by Bayo Oluwasanmi

It is an irony that Okupe who is the most qualified Nigerian with pseudo credentials, pseudo character, and pseudo integrity…

We may disguise poison by mingling it with wholesome food, but that cannot change its nature. On the contrary, it is rendered more dangerous.

This is exactly what Doyin Okupe, President Jonathan’s senior image-maker attempts to do on the AJ Stream video interview posted on SaharaReporters on May 8.

The Al Jazeera interview featured Omoyele Sowore, publisher of SaharaReporters, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka in London, and Doyin Okupe in Abuja.

The interview was conducted by Femi Oke with background story by Yvonne Ndege, Abuja based Al Jazeera West Africa correspondent.

The focus of the interview is Boko Haram terrorism: destruction of lives, disruption of peace, and the distribution of fear and insecurity in the homeland.

Okupe who was cadenced, monotonous, and repetitive found it difficult to articulate Jonathan’s administration response to a terrorist group that has constituted itself into a government by fiat.

Okupe painstakingly miserly calculates the human costs of Jonathan’s inept handling of Boko Haram terrorists. “Trusting a fool to convey a message,” the Book of Proverbs warns us, “is like cutting off one’s feet or drinking a poison!”

The segment of the interview that I find amusing as well as disturbing is the issue of corruption as a factor for the rise of Boko Haram.

Oke asked his guests the factors that were responsible for the mayhem perpetrated and perpetuated by Boko Haram.

Soyinka says mammoth corruption, alienation, mismanagement and other ideological reasons made the recruitment of ready and willing foot soldiers for Boko Haram possible and available.

Sowore explains that like other problems that confront Nigeria, the Jonathan administration had no strategy or solution to halt the insurgency of Boko Haram.

Gesticulating with his hands as if he was cutting Okupe’s lies into pieces, Sowore begins his attack:

“Well, it’s a little bit of everything. It’s a cocktail of how Nigeria has been run in the last 40 years, and the law enforcement agencies have been involved in corruption over the years, they have destroyed the agency of security, they have destroyed the country, they have dehumanized its people.”

“You have every little problem in Nigeria escalating into a big thing. When we didn’t have Boko Haram, we had Niger Delta militants. As a matter of fact, a guy named Dokubo Asari threatened as we speak that if Jonathan the president does not become president in 2015, they’ll render Nigeria ungovernable.”

“Kidnappers in the eastern part of Nigeria have made it impossible for the people to bury their dead. So, Nigeria is badly run. Corruption has ruined Nigeria; it has dehumanized its people. “

“And these leaders are seen as people who don’t love their people, they don’t love the country and that is why you see Dr. Okupe when he was speaking he didn’t even know where this is coming from. He said they’re using force, they’re using dialogue.”

“But even as we speak today the amnesty they organized has failed because the army and elements in the military do not want the amnesty to succeed because this is where they make their corruption money from.”

“The military and JTF in Niger Delta are involved in some form of corruption called oil bunkering.  They loved it. They love Nigeria the way it is broken and that’s why citizens should gather together and face up to our reality. We have a bad leadership in place that can’t get anything done.”

Okupe who appears in outward splendor but with a stolen complacency, in reality mocks the longings of his soul – an evidence of inward corruption – shot back:

“… Sometimes one cannot but be ashamed about certain pseudo elites of Nigeria like Sowore and co castigate their own country and the leadership of their own country.”

“Being tucked away far away in the United States in the comfort zone it is a lot easier to just condemn various governments and various administrations in your own country.”

Truth is always narrow, but error goes off in all directions. In his comedy of lies, Okupe veers into many directions. Listen to him:

“Now I remember  very well there was a time in Ghana when everything went down to the most basic thing, poverty became very difficult to live to the extent that people became displayed and they were moving away from their homes in Ghana, they flooded all the West Africa coast especially Nigeria.”

