Opinion

Day Festus Keyamo Strayed into Dele Momodu’s Disciplinary Class

Published

2 years ago

October 27, 2022

Eric

By Eric Elezuo

Hitherto one of Nigeria’s toast when it comes to voicing out against perceived injustice, attack to human rights and good governance based on equity, integrity and attendant due process, Festus Keyamo, a product of a university in the sleepy town of Ekpoma, Edo State, has suddenly lost all accolades shortly after he inadvertently strayed and enrolled in Chief Dele Momodu’s Disciplinary Class. He has been tutored a great deal, and left beret of all ego, sarcasm and shallow argument ostensibly a consequence of speaking for the benefit of a pay master.

Keyamo’s latest job in addition to handling a ministry that has so far not received any form of praises as regards the abysmal performances since his inception, is the office of the spokesperson of the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu Presidential Campaign Council, a job he handled for President Muhammadu Buhari during the runoff to the 2019 Presidential Election.

The man, who bears the tag of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) has over the years since assuming a spokesperson’s job known to bark at any individual whose opinion contradicts his or his principals vis a vis Buhari, before now, and Tinubu presently. Many Nigerians have frowned, not at his defence of his principals and party for that is what he was paid to do, but the manner he goes about it, throwing caution to the wings, neglect to respect and barefaced attacks at anyone that cares to raise his voice against his camp.

It would be recalled that in no organized or coordinated manner, Keyamo lambasted the Hakeem Ahmed-led Northern Elders Forum and the Chief Ayo Adebanjo-led Afenifere over their views about the presidential candidates, and where their pendulum may swing as the 2023 presidential elections fast approach.

However, like they say, ‘everyday for the thief, but one day for the owner of the house’, Keyamo, who the media world have come to know as ‘attack dog’ or ‘certified nuisance’, all from the lexicology of Dele Momodu, strayed into the disciplinary class of the Ovation magazine publisher, and Director, Strategic Communications of the presidential campaign council of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who wasted no in introducing the syllabus for the season, with additional dose of the curricular that may hopefully last a while.

It all began with the release the previous weekend of the Campaign document of the presidential candidate of the APC titled Renewed Hope. The 80-page document, which portrayed the manifesto of the candidate, was critique by analysts and stakeholders from across the political parties.

In his capacity as a research based journalist, an eyewitness and a communication expert, Dele Momodu did not waste any time in dictating that the document was another white washed paper, a typical copy and paste yeoman assignment devoid of any professional input; academical or otherwise. He voiced his opinion in no coded language, telling everyone that cares to listen that Tinubu’s presidential manual was nothing but a word by word lifting of Chief MKO Abiola’s manifesto of 1993, which he titled Hope ’93.

In his response to the manifesto in an article titled APC: Renewed Hope or Forlorn Hope?, Momodu dismissed the document as “half-thoughts, poor reasoning, and copied notes” from Abiola’s ‘Hope ’93’ presentation. He maintained that he was in a very good position to know as he was a co-traveller with Abiola during his political and electioneering seasons. Momodu wondered why a serious minded person will situate 1993 in 2022 knowing very well that close to 30 years have made a huge difference.

Her wrote in part: …And the APC candidate should be reminded that 1993 is far different from 2023,” the Ovation publisher said.

“The late MKO Abiola was known for industry and brilliance. Shall we ask what the APC candidate is known for? Whereas MKO’s Hope ‘93 was a genuine course; for the APC and Nigerians, it’s a forlorn hope ~ and that’s the message of Bola Tinubu and the APC campaign in 2023

“In all honesty, the 80-page document that the APC has put together comes across as a little more than an insult to the sensibility and needs of Nigerians.

“At a time when the country is in dire need of clear leadership with vision and courage, all the APC seems capable of doing is to generally copy and paste regurgitated ideas of others with nothing original or breathtaking. Asiwaju says he “knows the way”. With due respect, he does not. On more than one occasion, he has advertised himself as the architect of the victory of the APC in 2015. Their party’s slogan then was “Change.”

“In eight years, they have not been able to change anything positively. They have led Nigeria into a ditch. Inflation is close to 21%. Unemployment rate is 33%. The Naira is one of the worst-performing currencies against the dollar in the world. The suicide rate in the country has risen terribly, because the people have lost hope. Divorce rate too because the APC and its leaders have castrated families, and ruined “the other room:”. Thus, they have worsened the condition of Nigerians. Now, in 2022, Tinubu says he wants to take Nigerians on a journey. A journey to nowhere, most certainly; or, to be precise – to perdition. A week ago, he promised that he would ensure the continuity of the current administration. What does he want to continue? If I may ask: the poverty, agony and cluelessness that the APC have imposed on Nigerians?

