“Nigeria: The Following Class And The Face Of Hypocrisy”; A Rejoinder By Shomoye Abiodun

For the very first time, I chose to neglect the inflation that has caught across all section of the economy and dived the profligacy lane. In the light of expensive and at the same epileptic data service, I chose to open Omojuwa’s article not because of any presumed exceptional stand but wanted to see how a “self-acclaimed righteous activist” will do justice to his selected topic “Nigeria: The Following Class and the Face of Hypocrisy”.


I was not disappointed at all as I was expecting another series of Cinderella stories in the first two paragraphs and that was what I got. Don’t let me toll such lane as the bulkiness of my rejoinder doesn’t add to its point.

That Omojuwa chose to remind us again of how terrible the previous administration was is becoming too much as an excuse for this lackadaisical and “I don’t care” approach embraced by the Buhari led administration. It is definitely too early for “APC Activist” like Omojuwa to forget how Dr Kayode Fayemi in his rejoinder to Prof Soludo’s “Buhari Vs Jonathan: Beyond The Election” made it glaring that the APC government “to be” was ready for the worst case scenario and gave a being like me more reasons to give out my precious one vote to the APC family but if he (Omojuwa) has, let me also remind him the way he reminded us of how terrible PDP and GEJ was even when its ten months of change without a budget.

“APC does not promise Eldorado. Neither our candidate nor our manifesto has made such promise. Our programs are based on the critical awareness of the difficult task ahead, while holding out a ray of hope to our people. The promises that we make reflect our innermost belief that the people must be at the centre of development. Especially, we believe that any economic growth that leaves the majority of the people behind, and does not protect the weakest and the vulnerable among us, is merely delusional. – Dr Kayode Fayemi”

If this has changed, what Nigerians deserve is an apology and not a weekly fairy tale of how PDP was a monumental failure, I guess we all were aware of the terrible state we were under PDP and that was why we voted them out, why put such tune on repeat?

For an APC “Overload” like Omojuwa to deviate from being an APC “achievements” or “to be-achievements” propagator to assume a position of a “reminder”, designated to keeping us informed with stale stories of how the previous government was a disaster is another disaster on its own. If activist like Omojuwa who was excessively arrogant in his criticism of the previous government is now stylishly campaigning for a soft criticism approach for this government, then you are left to admit the fact that “hypocrisy has no enemy”. You likened a president to a “pig”, saw nothing wrong in El Rufai’s inane assertion of “must be killed list” but today you have put on a garment concocted with excess “moral value” and now sees criticism similar to yours back then as unnecessary and obnoxious, hmmmm, a redefined “hypocrisy”?

You said they are wailing wailers, they are irrational beings but truth be told, your assertion about them as being “Irrational” was also from an irrational angle selfly seen as “rational”. By the way, if you think they are wailing, they actually are, but a “wailing” built on two obvious foundations:

The relegation of GEJ to Otuoke
The unarguable appalling reality of the day ( remember you used occurrences similar to what we are experiencing as campaign tools )
I actually expected a righteous activist like you to neglect the formal reason and embrace the latter reason but you chose to widely sell your well-endowed skills in divisionism. If the best line you could put up for a national daily publication is “those are irrational haters of Nigeria and everyone who supported Muhammadu Buhari to become President”, I see nothing but another anti-national identity move by you, you might not know but it is, difference in political party or tenets should never be seen as hatred or anything of the like either for the country or hatred among the citizenry. Even if a section of the populace sees difference in political party or tenets as reasons to propagate hatred, joining them to transact such automatically makes you one of them, any qualification (adjective) you give them is directly applicable to you also.
Dragging a Senator’s personal business into mud for political correctness is the least I expected from a self-acclaimed righteous activist like you, I never believed you will dive so low to the extent of de-marketing someone’s business to increase word counts in your semi rational piece. The only reason for failing to mention how this same senator you are making reference to has tried his best to employ Nigerians might be as a result of an unexpected amnesia and nothing other than that. You were too sharp at mentioning the limitations of his enterprise but was vice versa to remember this same man has thousands of Nigerians on his pay list, what is that? By the way, being silent for 16 years should not be the reason(s) to neglect criticism coming from such person, take the “Sense” from the “Nonsense”, get the message and neglect the moral justification of the “Messenger” and if you can’t do this? You are also guilty of divisionism. The last time I checked, we are all Nigerians and we all have right to criticize even if the basis for criticism is vendetta. Let’s preach unity and not hatred!!!

Shomoye Abiodun
@MrShomoye