GEJ deserves at least 12 more terms… in last week’s news with a pinch of salt

by Stanley Azuakola

When Nigerians called the president out on “the lie,” they defended their incompetence by claiming it was a “notorious fact” they got from a paper.

Osun PDP Cries ‘Fowl’

IN Osun State, the PDP and ACN have been involved in a war of words. The state governor, Rauf Aregbesola, accused the PDP of unnecessarily “crying foul in public over some of his government’s policies.” The PDP immediately responded saying, “We would like to call the attention of the world to the governor’s language. How can he say that the PDP is crying like fowl in public? Is he trying to arrest and victimise us? Only last week, his government arrested some poor goats that strayed into public view. One of the goats died in custody. Now he’s calling PDP members fowl so that he can arrest us too for publicly crying against his oppressive policies. We refuse to be called fowls or goats or any other animal for that matter.” Meanwhile, the governor has dismissed the PDP’s remarks, describing it as a classic case of “crying wolf.”

UK Guardian Loves Nigeria

LAST week, a piece appeared in the UK Guardian hailing some achievements of President Jonathan. It was later found to be a paid advertorial and not an independent piece. However, even after Nigerians had discovered that the piece in question was a paid advert, the presidential media team still unanimously agreed that it was proper for Nigerians to celebrate the achievement of having a paid advert about the president’s achievement in the UK Guardian.

Reno Omokri, an adviser to the president said on Twitter that “It’s not every day that the Guardian UK accepts that kind of advert. They are usually more selective. The fact that they lowered the standard to accept our advert is yet another achievement of this administration.” Meanwhile, Omokri also said that according to the World Bank, the poverty level in Nigeria has decreased from a whopping 48 percent of the population to a whopping 46. He said this is a sign that the president should be allowed to rule Nigeria for at least 12 terms. “It’s simple logic,” he said. “If in two years, he has reduced poverty by 2 percent, then in 4 years, it will fall by 4 percent. If we give him 12 terms (a total of 48 years), he would eradicate poverty in Nigeria from 48 to zero percent.”

Gov. Wada’s Non-repentance

Ordinarily, the people of Kogi should be in a celebratory mood, but they aren’t. The state governor, Idris Wada, who was involved in a car crash, is gradually recovering and the people were initially excited to hear that he was doing well. Suddenly he made an announcement, which deflated their spirits. Wada told a delegation of governors who came to visit him that the accident “would not stop me from performing the way I have always performed.”

The statement threw the entire state into mourning and lamentation. Some residents who spoke to A Pinch… said, “We thought the accident would make Gov. Wada repent and change his ways. Instead he’s telling the world that he’ll perform the same way he’s always performed. This means more incompetence, more cluelessness, more of doing nothing. Oh! What a tragedy!” And then they began wailing and lamenting again.

CROWNED CLOWN (CeeCee) OF THE WEEK

There are some who argue that the president’s image and media team constitute his Achilles heel. A Pinch… does not agree. President Jonathan is bad all by himself. But his team has to do so much better. Sometimes their laziness hurts so much it’s almost criminal. Take what happened last week as an instance. One of President Jonathan’s aides, Reno Omokri, announced on social media that the UK Guardian had done an objective and independent analysis of the Nigerian power sector and came to the conclusion that “the light is getting brighter.” He posted links.

Before long it became clear that the piece was neither objective nor independent. In fact, “Advertisement feature” was written on the page in which the piece appeared. A Pinch… spoke with Mr. Omokri and he says he made an honest mistake because the “Advertisement feature” wasn’t written boldly enough. A Pinch… believes him and does not think he intentionally set out to mislead. However this shoddiness by the president’s men is appalling and disgraceful. Anybody working that high up in government needs to do better.

This isn’t the first time a shameful mistake like this is being made. The other time, a speech was written for the president, which quoted a fictitious Transparency International report. When Nigerians called the president out on “the lie,” they defended their incompetence by claiming it was a “notorious fact” they got from a paper. Wonder what they’ll call last week’s gaffe. A Pinch… however knows what to call Reno Omokri and the other guys constituting the backroom team for President Jonathan: Crowned Clowns.

Follow A Pinch on twitter @stanleyazuakola

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

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