But the fact that he must respond to everything in usual braggadocio attitude, Keyamo went to town, describing Momodu as a hatchet man, doing a hatchet job for the PDP, and ‘worming his way into Atiku’s pocket’. That was how he enrolled into the disciplinary class of the one man, who knows almost everything about every Nigerian whether negative or positive, and he didn’t spare the SAN and his principal with copious downloading of some incontrovertible facts about them that left Keyamo running with his tail in between his legs.

In another writeup, which he titled Festus Keyamo and His Erratic Vituperation, Momodu came hard on the SAN without sparing his principal, Tinubu. Having described Keyamo as an attack dog’ and certified nuisance, Momodu qualified Tinubu as a potential dictator, who has intimidated every friend he ever had including the two deputy governors, he served with during his eight years reign as governor of Lagos State. He went ahead to describe Tinubu and Keyamo as two of a kind, harping that it is only a Tinubu that can appoint the likes of Keyamo.

“Tinubu has declined in the last few years. I used to see him as a man of his people but no supposed generalissimo would ever abandon his people in days of trouble and tribulation. None of the people around him could tell him the truth for pecuniary reasons. He knows it himself but he desperately wants to be President of Nigeria, by fire by force, after he has lost most of his formidable foot soldiers, and now relying on outsiders to activate and actualize his lifelong ambition for him, which is his legitimate right. But Nigerians have the right to scrutinise his action plans,” he said.

Momodu further dismissed Keyamo as attention seeker, who is nothing but a ‘social media creation’.

A tiger must not be touched by the tail; dead or alive, and so did Keyamo unfortunately found out, and so late indeed.

Opinion

The End of a Political Party

Published

8 hours ago

September 16, 2024

Eric

By Obianuju Kanu-Ogoko

It is deeply alarming and shameful to witness an elected official of an opposition party openly calling for the continuation of President Tinubu’s administration. This blatant betrayal goes against the very essence of democratic opposition and makes a mockery of the values the PDP is supposed to stand for.

Even more concerning is the deafening silence from North Central leadership. This silence comes at a price—For the funneled $3 million to buy off the courts for one of their Leaders’, the NC has compromised integrity, ensuring that any potential challenge is conveniently quashed. Such actions reveal a deeply compromised leadership, one that no longer stands for the people but for personal gain.

When a member of a political party publicly supports the ruling party, it raises the critical question: Who is truly standing for the PDP? When a Minister publicly insulted PDP and said that he is standing with the President, and you did nothing; why won’t others blatantly insult the party? Only under the Watch of this NWC has PDP been so ridiculed to the gutters. Where is the opposition we so desperately need in this time of political crisis? It is a betrayal of trust, of principles and of the party’s very foundation.

The leadership of this party has failed woefully. You have turned the PDP into a laughing stock, a hollow shell of what it once was. No political party with any credibility or integrity will even consider aligning or merging with the PDP at this rate. The decay runs deep and the shame is monumental.

WHAT A DISGRACE!

Opinion

Day Dele Momodu Made Me Live Above My Means

Published

2 weeks ago

September 1, 2024

Eric

By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

These are dangerous days of gross shamelessness in totalitarian Nigeria.
Pathetic flaunting of clannish power is all the rage, and a good number of supposedly modern-day Nigerians have thrown their brains into the primordial ring.

One pathetic character came to me the other day stressing that the only way I can prove to him that I am not an ethnic bigot is to write an article attacking Dele Momodu!

I could not make any head or tail of the bloke’s proposition because I did not understand how ethnic bigotry can come up in an issue concerning Dele Momodu and my poor self.

The dotty guy made the further elaboration that I stand accused of turning into a “philosopher of the right” instead of supporting the government of the day which belongs to the left!

A toast to Karl Marx in presidential jet and presidential yacht!

I nearly expired with laughter as I remembered how one fat kept man who spells his surname as “San” (for Senior Advocate of Nigeria – SAN) wrote a wretched piece on me as an ethnic bigot and compelled one boozy rascal that dubiously studied law in my time at Great Ife to put it on my Facebook wall!

The excited tribesmen of Nigerian democracy and their giddy slaves have been greased to use attack as the first aspect of defence by calling all dissenting voices “ethnic bigots” as balm on their rotted consciences.

The bloke urging me to attack Dele Momodu was saddened when he learnt that I regarded the Ovation publisher as “my brother”!

Even amid the strange doings in Nigeria of the moment I can still count on some famous brothers who have not denied me such as Senator Babafemi Ojudu who privileged me to read his soon-to-be-published memoir as a fellow Guerrilla Journalist, and the lionized actor Richard Mofe-Damijo (RMD) who while on a recent film project in faraway Canada made my professor cousin over there to know that “Uzor is my brother!”

It is now incumbent on me to tell the world of the day that Dele Momodu made me live above my means.

All the court jesters, toadies, fawners, bootlickers and ill-assorted jobbers and hirelings put together can never be renewed with enough palliatives to countermand my respect for Dele Momodu who once told our friend in London who was boasting that he was chased out of Nigeria by General Babangida because of his activism: “Babangida did not chase you out of Nigeria. You found love with an oyinbo woman and followed her to London. Leave Babangida out of the matter!”

