BUHARI AND THE HURTING SCOFFERS

Source: thewillnigeria.com

Only yesterday, they were men of power, prancing the national stage with so much haughtiness. They reveled and clowned as their commission lasted. They were invincible, untouchable and beyond reproach. To them, the rest of the country could take a jump in a lake of fire so long as their narrow political interests were met by the subsisting political dispensation of the recent bygone era. They felt so confident that nothing, practically nothing, could overthrow the order that bestowed so much advantage to them; to the detriment of the generality of long-suffering Nigerians. Their mantra was power; yes, power just for the advantage it offers them to maximize their selfish ends over and above the interests of other Nigerians. They were the officials of the PDP and the series of governments they ran to so shortchange Nigeria and Nigerians.

Fast track to today. They, their dependents, supporters and enablers have become pained and hurting scoffers. They have become bitter critics of the government of the day. Yes, within a space of one month, such change of fortune that had seen the all powerful men of yesterday turn to bitter and inconsolable scoffers has happened! They have became bitter and wounded loose cannons firing blandly at anything in sight to express their feeling of loss. How time flies!

Yes, scoffing has become a favorite pastime for members of the once powerful PDP. Do they have a choice? I doubt if they do. Today, you are won’t to hear them complain that Buhari has done this and not done that. They beg to be heard but even when they are alone, you are bound to overhear them soliloquize on what Buhari has done or not done. You are bound to hear or read them loudly asking no one in particular why Buhari has not transmogrified into a magician and cleansed in a jiffy the messy Augean stable they turned Nigeria into in sixteen horrifying years of negative leadership. You will overhear them complaining loudly why Buhari has not wrought a miracle of turning Nigeria into an economic wonderland in one month just few months after they said they have turned Nigeria to one of the most prosperous nations on earth.

But let’s not forget that today’s scoffers were the same people that scripted the sordid Leviathan they dance around today. Let’s not forget they were yesterday’s locusts that scripted the wreckage of Nigeria and its descent to the abyss where they mount their tent of infamy targeted at taking quick and cheap shots at their nemesis: President Muhammadu Buhari and his government. Let us not quickly forget that the mischievous scoffers were the same person that bonded together just few days ago to perpetuate a government that best typifies a locusts’ heaven on very ludicrous but self-serving reasons. They were the ones that superintended over perhaps the most expensive election campaign in world history, where what remained of our raided treasury was emptied into a divisive campaign in a desperate bid to perpetuate an ultra corrupt and clueless government. They were the same characters that lied, fabricated, went banal and sowed dangerous sectarian and tribal dread that nearly prodded Nigeria to war in a bid to sell a rotten government. The present day scoffers were the ones that migrated to the most rotten gutters to scoop enough debris and tar to hail at Buhari, who freely forged hate and dangerous messages to arrest the wind of change but failed woefully on March 28. [1] These characters find good expression in such slothful goons as the well known professional jobber, male political prostitute and self-abnegating political gigolo called Femi Fani Kayode and they believe they will fulfill their tragic political mission by continuing the same course of self-foolery masked in dry scoffing so early in the life of the regime that replaced their crass buffoonery.

They have been prurient in assessing Buhari on a daily basis and of course, give him their pre-determined thumb down at every time to assuage their own feeling of loss. But are Nigerians fooled by these cheeky antics? In ever public space, you are bound to find our seething scoffers tell whoever that cares to listen that Buhari has, in less than one month, not vanquished the Boko Haram sect the outgone PDP government watched grow from a catapult-wielding rag tag group to one of the deadliest terror groups in the world in six tragic years. With every  attack by this terror group, the scoffers clinked glasses and mocked in derision to underscore the fact of their own unexplainable slothfulness as the terror group grew. This mocked that Buhari should have eliminated Boko Haram even before he was sworn in. Yet the Boko Haram whose every retreating attack the scoffers now celebrate with scornful glee was the same group they did everything under the sun to tie on Buhari’s neck as they vainly struggled to keep the power they serially abused and raped as their larceny lasted.

