An ex Daily Trust newspaper reporter in Abuja, who happened to be a professor now, teaching in an American University, Farouk Kperogi, appears to have gone crazy about what he strongly believes is the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari to measure up to the standards he and his likes expected.
He has been so critical about the President, from far away America, and mostly relying heavily on the stories on social media that he recently ranted against those he said had been begging him to take it easy on Buhari.
Read his obviously angry diatribe:
“Over the last several hours, I have been inundated with a steady stream of impassioned pleas from many well-placed and not so well-placed Nigerians, including the emir of my hometown, requesting me to “please take it easy on Buhari.” I thought it is Buhari that should be pleaded with to take it easy on Nigerians so that I won’t have a reason to call him out on his incompetence and insensitivity. Believe you me, it’s no fun being openly critical of a person whose candidature I staked my reputation to promote, and in whom I invested enormous confidence and hope.
If Buhari actually had a clue and was governing well and wasn’t wasteful, protective of corrupt associates while pretending to be fighting corruption, insensitive to the plight of the poor, clannish, clueless, incompetent, etc., I would have been one of the proudest people today. I would have been glad to gloat and say, “You see, I told you this man can do it! He is the change we needed!” But he has made Nigeria way worse than he met it—and that says a heck of a whole lot given where we thought we were before now.
Nigeria is at its most perilous state right now. Everything is falling apart. Suffering has reached dizzyingly crushing heights. The poor cannot feed, and relentless hyperinflationary conflagration is eating up the middle class and dragging it to the ranks of the desperately poor. Nothing is working. It was customary to say that the country was on autopilot during Jonathan’s days. Now it has come to a standstill. And people want us to be quiet? What sort of conscience do people have? I would rather be dead than be quiet. As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” That’s what I told my emir. And that’s what I am telling everyone who is asking me to “take it easy on Buhari.” No, it is Buhari who should take it easy on Nigerians.
I DID NOT want, DO NOT want, and WON’T EVER want, a job, ANY job, from this government. I made this crystal clear in my April 4, 2015 column titled “After the Euphoria, What President-elect Buhari Needs to Know.” No government job in Nigeria can give me the comfort and fulfillment I have here. All I want is for the government to actually GOVERN and make life bearable.”
After reading all such angry outburst, the question that arose, is who asked Farouk Kperogi to take it easy on Buhari? Why would Kperogi make himself so important as if his criticism of Buhari has any serious impact on the direction the President wants to take Nigeria?
To start with, Kperogi may have conveniently forgotten that Buhari is more passionate than him or any other Nigerian, about how Nigeria can get out of the socio-economic and confusing political quagmire into which it had been led over the years by the subsequent governments. He had forgotten that what it took the previous governments to destroy in more than a decade cannot be put right within 24 months or that it takes more time to respire than to destroy.
I have always been saying that if the only thing Buhari can be said to have achieved in less than one and half years is the taming of Boko Haram antics and dangerous territorial expansion, then for God’s sake, Nigerians, inside and outside the country, should thumb up for him and pray that he goes on to tackle other challenges facing the country.
Of course, I don’t blame Farouk Kperogi because he has not been in Nigeria all these while, for him to have felt the enormity of the danger posed by Boko Haram insurgents to the corporate existence of the country called Nigeria. Indeed, security insiders confirmed that if Goodluck Jonathan had won the 2015 election and continued as President, Nigerians would not have been in such a comfortable atmosphere now to even be talking about the economy, about the cost of things in the markets, about hunger and about all such things. We must be honest enough to admit that security comes first before other things: that given a choice, a normal human being and even animal would prefer to enjoy a secured environment than having plenty of food.
I remember, I took a tour of some parts of Adamawa state last year where Boko Haram insurgents had already occupied, including Mubi, which is bigger than Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa state or Dutse, capital of Jigawa state and is the size of Lokoja, the capital of Kogi state. I travelled as far as Madagali, Nigeria’s border town with the Republic of Cameroun. As at the middle of last year when I undertook that journey into the danger zone, courtesy of the American University of Nigeria, there were already over 27 local government areas and several towns and villages taken over and fully occupied by the insurgents. Some of the major towns occupied by the insurgents were Askira, Michika, Gulak, Bama, Gwoza, Shuwa, Uba, Biang, Dilchim, Kudzum, Bazza, Kuwmi, Muvu, Vimtum (home town of the former Nigeria Chief of Army Staff, General Alex Bade), Lira-Vimtum, Girei, and others.
As at last year too, Boko Haram insurgents were already advancing to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. They were so daring and confident that entering Abuja, the nation’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and even the Aso Rock Presidential Villa was just a matter of course for them.
If Buhari has not done anything at all on any other sector of the nation, it is because he had to spend almost one and half years recovering the large territory the insurgents had confidently taken over, with the help of those who were entrusted with huge sums of Dollars and Naira to procure for the fighting soldiers, adequate and state-of-the-art war arsenal to face the insurgents.
So, why would anyone ask or beg Farouk Kperogi to stop abusing Buhari and raising his voice or his pen against him because, from his ivory tower in America, (he sees that) life is not yet good for Nigerians?
Why would anyone beg Kperogi to stop shouting himself hoarse about the reality on the ground which is twisted from his point of, or his world view, in far away America?
If he enjoys doing the open insult on president Buhari who loves Nigeria and Nigerians more than he does, please, ride on.
Kperogi, ride on from your comfortable American abode. After all, talking is cheap… very cheap.
However, when the chips are down, you may be counted amongst those in the enrollment of corruption-fighting-back army. Just thinking! [myad]
