Presidential aide on public affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, is an irritant with a cause however ignoble you may think it is. He is doing everything in his office to bulldoze his face into our homes every day. Hate him or love him, the Ogun State born medical doctor is damn good in the discharge of his responsibility which necessarily involves hitting hard at anyone who dares to punch holes in his principal’s so-called transformative strides. When he was appointed as Special Assistant on Public Affairs some years back, it was clear that his job schedule would involve barking and shouting down a growing band of armchair critics who would not allow President Goodluck Jonathan to patiently enjoy his run of luck in Aso Rock. He came on board at a time when the President’s popularity rating was criminally dwindling as his spokesperson, including the then Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, ran from pillar to post in their largely unsuccessful effort to put some positive spin on an ugly downward slide. The lot fell on Okupe’s fat (no pun intended) shoulders, to inject some political aggressiveness and fiery rascality into the President’s public relations strategy.
Of course, going by precedents, no one has ever done this kind of job in Nigeria bearing a crest of morality on his chest and dabbing his face with a sweet-scented powder of reason. It is not a job meant for those who cannot turn logic on its head and twist the tale in favour of their principal—the greatest man that ever lived in Nigeria (if you believe those grossly fallacious advertisements). On this job, you simply cannot afford to see a fault in your principal. He is infallible, perfect and saintly. To be honest, I laugh when some unschooled and politically ignorant social media activists take umbrage against Okupe for the ‘recklessness’ with which he defends every policy of the government. I snigger when I read piles of critical commentaries, castigating Okupe for daring to discharge his duty to the best of his abilities. I shiver each time I recollect that Okupe’s name was missing in the last National Honours’ list. Personally, I believe someone in The Presidency or in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation did a great disservice to Okupe’s sense of duty. That such a nationalist’s name was missing is a national calamity. It should not happen again! From all indications, Okupe should have been one of the recipients of the same honours that was dashed one ‘Alhaji’ who led thugs to scale the gates of the National Assembly in defiance of intelligence reports as captured by the a Inspector General of Police and Chief Judge of the Federal Government, Mr. Suleiman Abba. Or didn’t we listen to Okupe as he blamed the fence-climbing lawmakers while commending the tear-gas throwing men in black for their professional conduct in the face of unwarranted provocation? Hmnnnnn. As one of the editors here would put it: Haba, Abba!
Now, let me fire straight from the hips: it is unfair to label Okupe the government’s Rottweiler for repeatedly drumming it into our dead eardrums that Jonathan remains the best leader of all times in our chequered history. Trust me. I would have led the band of critics to lambast him if he had not justified that position with some unassailable facts. On this matter, he took advantage of his background in medicine in clinically dissecting the achievements of his boss. We must also understand that the task was made difficult by the fact that he was responding to allegations of dismal failure made against Jonathan by Okupe’s former boss, the wily old fox in Ota Farms, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. Why should we deny Okupe a rare opportunity to gloat when the accuser-in-chief was the same individual that once hired and fired him from Aso Villa? Do we expect him to sit his ass down while Obasanjo runs riot with his sacrilegious condemnation of everything Jonathan, an apprentice undertaker who has exceeded his master, OBJ’s inglorious marks? How then can Okupe look his principal in the face and justify his pay with all the perquisites that come with barking down on critical elements?
Besides, in this era of do-or-die politics, it is a risky business to allow anyone to have a monopoly of mouth diarrhoea. It would have been politically suicidal for this hardworking man to look the other way when the man who foisted a Jonathan on us not only declared him an abysmal failure but also clueless and inept. Aside his biting letters to wit The Presidency had duly responded to, ‘Baba’ – as Obasanjo is fondly called by those who worship at his altar of political mischief – has personally taken the battle of a sore relationship between a godfather and his godson to the doorstep of Jonathan. On Wednesday, Baba Iyabo was at it again, hitting his estranged political godson hard on the groin.
He said his pick for the vice presidential slot under the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s short-lived regime continues to wring his hands in surrender as the Boko Haram menace has become a ‘big industry’ in his government. He blurted, with sniggering candour, that Jonathan wasted three solid years before he could do anything tangible in confronting the deadly activities of a sect that has crippled the economy of the entire North-East geo-political zone of Nigeria. He said any well-meaning government would have come up with a workable strategy to mediate what was evidently an impending implosion for oil-producing countries with the discovery of shale oil. The failure to be proactive, he noted, has led to the hurried announcement of the devaluation of the Naira and some austerity measures, which would hurt the average Nigerian the more. He said this government, if allowed to continue with its pussyfooting on all matters of state, might end up borrowing huge funds to ruin the country.
