Obi’s Campaign Council Shows He Isn’t Different from APC and PDP
Peter Obi's initial presidential campaign council proves the point I've always made in private to his fervid fans: after all is said and done, Obi is just another Establishment Nigerian politician who has neither
the willingness nor the capacity to be the different and transformational leader that his supporters think he will be. He's merely riding on the crest of the wave of mass discontent with the status quo. The list isn't just inexcusably insular (Igbo men are even state coordinators
for Sokoto and Lagos!), it is also riddled with the type of embarrassing clerical errors and oversights that we've become accustomed to from Nigerian governments. If I were a man that idealistic young men and women have elevated to near sainthood as Obi has been, I would look
through the list carefully, ensure there are no clerical errors in it, think through the optics that the names in it will communicate, & be careful to not come across as indistinguishable from the establishment parties because it's the first hint of what he'll be as a president.
He failed in that elementary duty--much like Buhari. That’s why former Defence spokesperson John Enenche who said two years ago that “videos of shootings in Lekki tollgate were photoshopped” was appointed to Obi’s presidential campaign council. The inclusion of Enenche on Obi’s
campaign list is significant because the core of Obi’s youthful supporters who’re engaged because they’re enraged are drawn from #EndSARS agitators for whom the cover-up of the massacre of protesters in Lekki is a sore point. To put a denier of the mass massacre of their comrades
in the campaign council of a candidate they support and campaign for is both insensitive and disrespectful. And why does a campaign that is fueled by a desire for difference need nearly 1,300 people to sit in a council? That’s unwieldy. How is it different from APC and PDP?
In fact, APC and PDP are better. APC’s initial list was just 422 and PDP’s was 520.
If Obi's presidential campaign council was going to be worse than APC's and PDP's, why did it take him so long to unveil it? This sends off uncomfortable Buhari vibes.
Aisha Buhari said she "suffered the consequences" of Buhari's Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which she said was triggered by the Civil War, his 1985 overthrow, and his serial electoral losses until 2015.
She claimed that she
"became a physiotherapist" to nurse him to sanity. Well, we know her highest legitimate academic qualification is a diploma in beauty therapy and cosmetology.But even if she truly became a physiotherapist (which Americans call a physical therapist), the fact is, physiotherapists
don't threat mental and emotional illnesses. They only threat physical injuries through physical activity, massage, etc. The specialists who treat mental and emotional illnesses are called psychotherapists.
No wonder that Buhari’s PTSD hasn’t been cured. He was treated by a
In Nigeria, if you have excellent quantitative skills, you gravitate towards numerate disciplines like engineering, computer science, accounting, etc. If you have aptitudes in language, argumentation, logic, or are simply a voracious
reader, you study courses like law, English, history, communication, etc. But if you have both of these skills in more or less equal measure, you study medicine. That’s why most Nigerian medical doctors are polymaths and often stand out anywhere they go in the world. My friend
Prof. Moses Ochonu and I had a conversation about this when he and his family visited me last week here in Atlanta. One of the doctors whose admirable polymathy we mentioned is Dr. Raji Bello. And I woke up this morning to his light-hearted Facebook update about why and how he
Peter Obi comes across as a humble, conciliatory, mild-mannered, and good-natured person—in contrast to his toxic, obnoxious online devotees whose rhetorical causticity he habitually has a need to restrain with words of caution. I honestly have a
hard time understanding the untempered hate often directed at him by his critics. You may disagree with his politics, but he has such a peaceful, restrained, and likeable public persona. He never requites the unkind digs thrown at him by his opponents. He always rises superior to
mud-slinging. He is always kind and respectful even to his traducers. What's not to like about that?He understands that to broaden his base, he needs to win over people outside his fanbase. It takes maturity, intelligence, and self-awareness to do that, particularly in our
Symbolic Violence Against Muslim Pupils by Lagos State Gov’t
At least 3 questions in a GENERAL KNOWLEDGE exam that public primary school students in Lagos State took for the common entrance this year asked questions that only Christians—or people who’re familiar with Christianity
—can correctly answer, putting Muslim and other non-Christian students at a disadvantage. That’s objectionable symbolic violence, and it must redressed forthwith in the interest of fairness and justice. See questions 11, 12, and 14. Even I, a journalism professor who attended
government-funded Christian missionary primary & secondary schools, can’t answer questions 11 and 12 because I didn’t take Christian Religious Studies as a student. Let's start with question 11. To ask students which earthly institution originated from—and was established by—God
Why Buhari is More Loyal to Niger Republic Than Nigeria
It has come to light that Muhammadu Buhari has approved N1.4 billion from Nigeria's coffers (without the approval of the National Assembly!) to help the Republic of Niger buy vehicles for its government officials to fight
insecurity while insecurity engulfs Nigeria and while ASUU is still on strike. Many Nigerians are understandably angry and are asking why Buhari seems to have more loyalty to Niger Republic than he does to Nigeria. Well, here is what I wrote about that in my June 12, 2021, column
titled “Making Sense of Buhari’s Nonsense Now Senseless” (farooqkperogi.com/2021/06/making…)
Or take his justification for building a railway in Niger Republic while most parts of Nigeria are devoid of basic transportational infrastructure. “I have first cousins in Niger,” he said.
Kadaria Ahmed’s Anti-BBC Article a Disservice to Journalism
Kadaria Ahmed is my senior in the profession for whom I have tremendous respect not only because of her matchless brilliance but also because of the record she set at Bayero University’s Department of Mass Communication
from where I also graduated years after her. But her fuzzy attempt to criminalize BBC’s—and Daily Trust’s— praiseworthy investigative reporting on the heartrending terroristic banditry in Zamfara, her home state, which gave the inept federal government the justificatory lifeline
it needed to muzzle the media is a huge disservice to the profession. If I were her, I’d be ashamed of that article. She is more worried about the uncomfortable truths revealed in the BBC report, which most of us already know and which journalists are professionally obligated to