By: Shehu Bashir Esq.
Political misfortune has worn a befitting gown on both Abubakar Atiku and Peter Obi. They have lost their compass to a decent approach in driving home their political ambitions. Desperation has turned them into a flip-flop of contradiction. It is an embarrassing failure for both of them.
This failure is not necessarily caused by the ruling party’s superior strategic politics, it is caused by their own confusion and loss of ideology on the right way to deal with national issues. These days, they have both been committing one political blunder or the other, lacking the right strategy to approach serious and sensitive national issues.
It is either they are contradicting themselves on what they have previously done, said, campaigned for, supported or stood for or that which they have opposed at one time or another, but now contradicting themselves on with a different position in similar circumstance in the current situation simply because they want to oppose everything the current government does or does not do. That is what desperation causes.
Yesterday, they were critical of the presidential pardon to some convicts. Today, they are clamouring for the illegal release of a more ferocious, heartless, arrogant, unremorseful and unrepentant violent criminal who had ordered, sponsored and aided the killing of thousands of innocent people.
In this life, anything you want to do, do not allow your political ambition determine your moral and legal trajectory, it will always make you an embarrassing paradox, making mockery of your entire existence.
The same Obi who almost demolished half of the entire buildings in Anambra state for various building violations as a governor then has been ranting against Lagos state government for enforcing similar building codes.
The same Peter Obi who crushed the opposition with illegal arrest, using some of the most heartless rogue security officers would come out to preach to this government to indulge and tolerate incendiary rebellion against the Nigerian state.
Atiku Abubakar would think Nigerians have lost their memories to recall the roll he played in the sale of some of our critical national assets and how dollar was turned into a commodity to be bought and sold at unregulated black market. Now, he wants to preach to us on how forex market under this administration should be regulated. Hypocrisy!
Just imagine an Atiku who connived with his then principal to rig out the opposition in the 2003 elections will come out to lecture Nigerians on the “immorality of one party state”. Nigeria is not even a one party state, but there is no law barring any governor from defecting from one party to another.
Atiku himself has been described as Nigeria’s most inconsistent high profile politician with more defections across different political parties almost at every political dispensation.
Peter the nicknamed “agbotikuyo” is always very quick to send condolences on the demise of any such victims of violence that happens in a state like Zamfara, but his hoarse voice often remain dry in condemning the several violence being perpetrated by IPOB terrorists in the south east, leading to the death of many innocent citizens.
Ironically, the culprit-terrorist behind the carnage in the south east, who has disrupted the business activities in the entire region is the one Peter Obi is raising his muffled voice to free from legal accountability.
Whether it is just a rumour or the act really happened, the news making the rounds on the attempted coup d’etat should not have suffered the silence of both Atiku and Obi in outright condemnation. Their silence on this unfortunate incident says a lot about their wish for our democracy.
It is so ironically pathetic that they will wish, within their inner heart, that a democratic government is “toppled” simply because of their hatred for the current leadership, forgetting that any tampering on the current administration is a total shut down on whatever slight hope they have at the Nigerian presidency.
It is dangerous to combine hatred with desperation. It is going to be difficult in thinking right and strategizing decently when an ambition is blindly driven by desperation. Both Atiku and Obi have lost their sense of political measurements, their ideological tape rule is short in length for the cloth they want to wear, they can never have the right sewing.
Obi has not even congratulated the federal government and the people of the south east over the arrest of the notorious terrorist “gentle de yahoo” whom the military arrested recently. That is how thoughtless and tactless Obi can be in his political misadventures and emptiness in integrity.
A man with a tattered cloth on him should not boast of buying a good fabric for another person. A Peter Obi who did not have a credit grade in Mathematics in his O’level result is shamelessly criticizing the federal government for its renewed policy to consider pass grade in maths for students in Arts and Humanities as criteria for admission into Higher Institutions. If mathematics was not waved for Obi then, he would not have been able to secure admission into the University to study Philosophy.
It is so disgraceful that the likes of Atiku and Peter Obi would easily lose their old principles (if they ever had one) to desperation simply because they want to use sanctimony to appear to Nigerians as better alternative in order to win the sympathy of the voters. They have forgotten so easily that Nigerians are smarter than their deception.
An Obi who does not see the criminality in the terroristic activities of IPOB and the complicity of Nnamdi Kanu in the Monday-Monday carnage in the south east cannot lead a Nigeria fighting to tame those criminals.
An Atiku who had to stoop so low to “partner” with Sowore to call for the illegal release of a recalcitrant criminal suspect, who is on lawful trial is too desperate, petty and opportunistic to lead a peaceful and lawful Nigeria.
Both aspirants should shrink back into their rotten shells and bury their faces in shame, they are inescapably part of the problems the current administration is working to solve. Nigerians cannot afford to bring them back to the seat of power for them to crumble the country with their bigotry, incompetence, compromise, nepotism, corruption and unpatriotism.
