I wonder how , Abba Risqua Mohammed, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial running mate in Kano State, would have felt on Monday to see his late father and national hero, General Murtala Mohammed being denigrated on the front page of a national newspaper. It is all the more galling that such stupidity was sponsored by a governor within his own party who is promoting President Goodluck Jonathan. Unfortunately, while a person like Ayo Fayose may lack the capacity to appreciate the danger inherent in such recklessness, nobody in government has had the presence of mind to distance President Jonathan from the advertorial that is hate speech writ large. To show how sinister the advertorial is in its divisiveness, Nigeria’s first military leader, Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, who died in office in similar circumstance as Murtala was conveniently omitted just to make the callous and patently false point that leaders who hail from a section of the country usually die in office; and so for that “reason”, Nigerians should not vote for Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) on February 14. And I feel personally offended that any sane person would criminalise the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (to whom Jonathan was deputy) just because he died in office aside putting him in the same league as the late General Sani Abacha. Nothing can be more irresponsible. “Ma f’orun yo mi, gbogbo wa la jo n lo” is a popular Yoruba adage which translates into “don’t make mockery of the bereaved because death is a debt we all owe”. Unfortunately, the import of such a wise saying is beyond the comprehension of some people who are saddled with responsibilities far beyond them. Even at that, how can anybody canvass that Nigerians must vote for Jonathan for no other reason than that some previous leaders who hail from the North died in office against the background that his main challenger also hails from that zone, and may therefore die if elected? What worries me is the danger such a campaign portends at this most delicate time in our
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 00:13:19 +0000