By Hashim Suleiman
I read Femi Fani Kayode’s piece on a narrative that PDP betrayed some ethnic groups in the country as well as portraying a live televised presidential primary as a corrupted one. This was all in an attempt to give Atiku a bad name so people should hang him, I pitied the citizenry if indeed Fani and others think such lowly of the readers of their pieces.
The number one question is: does Fani think Nigerians don’t know all the candidates in all the parties share money to delegates? How could Fani stare us in the face and insinuate that only the delegates of the APC are critical and objective enough to vote based on conscience or whatever he was trying to portray. He even punctured the same narrative of his by finally going totally undemocratic by insisting Buhari must whimsically produce the next candidate of the APC, this murdered his initial advise to the Afenifere regarding that politics was all about intrigues and maneuvers as well as been a game of numbers.
How could Fani Kayode annex Asiwaju Tinubu when the pulse in the land says only him stands a chance to defeat Atiku. How could Fani Kayode condemn Atiku and then go down to insist the Northeast deserved presidency, has he forgotten where Atiku comes from or it’s all in attempt to showcase to us that he’s indeed tying to cash in on our vulnerability to hoodwink us with grammar. I simply refused to be hoodwinked not because I support any particular candidate but because we must encourage the need for a more robust engagement in our system.
The article displayed lot of hypocrisy and double standards lookout considering how former friends and allies were painted black just because he needed to advance his points. How could Fani Kayode feel entitled to define corruption in Nigeria, ‘wonders shall never end’ they say. How could he equally qualify himself to speak about bigotry or less of it. He also insisted to make a point as to why everyone must support APC without giving them the appropriate variables to convince them, infact I can’t even understand why he would feel denigrating his own region to advance some other narrative suggesting power shift to some other region makes him appear objective enough in Nigeria. I thought one could advance his points without necessarily denigrating another.
I do acknowledge Fani Kayode’s lyrical prowess and his freedom to advance same for his progression and that was why I wrote an article to defend his moving to APC which I titled ‘Fani Kayode and the import of developing selling points’ and can be read here.
However, he shouldn’t be carried away into thinking he can dump just anything on us. This article is meant to call him to order so he can appropriate his strategies to utilize his skills better.
Hashim Suleiman
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