By Bayo Oluwasanmi
We may disguise poison by mingling it with wholesome food,
but that cannot change its nature. On the contrary, it is
rendered more dangerous.
This is exactly what Doyin Okupe, President Jonathan’s senior
image maker and propagandist attempts to do on the AJ Stream
video interview posted on SaharaReporters May 8.
The Al Jazeera interview featured Omoyele Sowore, publisher
SaharaReporters, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka in London, and
Doyin Okupe in Abuja.
The interview was conducted by Femi Oke with background
story by Yvonne Ndege, Abuja based Al Jazeera West Africa
correspondent.
The focus of the interview is Boko Haram terrorism:
destruction of lives, disruption of peace, and the distribution of
fear and insecurity in the homeland.
Okupe in a cadenced, monotonous, and repetitive nonsense find
it difficult to articulate Jonathan’s administration response to a
terrorist group that has constituted itself into a government by
fiat.
Okupe painstakingly miserly calculates the human costs of
Jonathan’s inept handling of Boko Haram terrorists. “Trusting a
fool to convey a message,” the Book of Proverbs warns us, “is
like cutting off one’s feet or drinking a poison!”
The segment of the interview that I find amusing as well as
disturbing is the issue of corruption as a factor for the rise of
Boko Haram lunatics.
Oke asked his guests the factors that were responsible for the
mayhem perpetrated and perpetuated by Boko Harams.
Soyinka says mammoth corruption, alienation, mismanagement
and other ideological reasons made the recruitment of ready
and willing foot soldiers for Boko Haram possible and available.
Sowore explains that like other problems that confront Nigeria,
the Jonathan administration had no strategy or solution to halt
the insurgency of Boko Harams.
Gesticulating with his hands as if he was cutting Okupe’s lies
into pieces, Sowore begins his attack:
“Well, it’s a little bit of everything. It’s a cocktail of how
Nigeria has been run in the last 40 years, and the law
enforcement agencies have been involved in corruption over
the years, they have destroyed the agency of security, they
have destroyed the country, they have dehumanized its
people.”
“You have every little problem in Nigeria escalating into a big
thing. When we didn’t have Boko Haram, we had Niger Delta
militants. As a matter of fact, a guy named Dokubo Asari
threatened as we speak that if Jonathan the president does not
become president in 2015, they’ll render Nigeria
ungovernable.”
“Kidnappers in the eastern part of Nigeria have made it
impossible for the people to bury their dead. So, Nigeria is
badly run. Corruption has ruined Nigeria; it has dehumanized
its people. “
“And these leaders are seen as people who don’t love their
people, they don’t love the country and that is why you see Dr.
Okupe when he was speaking he didn’t even know where this is
coming from. He said they’re using force, they’re using
dialogue.”
“But even as we speak today the amnesty they organized has
failed because the army and elements in the military do not
want the amnesty to succeed because this is where they make
their corruption money from.”
“The military and JTF in Niger Delta are involved in some form
of corruption called oil bunkering. They loved it. They love
Nigeria the way it is broken and that’s why citizens should
gather together and face up to our reality. We have a bad
leadership in place that can’t get anything done.”
Okupe who appears in outward splendor but with a stolen
complacency, in reality mocks the longings of his sin-sick soul
– an evidence of inward corruption – shot back:
“… Sometimes one cannot but be ashamed about certain pseudo
elites of Nigeria like Sowore and co castigate their own country
and the leadership of their own country.”
“Being tucked away far away in the United States in the
comfort zone it is a lot easier to just condemn various
governments and various administrations in your own country.”
Truth is always narrow, but error goes off in all directions. In
his comedy of lies, Okupe veers into many directions. Listen to
him:
“Now I remember very well there was a time in Ghana when
everything went down to the most basic thing, poverty became
very difficult to live to the extent that people became displayed
and they were moving away from their homes in Ghana, they
flooded all the West Africa coast especially Nigeria.”
“What I’m trying to say is that in spite of ravaging poverty,
Ghanaians did not take up arms against their country. They
agreed there is a lot of youthful unemployment but that itself
cannot explain the degree of devastation that Nigeria is facing
from Boko Haram.”
“People cannot pretend not to recognize the new phenomenon
that’s going on in the world. It’s a global thing…”
“Well, we have a major problem in Nigeria with this insurgency
but the federal government in Nigeria is doing its utmost best
to sort it out and I believe the Nigerian military security
agencies have the capability to resolve this issue but because
it’s an internal insurgency there is a need to have limited
attack.”
By the way, who needs Okupe’s counseling by comparison? That
Ghanaians didn’t “take up arms against their country in spite of
ravaging poverty,” means Nigerians should follow such example
of docility and imbecility?
Where was Okupe during the Arab Springs?
As if waiting for the big kill, after all we’re talking of a “lion,”
Sowore pounced on his prey:
“I just want to say briefly to Dr. Okupe that I don’t like when
they make comparison between Nigeria and other countries that
are broken. They never made comparisons between Nigeria and
other countries that are working because Ghana did not make $
500 billion from oil by the time it had poverty.
