On an impulse, I made a quick check of John Mahama’s holiday destination and it reveals that the Ghanaian president spends his holidays exploring local eco-tourism destinations within Ghana such as Crown Forest Resort and Eco Safari. Ramaphosa vacations Mauritius. Not in London or Paris.
You see why president Tinubu is not likeable. Nigeria probably has the highest number of designated forest reserves in West Africa.
Oyo State alone has nine, with the Old Oyo National Park being outstanding. Sambisa is a large forest reserve. It’s now the haven of bandits. Imagine Tinubu holidaying in Kainji Lake National Park. Would bandits dare to lodge therein with him? Wouldn’t the place come alive for other compatriots to go enjoy vacations? But sorry to say that Tinubu has proved to be a bumblebee.
It has to be the most obtuse thing any president would do: to spend weeks holidaying in another country kept well by another president.
But here we are, the president of Nigeria, the giant of Africa travelling to another president’s country and spending 20 days and Nights.
How can anyone be proud of such a president?
And President Tinubu is always doing this. In the habit of jetting off at every opportunity. His aides told us he has been around at home for about six months in a stretch doing hectic chores in Nigeria.
How come we’re not aware of his presence and hard work? No impact whatsoever. He doesn’t talk to us. We hardly see him. He wasn’t even at the FEC last Wednesday. But he met APC governors later that day to charge them to capture, sorry, deliver their states in January’s general election.
Talking about the president doing hectic work in the last six months, but to what end? We felt no positive impact. Hunger continues to decimate Nigerians while our president keeps insisting all is well. The north of Nigeria is currently under a holocaust of hunger… Our president has no clue what to do. He doesn’t even seem to be aware the calamity he has brought upon the hoi-polloi by his bumble-fumble!
What has dominated the media in the last six months are the killings and abductions in Benue, Niger, Borno and Kogi highway. Bandits now take battles to our military bases then we boast about repelling them. Our military has forgotten that terrorists are supposed to be decimated and completely exterminated.
The roads to Kogi are the new frontiers of kidnappers. EXPRESSO hears that the press can’t keep pace anymore with the marauders. Some unspecified numbers of Youth Corps members were abducted just one day before the president jetted out. He couldn’t care less. Let the dead bury their dead, he must have said to himself, if indeed anyone dared to reveal the ‘dirty’ need to him.
Perhaps, the most memorable event of the period is the failed road between Benin and Agbor.
It’s so bad Al-Jazeera did a number on it. The world watched in shock. They must have wondered whether Nigeria was still a country or a failed state!
Our compatriots went through hell including spending two nights on a journey of 8 hours. We didn’t hear a word from our president. Our lout of a works minister wouldn’t take responsibility. He kept insulting us with childish Tom N Jerry tales about concessions and concessionaires. But who gave him permission to concession a federal highway to his cronies who made away with N14 billion according to him?
We also see petrol prices soar to about N1,300.00 while Nigeria engages in her peculiar malady of exporting refined petrol and crude oil as well as importing the importing the same products all at the same time.
This is a special madness that has afflicted Nigeria since Tinubu came to office.
Opacity has become the norm in the oil sector headed by him. It seems President Tinubu likes to operate under the shadow of darkness.
His dud certificates have been raging in the news again as he bids for a second term while the CIA and FBI again affirmed that our President is their PRIZEDÂ ASSET. And not even the US Department of Justice (DOJ) can make the CIA/FBI to release my president’s perfidious files.
My President is held at the mercy of the CIA and I am supposed to be proud? Yoruba say the crown doesn’t go astray, but this crown is missing. Nigeria’s sovereign is in the hands of the CIA.
Which other sitting President is the property or foreign powers?
Let me close by saying that MY PRESIDENT IS A SECURITY RISK TO ME. I AM ASHAMED OF HIM.
OSUJI was former editor of The Guardian, THISDAY and NewAge