The scoffers haul and taunt that Buhari did not appoint ministers even on the day of his inauguration. Even as they have failed to point the section of the constitution Buhari vitiated by electing to tarry and do a meticulous job in appointing his ministers, the mourning scoffers are getting hysteric by the day. Oh, yes, he said he is going to bring change so why hasn’t he yet appointed his ministers a month after being sworn in? Of course, to the scoffers, Buhari must appoint ministers for its own sake, just as the government they are staging this dedicated mourning ritual did in its six wasteful years in power.

You are bound to hear the scoffers or read their tortured writings as they complain that Buhari has not hit the ground running. Yes, he must run for running sake, as was the case with the regime he replaced. To them, and even as they scoff about not bringing change, the concept of change can go to hell. They don’t believe Nigeria can change from the hell-hole they have helped script between 1999 and 2015. They don’t believe that the country can get better from the phantom Eldorado they struggled to sell us during the election as the fruits of the fraudulent transformation the government they worked for and stoutly defend claimed to do for us all. This itself introduces a puzzle about their complaints that Buhari is slow. Do they want Buhari to hastily undo the great transformation their beloved Jonathan regime did in six years?,

As they scoff these days, you are bound to see a wry smile or croaky grin on their tortured faces. What you see is not a natural laugh but a plastic grin that masks their hurt; their feeling of loss and their bitter inability to adjust to the present political reality shorn of the prebendal trappings that flowered them as wholesome plundering became the face of governanace. In their smile us that deft effort to outlive a reality that promises to sweep them down the drain of history. Behind the artificial laugh of the scoffers is a permanent imprimatur of pain and torture inflicted by the shellacking of March 28 [2] and April 11. [3] Poor them! They think we are sold to their nefarious antics- just as they thought we bought their campaign lies about the performance of the Jonathan regime.

The present day scoffers were the same people that placed themselves on deadly oaths that Jonathan would never ever lose the last election; that PDP will rule Nigeria till eternity. They were the sane folks that threatened and cajoled all of us to accept the continuation of the Jonathan and the PDP regime as a fait accompli we must wily-inly live with. They were the characters that believed Nigerians were numbskulls who could not discern when a government is performing or not hence they swathed the entire polity with all manners of embellished lies as the campaigns lasted. They therefore were not prepared with the ruddy fact of their rustication but they were powerless to stop an idea whose time has come. They are still in a state of suspended shock and all things considered, they are not prepared to shake off the debilitating aftershocks of the last electoral defeat. Scoffing at Buhari and his every move has therefore become a natural skin to the pained and grieving power casualties.

But Nigerians who massively rejected their deception can read through their willy ways. They know that it takes the most baleful mischief maker a few days to judge a man who has a brand hew four year renewable mandate. They know it takes a sulking, bitter and sulking scoffer to mount the self-entertaining revelry the scoffers are doing today. Nigerians know they made the right choice in electing Buhari and their fates are in a very strong, experienced and incorruptible hand. They know that presently, he is charting a sure path to the recovery of a nation completely shorn of the type of dubiety with which our present day scoffers laid waste a well endowed country in six boisterous years of negative leadership. They know that President Buhari is presently plugging the holes through which the rats that have now became the scoffers of the present, bled and sucked the country dry.

The majority of Nigerians who voted Buhari however know the antics of our hurting scoffers. They know that Buhari is recovering what is left of the grand feast of deprecation that ended with his coming. They know that Buhari is gradually restoring the scrambled critical sectors of the economy to stability’s ways, restoring order and discipline to public service, building a global coalition to finish off Boko Haram insurgency, taking Nigeria back to the serious circle of global politics, sanitizing the roach-ridden operation of the Nigerian economy and laying very important foundation for a moth-free delivery of the fruits of governance. They know that this new Sherrif in town is as serious as the task he is doing is and they know he will ultimately meet the huge expectations they laid on his shoulders. He has a serious task. It is not a job one smiles while doing. The wreckage is enormous, the treasury is emptied and he knows he has to employ extra strength to revive the crumbled country back to life. He has the fervent support of the millions that voted him and of course, Buhari is not banking on the support of these scoffer- whatever it is worth. He knows they will never ever come round to ever thumb their nemesis. That is why he carries on with his present cleansing job despite the antics of the sore and perpetually hurt scoffers.

Written by Peter Claver Oparah.

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