BY Reno Omokri
I watched Femi Adesina’s interview on Channels Television on Sunday January 26, 2020, and I felt sorry, very sorry for General Muhammadu Buhari.
First, his own wife, Aisha Buhari, exposes one of his spokesmen, Garba Shehu, as a liar, and agent of the cabal, whose loyalty to her husband is directed by what he would gain financially.
And now, the other spokesman, Femi Adesina, has shown himself to be not just a liar, but an unintelligent one at that.
During the said interview, Femi Adesina upbraided Nigerians for complaining about the spate of insecurity in Nigeria. He then went on to say that ‘Nigerians should be thankful that bombing has reduced.’
Continuing, the misguided Mr. Adesina said: “It is not as bad as you make it seem…because we know what the situation was as of 2015 and we know what it is today despite the reversals in security, it is still not as bad as it used to be in this country….Yes, there was a bomb or two today (Sunday). There was a time that there were five, six, ten bombings in a day in this country.”
It is said that no matter how far falsehood has traveled, it must eventually be overtaken by truth. And the truth is that there was never a day throughout the five year administration of former President Jonathan when and where there were “five, six, ten bombings in a day in this country”.
I challenge Femi Adesina to give us specific dates, and we will produce documents from the Global Terrorism Index, which shows the number of bombings, shootings and other acts of insecurity, measured daily.
According to the Global Terrorism Index, published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), Nigeria is now more terrorised under General Buhari than at anytime under former President Jonathan.
Whereas, Nigeria was ranked the fourth most terrorised nation in the world in 2014, under former President Jonathan, the latest Global Terror Index lists Nigeria, under General Buhari, as the third most terrorised nation in the world.
Not just that, Nigeria, under General Buhari, now has two of the world’s top 10 most deadly terror groups in the world (herdsmen and Boko Haram). The only nation with this dubious distinction.
Furthermore, on February 1, 2017, the United States Congress cited Nigeria, under General Buhari, “as the most dangerous place for Christians in the world”, bar none, and that “impunity for those responsible for the killing of Christians in the country seems to be widespread.
I would further wish to remind the fallacious Femi Adesina that whereas former President Jonathan arrested and was in the process of judicially trying thousands of Boko Haram members, including Kabiru Sokoto, who was sentenced and imprisoned, the Buhari administration sets Boko Haram terrorists free, in their thousands, on the flimsy reason that they were now ‘repentant’.
It would be also recalled that one of the released so called ‘repentant’ Boko Haram commanders, Shuaibu Moni, released in April of 2018, went back to the group, led an attack that killed scores of Nigerians, and released a video promising further killings. So much for his ‘repentance’.
Whether it is anti-corruption, terrorism, the economy, or the Human Development Index, the Jonathan administration stands shoulder above that of General Buhari. The just released 2020 Corruption Perception Index shows Nigeria has retrogressed from the progress made under the Jonathan administration, when we made our best progress in 2014, moving to 136, compared with today, when we have slipped 10 places backward to 146.
Or is it the Global Hunger Index of the International Food Policy Research Institute, which praised Nigeria, under former President Jonathan, for reducing hunger levels by 1.5 points, but has upbraided the Buhari administration for making Nigeria the world headquarters for extreme poverty.
If Femi Adesina does not know what to do, my counsel to him would be that he should bury his head in shame, because his own home region, the Southwest, was so secure under former President Jonathan, but today, things are so bad that they have to come up with Amotekun, to protect themselves, since the Federal Government cannot protect them.
▪ Omokri, Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Avid traveller. Hollywood Magazine Film Festival Humanitarian of the Year, 2019.