Im not one to come out guns blazing in defence of people I hardly know, apart from our online conversations. Its not a very responsible thing to do. When it comes to staking your reputation on the perceived integrity of even people you genuinely admire, I will always remind you of the adage of Mother Monkey who insists that she can only ever vouch for the actions of her child still in her belly - the one hanging from her back could be getting away with all sorts of malarkey without her knowing. Now, having delivered myself of that cautious, even cowardly caveat, I must say that the storm of accusations of payoffs from Amaechi to certain social media activists being made by Jonathans minions does not surprise me one bit. I have my own opinions about the propriety or otherwise of a government critic accepting an all-expenses-paid trip offer to come and report on a governor who obviously has his own PR agenda, but my personal opinion is not called for here. It happens all the time, and if it was immoral or illegal I would shout. As it is neither, and each has his own tastes, I let it pass. Those who wish to condemn it are free to do so, as are those who wish to defend it. What I found repulsive, as did a lot of people, was the lengths to which the social media army of Jonahhedeen would go to forge and circulate spurious evidence purporting to show that Amaechi had indeed paid all the bloggers who went the princely sum of N5 million to buy their consciences. It taught me anew something I knew long ago: If a man is defending something he knows to be abhorrent, nothing gladdens his heart more than to dig up dirt showing that all the people condemning his foolishness are hypocrites as well. A corrupt man cannot stand the thought that men of integrity actually exist. The fact that other people can find the will to resist the temptations he finds so irresistible only serves to throw his own worthlessness into sharper relief. So he must question the motives of all those who set the standards higher than his own comfort level. I touched on this syndrome in an earlier write-up, coincidentally in relation to GEJ: It is typical GEJ to reduce the burning national issues thrown up by his insistence on jacking up the price of fuel to a bread-and butter level he is barely capable of grasping. He cannot make sense of the notion that other Nigerians might be driven by an ideal of a better Nigeria and be ready to sacrifice their comforts, nay their very lives for it. People trek miles and miles under the sun, under the guns of the notorious security apparatus of the state, and the President opens his mouth to say they were motivated by the prospect of eating fried rice and drinking bottled water..............But does GEJ see his government in crisis? Oh no! All the flak he has been getting for corruption and non-performance can be chalked up to the machinations of his detractors in the opposition. For a man who has always listened for spiritual guidance to the rumblings of his stomach, he cannot conceive of the social conditions that caused the upheavals of January that so rattled his government. Nurtured in a party of criminals practiced in renting crowds for every dubious cause under the sun, he just reaches for the mindless conclusion that the citizens at Freedom Square day after day were hired to register their presence. It is a frightening snapshot of the mentality of the man presiding over the worlds most populous black nation. As Abraham Maslow once remarked: To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I wouldnt bother too much with their mudslinging, knowing why these bootlickers are motivated to paint everybody as bad as they know themselves to be, except that again they do have a genius for muddying the issues. If I as a government critic am corrupt, the damage I can do is limited and can easily be rectified by free and open flow of information showing the true facts. But if as a government official I am corrupt, the mischief I am in a position to do is infinite, and it involves stealing everybodys money to ruin everybodys destiny. That is why we beam a heavy searchlight on the workings of government in order to keep its officials honest. To throw mud at a social critic without any factual foundation and to justify it on the ground of some misconceived idea of revenge for the embarrassment his questioning of government has caused your idol, is for me, the absolute limit. Even a cockroach would be ashamed of such an IQ. It confirms for me once again that anybody who can genuinely voice his support for the sort of shambolic leadership GEJ is providing Nigeria in this June 2014 must be certifiably non compos mentis. Yes I said it. I meant you. Yes, you. Run and put anthrax in my inbox if it vexes you. Alakori alatenuje.
Posted on: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 10:28:12 +0000