The presidential media adviser had flawed gender because he had no real self or moral substance, in the last dispensation. Ultimately, he played errand boy and court sycophant to Mr. President. He could be likened to the celebrity hairdresser, boudoir confidant or presidential lounge lizard perpetually nodding in affirmative to the caprices of his principal, the president. He was constantly engaged at the feet and filth attic of the president. Flattery and malice leapt from his forked tongue as he attacked the president’s perceived detractors.
Last dispensation, the Special Adviser to the President on Media Affairs was pliable and servile, a deformation of Castiglione’s courtier. He projected with slavish plasticity, the president’s whim and wile. His identity was self-evacuated as he persistently opened himself like a glove to the presidential palm. Like Castiglione’s male harlots, his shameless self abasement was unmanly and amoral; he elevated bum over forelock in a flagrant rite of political sodomy. This should not be Femi Adesina.
The former editor and director of The Sun newspapers until his appointment, flaunted no trait of the fawning page nor was he ever the smooth flatterer and intellectual thug, twisting and turning with changing circumstance. Femi Adesina was never insanely reactive. He was never a parody of masculinity whose words and deeds boomed as cloying mime of a politician’s desire. My former editor was never a perversion of male bonding neither was he a spectacle of submission and ideological sodomy. He was Femi Adesina, widely respectable, poster icon of quintessential journalism.
Then he became Special Adviser on Media Affairs to President Muhammadu Buhari and every virtue he was known by, is constantly put to the test, by the second. The jury may be out on his capacity to stem the tide of journalism’s most abhorrent malady, the intoxication of power and money, but I am keeping faith in Mr. Adesina’s incontestable virtues.
His new office shouldn’t corrupt him or cause him to mutate into a clueless sounding board for Mr. President or a massager of his ego. That is why his recent article: “A new sheriff is in town,” gives serious cause for concern. While most journalists would sheepishly egg him on and cantankerously aver that he was simply doing his job, Mr. Adesina should be wary of such freeloaders who would always urge him to toady up to Mr. President, “As long as it is lucrative.” They only care what free money they may make from him as kickbacks for “making his work easier for him.”
Mr. Adesina’s piece was verbose with flattery ; his use of exclamation marks and aggressive bid to portray President Buhari as a hero was uncalled for. Nigeria sailed past that bight few months ago. We are done propping Buhari up as our hero, it’s time for him to truly match his heroic promises with actions that will resonate positively in the life of the average Nigerian.
Heroes grow into outsized monsters, in a republic of villains and court sycophants. This minute, President Buhari is our hero, tomorrow, he may become the brute in our recurring nightmares, if we do not take care. Perhaps the statesman from Daura possesses the essential ethics and character to resist the lure of ‘enlightened self interests,’ ‘economic and political expediencies’ characteristic of the Nigerian ruling class. Perhaps not, but in the next few months, Nigeria would know if she was fortunate to return Muhammadu Buhari as President-elect at the last presidential elections.
There is no gainsaying Nigeria is afflicted by political profiteers comprising the ruling class and various segments of the poor, struggling masses. In the ensuing degeneracy of politics and cultural ethos, the hero we know today may morph into a dreadful monster. Given that power is the brandy of the turncoat, there is need to scrutinize President Buhari uncompromisingly.
Mr. Adesina needs to know that President Buhari’s touted anti-corruption fight is simply noise-making at the moment. When the ‘corrupt’ get prosecuted and sent to jail for their misdemeanor, Nigerians will believe him. And despite his touted reduction of his salary and that of his deputy, President Buhari is not working pro bono. He is being paid for the work he does. And it’s an open secret that his cozy allowances among other frills of being President and living in Aso Rock are the stuff the finest fantasies are made of hence no matter how vociferously he announces the cut in his salaries, his apologists and most virulent critics will continue to see him as the luckiest, richest and most powerful Nigerian alive.
Buhari has been cuddled enough, by the media and his most ardent supporters. Nigeria needs him to work now. And no matter the floweriness and duplicity of spin accorded his first 100 days in office, very little has changed since Buhari became President. Of course, Nigerians discuss with mixed feelings his performance so far; his critics persistently call him “Baba go slow,” a pun on his perceived snail pace even as his diehard apologists cite steadier electricity supply, more decisive military onslaughts against Boko Haram terrorist sect, sack of corrupt public officers and renewed anti-corruption fight as worthy achievements of his administration.
Truth is, Buhari is yet to do anything extraordinary; if electricity supply has become steadier, it was never meant to be unsteady in the first place. Part of his duty as President is to facilitate and guarantee stable electricity supply. If fuel is being sold at N87 per litre, Nigeria pays Buhari to ensure that the pump price of fuel is affordable to most Nigerians.
It need be acknowledged however, that his globally acclaimed honesty and integrity as a man, ex-soldier and politician exerts reasonable influence and pressure on erstwhile corrupt individuals and institutions to do a cartwheel in pursuit of the good of all. That is appreciable and commendable of the retired general. But there is a limit to what his integrity and personal ethics prior to his emergence in office can do for him.
Integrity is not enough to resolve the nation’s economic woes. It is not enough to transform Nigerians into law-abiding citizens overnight. At the moment, Buhari is still the president of the rich. And that is because he is yet to evolve policies that will liberate the economy and citizenry from the stranglehold of certain influential and powerful characters. And maybe he is busy with the blueprints of the ‘change’ he promised; the ‘change’ we can believe in. Who knows?
The banking sector, oil sector, political sector, cement and grain industries are still under the vicious yoke of characters whose selfish interests continually clash with the best interests of the impoverished masses and struggling middle class who braved bullets and cudgels of the same elements, to vote for Buhari.
I am sure President Buhari is aware that hardly any bank director, oil and cement entrepreneur, politician, royalty, militant and junkyard-dog-journalist is in love with him. Many worked and prayed assiduously for his failure at the polls and no sooner did he win than they began to pray and work against the success of his administration. At his emergence, they understood like Adeshina intoned, that ‘a new sheriff is in town’ and their shady deal regime under former President Goodluck Jonathan was over.
If it was and still is Buhari’s wish to transform Nigeria into an Eden of sort, it would be heavenly of him to succeed. But let him know that, in heaven, saints don’t become ‘God’ and an angel is nobody in particular. It is the job Femi Adesina to play the devil’s advocate and make him understand this fact.
By Olatunji Ololade
NATION
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