And Now You Call Him Bola!

My dear Waziri Atiku Abubakar,

I listened to your October 1st speech with great interest.

It was calm and well-delivered but intellectually-flawed, highly disrespectful, inherently dishonest and utterly bereft of decency, logic and rationality.

Worse still you refused to address President Tinubu as ‘President’ but rather continuously and contemptuously referred to him by his first name ‘Bola’.

Surely this level of pettiness is below even you. Yet despite this provocation I will not refer to you as ‘Kachalla’ and I will accord you the respect that I still think you deserve.

Bashorun Akin Osuntokun, the former Special Advisor on Politics to President Olusegun Obasanjo and the former Director General of the 2023 Peter Obi Presidential Campaign Organisation, spoke the minds of millions when he wrote, inter alia, the following.

“Abubakar is entitled to criticise the President, however sharply. What I found objectionable was his repeated decision to call him “Bola.” That was not a more forceful argument; it was a needless display of disrespect. This is not acceptable. It is bad manners and primarily an insult to Nigeria on whose account he occupies that office…This is not a demand for deference to Tinubu’s policies or person. It is a demand for decorum and decency… Imagine a former Vice President referring throughout a national address to a sitting President as ‘Segun’ or ‘Muhammadu’. The rudeness would be unmistakable”.

Osuntokun is right.

Yet, judging from other parts of his article, he appears to be surprised by your rank insolence whilst I am not.

Are you not the same Atiku that betrayed his principal, President Olusegun Obasanjo two years after he was elected into office in 1999 and conspired with a handful of Governors to overthrow him at the primaries and take over his seat in 2003.

Are you not the same Atiku that insulted Obasanjo publicly from 2003 up until 2007 even though you were his Vice President?

Are you not the same Atiku who sought to justify your rebellion and treachery by saying that you opposed Obasanjo only because of ‘third term’ when in fact your rebellion started long before 2007 and your intention was to stop him from getting a second term in 2003?

Are you not the same Atiku that recently went on Arise and referred to President Goodluck Jonathan as an “inexperienced young man” who “made mistakes” and whose inexperience contributed to him not being able to “properly manage the affairs of the country”.

You were referring to a former President that is 69 years old, that led our country for 5 years as firstly Acting President then President, that was elected into office as Vice President just under 20 years ago, that was elected firstly as Deputy Governor and later Governor of his state 27 years ago as a “young man” with “no experience”?

Are you not the same Atiku that went to the BBC Hausa Service and described Vice President Kashim Shettima, a humble man who unlike you has the courage to be loyal to his boss, as being “disrespectful” simply because he challenged you to give an account of your tenure in office and to tell the world how many people you have empowered since you came into politics 33 years ago?

Your response to him was that it was against the culture of the North for him to ask elders like you such questions yet you did far worse to Obasanjo in 2002 when you attempted to strip him naked before the world, remove his shoes and crown and humiliate him out of office.

You and your legion of fallen angels went even futher by peddling the foul and abominal falsehood and diabolical mendacity that a man that was old enough to be your father and that was, as President, your principal and boss, knelt down before you, grabbed your feet and literally begged you to allow him to run for a second term in 2003 knowing that Obasanjo would rather have died than do such a thing or endure such humiliation.

Where were your Northern culture and manners then?

The truth is that you do not reflect the decency, restraint, patience, good manners, faith in God, loyalty, fortitude, kindness, generosity, charity, kindness, compassion, honor and other virtues that are associated with the North but rather it’s antithesis.

You are indeed a master of intrigue and a mask of contradictions and deceit.

Yet it does not end there.

Are you not the same Atiku whose own running mate, Rotimi Amaechi, said, just a few weeks ago, was “unelectable”, had “been there before and lost” and had “nothing new to bring to the table?”

Are you not the same Atiku who, after a young Christian girl by the name of Deborah Samuel, was burnt alive by a wild mob in Sokoto on May 12th 2022, initially posted your condolences and commiserations on your X handle and yet removed it one hour later for reasons best known to yourself?

This was after President Muhammadu Buhari, the Sultan of Sokoto and Senator Aminu Tambuwal, who was the Governor of Sokoto state at the time, had ALL condemned Deborah’s murder and expressed their regrets.

Yet you could not bring yourself to do the same and instead publicly queried your aide when he did so on your behalf.

Worse still, when asked, you LIED 7 months later at a Channels Television Town Hall meeting that you had earlier condemned the killing.

Expecting any form of genuine love, decorum and decency from you is like expecting kindness from a pit bull terrier and compassion from a hungry wolf.

The truth is that you have no respect, no decorum and no sense of restraint and the only thing you are loyal to is your ambition.

You are finally manifesting your true colours, inordinate ambition, pathological obsession and sheer desperation to get power at all costs.

Yet the truth is that questionable characters that still have so many questions to answer should be embarrassed to question anybody on accountability.

Vain promises we all know you are incapable of achieving due to your greed and lack of patriotism cannot deceive anyone into trusting you.

And because you lack basic respect for the Office of the President and insist on calling him ‘Bola’, you, my dear Waziri, may NEVER attain that height.

(FFK)