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Response To Femi Fani-Kayode’s Diatribe Against President Muhammadu Buhari By Rotimi Fashakin

December 29, 2015

When I read yours, my first reaction was like – oh, our brother has gone mad again! Of course, it is a veiled reference to the vestigial deleterious effect of prolonged and unrestrained dealing in harmful drugs. The manner of your summersaults – occasioned by the incoherence and irascibility manifested in yours to the President - is clear attestation to the permanence of the scar of previous contacts with drugs, irrespective of various rehabilitative interventions.

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Dear Mr Femi Fani-Kayode,

Like any other Nigerian, I read the impetuous and ill-thought out diatribe, from you, against President Muhammadu Buhari.  I am writing as a concerned Nigerian; the presidential spokesmen are at liberty to respond to you in a manner they consider fitting and prosper.

When I read yours, my first reaction was like – oh, our brother has gone mad again! Of course, it is a veiled reference to the vestigial deleterious effect of prolonged and unrestrained dealing in harmful drugs. The manner of your summersaults – occasioned by the incoherence and irascibility manifested in yours to the President - is clear attestation to the permanence of the scar of previous contacts with drugs, irrespective of various rehabilitative interventions.

Before I respond to yours seriatim, it is necessary for me to point out the perfidy in your belief that Nigerians have not read your book and fully understood your well-rehearsed approach to getting Presidential attention. In the early days of the Obasanjo administration, you attacked the former president with unfeigned savagery. Afterwards, you were invited to serve as the former President’s attack dog – an endeavor you undertook beyond expectation. Even the Federal Law makers, in the performance of their constitutional duties, were not spared from your vituperative discontent. In that dispensation, any citizen that showed courage in demurring with the politics or policy of your principal, risked coming under the hammer of your caustic tongue!  For as long as former President Good-luck Jonathan did not bring you into his government, you dished out unceasing excoriation of his person. The moniker- clueless President- was attributed to you. Shortly after you were engrafted into his propaganda team, he became the idol that all Nigerians should worship.  It is therefore for this reason that I see beyond your latest tantrums as merely succumbing to relapsing effect of drug. You are indeed plotting another scheme at ingratiating yourself into the Buhari administration. Unfortunately for you, this current President is too focused to be fazed by your excoriation or applause!

You said:

“your penchant for blaming your failings in this regard on the previous administration is simply nauseating and it does not serve you well.”

The fact of history which, neither you nor any of your co-travellers in the business of historical revisionism can controvert, is that Jonathan’s locust years have laid the foundation for the current famine pervading the Nigerian nation. You need to come clean on how much the Jonathan administration gave you for the five months of verbal assaults unleashed on the real and imaginary adversaries of former President Jonathan! Furthermore, I do not want to believe you have suddenly added selective amnesia into the mix of the afflictions already ravaging your being. Was it not Air Chief Marshall Alex Badeh, former President Jonathan’s appointee as Chief of Defense Staff, who said shortly after retirement that the last time there was any procurement of military hardware was during former President Obasanjo’s regime? Is that not corroborated by the supporting evidence of the office of National security Adviser turning into cashier for funneling money set aside for security purposes into the private pockets of PDP zealots like yourself?

You said:

“when the British Minister of Defense visited you in the Presidential Villa the other day the story changed. You did a U-turn and gleefully told him and the wider world that President Jonathan bought arms with raw cash.”

Given your admirable top British University education, you are expected to show modicum of intelligence in your response; the ease with which you recede into fatuousness for selfish-centered reasons really rankles! So, you are now unable to discern the use of sarcasm anymore? Which other country, in our contemporary world, ever did arms’ procurement with raw cash in ‘Ghana- must- go bags’ as Jonathan government? Is it not clear that the $9.3million and the private jet used for the transportation are both products of chicanery and dishonor?

You said:

“Despite the challenges and constraints President Jonathan faced, instead of losing any more ground, he rose to the occasion and retook no less than 22 local government areas and virtually pushed Boko Haram out of Nigeria.”

Mr Femi Fani-Kayode, would you, for the purpose of clarity, itemize the 22 local governments that Jonathan’s rag-tag military rescued retook? Of course, Nigerians know that, yours is merely mendacious spewing! You do not wish to be taken seriously, do you?

You said:

“Instead of fighting Boko Haram, you are fighting and killing your own people. Worse still you have refused to defend our country. I say this because a few days ago the Cameroonian military invaded our country, violated our territorial integrity and savagely murdered over 70 innocent Nigerians in their village before burning it down.”

The Lake Chad multinational force comprising – Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger – was set up to foster cooperation among these frontline countries bearing the brunt of Boko Haram insurgency. It was part of the rules of engagement for trans-border cooperation. In other words, the pursuit of insurgents by any country can continue into the territory of another country in the coalition. You have merely played into the gallery with this one. Of course, Nigerians can truly discern that, for a long time since independence, Nigeria has just been blessed with a truly patriotic leader in President Muhammadu Buhari.

It is easily discernible that you are going down in cash to sustain your obviously ostentatious lifestyle. Let me remind you that the days of reckoning are around the corner. It was William Shakespeare who said: “The evil that men do live after them.”  I think your past misdeeds shall continue to haunt you. What did you do to your older sibling, Atkins Fani-Kayode? How did you treat your wife’s worker, Musa Leshi, who almost went to jail for the environmental transgression committed by your Ghanaian-born wife- Mrs Regina Fani-kayode (nee Amoo) – and her company- MENU INTERNATIONAL BAR/RESTAURANT situated at No 7 Randle Road Apapa, Lagos? See the bail bond document below and ask yourself how it was perfected!

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Let it be known to you that the gimmickry of your letter is not lost on any one. The fact of the matter is that the Buhari administration cannot have a character like you as an aide, no matter how hard you try.

Perhaps, you may also have tried this attack mode as a way of stymieing any future probe of the improper slice of the national patrimony given to you by the Jonathan government. This, too, has failed! This President, Muhammadu Buhari, is a stickler for process, order and the rule of law. Should there be need for you to answer questions on your show of impunity in the past, please be sure that there shall be no hesitation in doing so.

I wish you a happy new year ahead.

Rotimi Fashakin.

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Politics