Aide to former president Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari must be congratulated because he has set a new Guinn
Aide to former president Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari must be congratulated because he has set a new Guinness World Record. Omokri noted that Buhari has become the first elected president of a country to become resident of another nation while still in power. He derided, albeit sarcastically, those who say Mr. President has no achieved anything.
“Shame on all those haters who say President Buhari has not achieved anything in over two years of being in office. Is this not an achievement?” Omokri wrote.
He also condemned those he described as shameless critics who compare American President Donald Trump to Buhari, arguing that the two of them are not mates at all. In an article, Omokri wrote, “Not only is President Muhammadu Buhari older than President Donald Trump, in a comparison between them on an elementary matter like jobs, we find that according to the latest US job report from the United States Department of Labour, the US economy has added 1,074,000 (jobs) under President Trump, while according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, the Nigerian economy lost 4.58 million jobs in President Buhari’s first year!
“This is no mean task! It is easy to do what Trump did and make jobs appear, but it is much harder to do what President Buhari has done and make jobs that someone produced disappear!”
Noting that President Muhammadu Buhari continues to make London Nigeria’s new Federal Capital Territory, Omokri said that Buhari’s rapidly shrinking horde of supporters wants Nigerians to feel sorry for him by selling the narrative that what is happening to him could happen to anyone. Insisting that President Buhari does not deserve our sympathy, he recalled that when the shoe was on the other foot, he (Buhari) called on the Executive Council of the Federation to declare the late President Umaru Yar’adua incapacitated and failing that, for the Senate to impeach him.
“His exact words on March 9, 2009 were, ‘If the Executive Council of the Federation had acted in accordance with the constitution, by invoking the necessary sections to declare the President incapacitated, we would not have found ourselves in this present situation,’” Omokri wrote.
Casting aspersions on Buhari’s condemnation of medical tourism, especially by government officials, Omokri wrote, “Again, when he thought he could be sanctimonious without proving his sainthood, he decried the practice of government officials going abroad at public expense for medical treatment.
“His exact words on April 27, 2016 were, ‘While this administration will not deny anyone of his or her fundamental human rights, we will certainly not encourage expending Nigerian hard-earned resources on any government official seeking medical care abroad’. Today (Saturday, August 12, 2017) he is spending his 96th day in London and ‘expending Nigerian hard-earned resources’ on himself. If these are not prima facie evidence of hypocrisy, then I am as old as Robert Mugabe!”
Condemning the attack on the convener of #OurMumuDonDo protest, Mr. Charles Oputa, aka Charly Boy, Omokri wrote, “And I must say that I was not really surprised that the Buhari administration brutalised popular musician, Charly Boy and his #ResumeorResign group who were beaten, tear-gassed and slapped at the Unity Fountain on Tuesday the 8th of August, 2017. What less can one expect from an administration that killed 347 Shiite men, women, children and infants in cold blood on December 15, 2015?
“The incident at the Unity Fountain involving Charly Boy and others only proves that dictators may grow old, but they do not grow into democrats. And the Senate lost a chance to side with Nigerians when it described the Charly Boy-led group as unreasonable.”
Omokri asked, “If Charly Boy’s group is unreasonable for demanding that President Muhammadu Buhari #ResumeOrResign, was President Buhari also unreasonable when he demanded that the late President Yar’Adua resume or be impeached on March 9, 2010? President Muhammadu Buhari himself, his side kick, Nasir el-Rufai, and other top shots of the present All Progressives Congress-led government protested against the Jonathan administration but were never tear-gassed or harassed! In the case of el-Rufai, woe betide you if you dare hold a press conference in Kaduna. You may end up being treated worse than Senator Shehu Sani and his guests!”
Decrying Nigerians’ lack of access to their president, Omokri wrote, “I mean, we are not allowed to see President Muhammadu Buhari. We are not allowed to hear from President Buhari. We are not allowed to protest against President Buhari. Yet, President Buhari’s government wants us to pray for President Buhari’s health! And the most ridiculous part of the saga is that the Presidency has the guts to tell Nigerians that it is disrespectful to ask after the President’s health status and that he is entitled to his privacy as a ‘private citizen.’”
He went on to ask, “Is the Presidency not ashamed to call President Muhammadu Buhari ‘a private citizen’? He is staying at ‘Abuja House,’ not ‘Buhari’s House; and we the citizens of Nigeria are paying for his treatment. He is NOT a private citizen. Yesterday, he released a statement condemning the Ozubulu massacre and assuring us of our safety. Which private citizen does that? Nigeria is tired of a part-time President. Nigeria is tired of a freelance President. Nigeria is tired of a private-citizen President!”