“Ghana didn’t have the kind of land space, the rivers, the seas,
the very, very, very progressive and hardworking people that
Nigeria had when Ghana went through all of that.”
“We’re saying once again that it’s very convenient to accuse
some of us who are trying to make Nigeria work that we’re
tucked away somewhere abroad..”
“Dr. Doyin Okupe forgot that when the military was ravaging
the land we were student leaders who were fighting on ground
when the likes of Dr. Okupe were all running around doing
deals with the military leaders and selling away Nigeria. And
that’s part of the problem.”
“I reported on Dr. Doyin Okupe himself. He has been involved
in corruption and that’s why Nigeria is the way it is today
because he was detained for several months for corruption and
see where he is speaking on behalf of Nigeria.”
“I see you laughing Dr. Okupe, jump in right quickly,” says Oke
the moderator.
“… Because the guy that is talking to you is a huge joke, he’s a
liar, a man without reputation and people who collect money
and say anything to destroy people. You see him talking about
corruption about me. There have never been charges of
corruption against me, in fact this is what they do.”
Sowore goes on the prowl again:
“You were detained for corruption by the EFCC…” As Okupe
tries to free himself from Sowore’s jaws, he angrily emits a
shrill outburst: “Can you please shut up, you just disparate
people and just mess them up. Because you have online media
that does not give you right to destroy people’s rights and
personalities.”
One of Okupe’s devices in defending all that is wrong with the
Jonathan administration is to combine with falsehood just
enough truth to give it plausibility.
Okupe calls Sowore and other critics of the Jonathan
administration “pseudo elites.” It is an irony that Okupe who is
the most qualified Nigerian with pseudo credentials, pseudo
character, and pseudo integrity, and a con artist employed at
the expense of Nigerian tax payers to trick and scam Nigerians.
Who should be ashamed?
Sowore or Okupe? Okupe is one of the vilest corrupt criminals
often the recipient of gifts and attentions as if he had attained
an enviable distinctions.
A man whose character and crimes cry for trial, Okupe is a
shameless propagandist who profits from fabricating and
hawking lies and other unpardonable deceitful wares.
Who is a liar?
Sowore or Okupe? The records show that each time Okupe
opens his mouth, he oozes out a bagful of lies. We don’t need
to go into details. We know the stock in trade of propagandists.
It is only in Nigeria that a person like Okupe with retarded
morals and ethics will call Sowore “a huge joke, a liar, a man
without reputation, who collects money and say anything to
destroy people.”
Okupe knows he can increase his popularity as Jonathan’s
spokesman by being false to his creed, and appealing to hatreds
that have nothing to do with criticisms levied against him by
Sowore.
Okupe’s only ultimate protection against his critics lies in
misguided hatreds and lies which form the nucleus of his
propagandist army. We see Okupe from time to time devoting
our valuable resources to his propagandist army to the
fostering of unreason.
Since he took over as the Attack Lion-in-Chief of Aso Rock
Propagandist Army, he has demonstrated with passion and
unreasoning emotion that planting and fertilizing of lies can
always be better done by charlatans.
Nigeria has become a horde of robbers and assassins. Peace,
rest, and happiness have been banished from the nation. Courts
of justice are corrupt. Rulers are actuated by desire for gain
and love of sensual pleasure.
Intemperance has beclouded the faculties of the people in
power so that Satan has almost complete control of them.
Jurists are perverted, bribed, and deluded. Dishonesty of every
sort is represented among those who administer the laws.
Okupe in his warped wisdom excused Jonathan’s administration
horrible cruelty as a result of the criticisms, scrutiny, and
relentless pounding of the administration for corruption. He
believes the criticisms are based on sentiments.
Dr. Okupe, have you ever at any time in your life been detained
by the toothless and gum less EFCC? Yes or No? If the answer is
yes, then what part of the corruption allegations preferred
against you by Sowore don’t you understand?
Dr. Okupe, what happened to the N886 million road contracts
awarded to you? Where is the money? Where is the proof of
the road constructed by your phony construction company?
What part of your reputation if any, has Sowore damaged or
disfigured?
The moral darkness espoused by you and your likes in the
Jonathan’s administration favor the spread of superstitions,
oppression, and increasing liberality in the revival of tyranny
and corruption.
The infatuation of vice, the wanton taking of life, the terrible
increase of evil and iniquity of every order and degree, should
arouse all who fear God to inquire what can be done to stay the
tide of evil in our dear country.
Needless to remind Dr. Okupe, brilliance of style in propaganda
is not necessarily an index of pure, elevated thought. Through
the mammoth system of deception by Aso Rock under your
direct supervision, you have brought dishonor and
wretchedness to Nigerians.
We cannot keep quiet while we watch the slow motion
catastrophe in our country unfolding before our eyes. We’ll
continue to criticize, scrutinize Jonathan’s administration filthy
ideas and rich load of corruption cases. History is on our side!
*** A wise person will desire no more than he or she may get
justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contenitedly.