Dele Momodu takes his writing seriously, and does let me have a look at his manuscripts – even the one written on his presidential campaign by his campaign manager.

Unlike most Nigerians who are given to half measures, Dele Momodu writes so well and insists on having different fresh eyes to look at his works.

It was a sunny day in Lagos that I got a call from the Ovation publisher that I should stand by to do some work on a biography he was about to publish.

He warned me that I have only one day to do the work, and I replied him that I was raring to go because I love impossible challenges.

The manuscript of the biography hit my email in fast seconds, and before I could say Bob Dee a fat alert burst my spare bank account!

Being a ragged-trousered philanthropist, a la the title of Robert Tressel’s proletarian novel, I protested to Dele that it’s only beer money I needed but, kind and ever rendering soul that he is, he would not hear of it.

I went to Lagos Country Club, Ikeja and sacked my young brother, Vitus Akudinobi, from his office in the club so that I can concentrate fully on the work.

Many phone calls came my way, and I told my friends to go to my divine watering-hole to wait for me there and eat and drink all that they wanted because “money is not my problem!”

More calls came from my guys and their groupies asking for all makes of booze, isiewu, nkwobi and the assorted lots, and I asked them to continue to have a ball in my absence, that I would join them later to pick up the bill!

The many friends of the poor poet were astonished at the new-fangled wealth and confidence of the new member of the idle rich class!

It was a beautiful read that Dele Momodu had on offer, and by late evening I had read the entire book, and done some minor editing here and there.

It was then up to me to conclude the task by doing routine editing – or adding “style” as Tom Sawyer would tell his buddy Huckleberry Finn in the eponymous adventure books of Mark Twain.

I chose the style option, and I was indeed in my elements, enjoying all aspects of the book until it was getting to ten in the night, and my partying friends were frantically calling for my appearance.

I was totally satisfied with my effort such that I felt proud pressing the “Send” button on my laptop for onward transmission to Dele Momodu’s email.

I then rushed to the restaurant where my friends were waiting for me, and I had hardly settled down when one of Dele’s assistants called to say that there were some issues with the script I sent!

I had to perforce reopen up my computer in the bar, and I could not immediately fathom which of the saved copies happened to be the real deal.

One then remembered that there were tell-tale signs when the computer kept warning that I was putting too much on the clipboard or whatever.

It’s such a downer that after feeling so high that one had done the best possible work only to be left with the words of James Hadley Chase in The Sucker Punch: “It’s only when a guy gets full of confidence that he’s wide open for the sucker punch.”
Lesson learnt: keep it simple – even if you have been made to live above your means by Dele Momodu!

To end, how can a wannabe state agent and government apologist, a hired askari, hope to get me to write an article against a brother who has done me no harm whatsoever? Mba!

I admire Dele Momodu immensely for his courage of conviction to tell truth to power.

Opinion

PDP at 26, A Time for Reflection not Celebration

Published

2 weeks ago

September 1, 2024

Eric

By Obianuju Kanu-Ogoko

At 26 years, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) should have been a pillar of strength, a beacon of hope and a testament to the enduring promise of democracy in Nigeria.*

Yet, as we stand at this milestone, it is clear that we have little, if anything, to celebrate. Instead, this anniversary marks a sobering moment of reflection, a time to confront the hard truths that have plagued our journey and to acknowledge the gap between our potential and our reality.

Twenty-six years should have seen us mature into a force for good, a party that consistently upholds the values of integrity, unity and progress for all Nigerians.

But the reality is far from this ideal. Instead of celebrating, we must face the uncomfortable truth: *at 26, the PDP has failed to live up to the promise that once inspired millions.*

We cannot celebrate when our internal divisions have weakened our ability to lead. We cannot celebrate when the very principles that should guide us: justice, fairness and accountability,have been sidelined in favor of personal ambition and short-term gains. We cannot celebrate when the Nigerian people, who once looked to the PDP for leadership, now question our relevance and our commitment to their welfare.

This is not a time for self-congratulation. It is a time for deep introspection and honest assessment. What have we truly achieved? Where did we go wrong? And most importantly, how do we rebuild the trust that has been lost? These are the questions we must ask ourselves, not just as a party, but as individuals who believe in the ideals that the PDP was founded upon.

At 26, we should be at the height of our powers, but instead, we find ourselves at a crossroads. The path forward is not easy, but it is necessary. We must return to our roots, to the values that once made the PDP a symbol of hope and possibility. We must rebuild from within, embracing transparency, unity and a renewed commitment to serving the people of Nigeria.

There is no celebration today, only the recognition that we have a long road ahead. But if we use this moment wisely, if we truly learn from our past mistakes, there is still hope for a future where the PDP can once again stand tall, not just in name, but in action and impact. The journey begins now, not with *fanfare but with resolve.