He said his pick for the vice presidential slot under the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s short-lived regime continues to wring his hands in surrender as the Boko Haram menace has become a ‘big industry’ in his government. He blurted, with sniggering candour, that Jonathan wasted three solid years before he could do anything tangible in confronting the deadly activities of a sect that has crippled the economy of the entire North-East geo-political zone of Nigeria. He said any well-meaning government would have come up with a workable strategy to mediate what was evidently an impending implosion for oil-producing countries with the discovery of shale oil. The failure to be proactive, he noted, has led to the hurried announcement of the devaluation of the Naira and some austerity measures, which would hurt the average Nigerian the more. He said this government, if allowed to continue with its pussyfooting on all matters of state, might end up borrowing huge funds to ruin the country. The economy, he declared, is in comatose regardless of what the IMF-trained Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, says. And, in putting the final nail on Jonathan’s stay in the Place of the Rock, Obasanjo said the Otuoke-born politician is fixated on hounding all opposing voices out of circulation by all means possible while oiling the wheel of corruption in the legislature through “direct payment of money to the legislature to cover up wrongs done by the executive thereby making the legislature fail in its oversight responsibility.” Accusing the lawmakers of extortion, abuse of privileges and all manner of criminality in the hallowed chambers, Obasanjo whose regime brought the ‘Ghana-Must-Go’ syndrome into the National Assembly and Nigerians’ consciousness, lamented that the Executive, under Jonathan, ‘worsens it when they pay slush money not to investigate or to cover up misdeeds of corruption and misconduct.”
Seriously, why should Okupe not be enraged by Obasanjo’s unfounded diatribe against a President who is clearly, in Okupe’s words, Nigeria’s best leader since independence in 1960. How could Obasanjo continue to rub his boy’s nose on the harsh floor when Okupe, some few day back, told anyone that cared to listen that Jonathan’s giant strides are visible in all nooks and crannies of the federation including the North-East where over 200 school girls had gone missing in the last 229 days? Where was Obasanjo when Okupe wrote, and caused to be published as an advertorial in a national daily, an inspiring prose about our fedora-wearing President? If an insider, which Okupe is, says Oga Jonah’s evidence of performance ‘stares all of us in the face’, why should an octogenarian ex-leader insist that our economy is dancing on the brink of collapse as “those who should act are dancing slow foxtrot while their trousers are catching fire?” If Okupe calls Obasanjo a liar now, some Nigerians would say he is being disrespectful to his former boss. Pray, what manner of dance is foxtrot? Does that sound like a traditional dance steps in the creeks or is that the kind of melody fishermen wriggle their waists to?
And on Boko Haram, what does Baba stand to gain by saying that the criminal activities of these killers of our dream have transformed into an industry within the government and even in the Boko Haram camps? Did he not know that the South African government once frustrated our efforts to battle the insurgents by seizing our $15m in a cash-for-arms deal? Can he tell us that he was unaware of the billions of Naira released to the Ministry of Defence to prosecute the war? Where was he when the defence chiefs said they provided the soldiers and combatants at the war front with all the needed equipment and emoluments to confront the insurgents? So, how is it an industry within an industry of thieves? How?
Besides, Okupe has explained that though the Boko Haram sect has persisted in its “mindless killings, kidnappings and supposed territorial seizures”, the Jonathan government has made “giant diplomatic strides with our neighbouring countries in order to checkmate the crisscrossing of the insurgents. The truth of the matter which we must know and accept is that we have an internal enemy supported by internal and external resources waging a major warfare against our nation.” Why, for crying out loud, has Obasanjo refused to see the giant strides others are seeing? Why? Is it because, like the leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party puts it, he no longer controls political patronage in order to install his hirelings in juicy positions?
Anyway, this is my two-kobo advice to those taunting Okupe and his strategically positioned social media rats to a dogfight, they should be ready for a verbal lashing and some exaggerated listing of the uncommon transformation that stares them in the face even if they have refused to see such. Besides, if every presidential Rottweiler deserves his day in the murky waters of political brigandage, why should we chastise Okupe for doing a damn good job? Who knows? Could it be that Obasanjo is envious of Jonathan for making good use of a man he once kicked out unceremoniously from the presidential Villa for undisclosed reason? See how ‘transformed’ Okupe has become in less than four years. He now barks befuddling gibberish into our eardrums and taunts us with the shadowy gloom that stares us in the face! Well, it is Okupe’s good luck and, as law-abiding citizens untainted by the “thuggish mentality” in high places, we are admonished to take this vomit with stoic equanimity as we tighten our belts to face the consequences of a sick economy under the charge of Nigeria’s best leader ever! Shame!