“What I’m trying to say is that in spite of ravaging poverty, Ghanaians did not take up arms against their country. They agreed there is a lot of youthful unemployment but that itself cannot explain the degree of devastation that Nigeria is facing from Boko Haram.”

“People cannot pretend not to recognize the new phenomenon that’s going on in the world. It’s a global thing…”

“Well, we have a major problem in Nigeria with this insurgency but the federal government in Nigeria is doing its utmost best to sort it out and I believe the Nigerian military security agencies have the capability to resolve this issue but because it’s an internal insurgency there is a need to have limited attack.”

By the way, who needs Okupe’s counseling by comparison? That Ghanaians didn’t “take up arms against their country in spite of ravaging poverty,” means Nigerians should follow such example of docility and imbecility?

Where was Okupe during the Arab Springs?

As if waiting for the big kill, after all we’re talking of a “lion,” Sowore pounced on his prey:

“I just want to say briefly to Dr. Okupe that I don’t like when they make comparison between Nigeria and other countries that are broken. They never made comparisons between Nigeria and other countries that are working because Ghana did not make $500 billion from oil by the time it had poverty.

“Ghana didn’t have the kind of land space, the rivers, the seas, the very, very, very progressive and hardworking people that Nigeria had when Ghana went through all of that.”

“We’re saying once again that it’s very convenient to accuse some of us who are trying to make Nigeria work that we’re tucked away somewhere abroad..”

“Dr. Doyin Okupe forgot that when the military was ravaging the land we were student leaders who were fighting on ground when the likes of Dr. Okupe were all running around doing deals with the military leaders and selling away Nigeria. And that’s part of the problem.”

“I reported on Dr. Doyin Okupe himself. He has been involved in corruption and that’s why Nigeria is the way it is today because he was detained for several months for corruption and see where he is speaking on behalf of Nigeria.”

“I see you laughing Dr. Okupe, jump in right quickly,” says Oke the moderator.

“… Because the guy that is talking to you is a huge joke, he’s a liar, a man without reputation and people who collect money and say anything to destroy people. You see him talking about corruption about me. There have never been charges of corruption against me, in fact this is what they do.”

Sowore goes on the prowl again:

“You were detained for corruption by the EFCC…”  As Okupe tries to free himself from Sowore’s jaws, he angrily emits a shrill outburst: “Can you please shut up, you just disparate people and just mess them up. Because you have online media that does not give you right to destroy people’s rights and personalities.”

One of Okupe’s devices in defending all that is wrong with the Jonathan administration is to combine with falsehood just enough truth to give it plausibility.

Okupe calls Sowore and other critics of the Jonathan administration “pseudo elites.” It is an irony that Okupe who is the most qualified Nigerian with pseudo credentials, pseudo character, and pseudo integrity, and a con artist employed at the expense of Nigerian tax payers to trick and scam Nigerians.

Who should be ashamed?

Sowore or Okupe? Okupe is one of the vilest corrupt criminals often the recipient of gifts and attentions as if he had attained an enviable distinctions.

A man whose character and crimes cry for trial, Okupe is a shameless propagandist who profits from fabricating and hawking lies and other unpardonable deceitful wares.

Who is a liar?

Sowore or Okupe? The records show that each time Okupe opens his mouth, he oozes out a bagful of lies. We don’t need to go into details. We know the stock in trade of propagandists.

It is only in Nigeria that a person like Okupe with retarded morals and ethics will call Sowore “a huge joke, a liar, a man without reputation, who collects money and say anything to destroy people.”

Okupe knows he can increase his popularity as Jonathan’s spokesman by being false to his creed, and appealing to hatreds that have nothing to do with criticisms levied against him by Sowore.

Okupe’s only ultimate protection against his critics lies in misguided hatreds and lies which form the nucleus of his propagandist army. We see Okupe from time to time devoting our valuable resources to his propagandist army to the fostering of unreason.

Since he took over as the spokesman of the FG, he has demonstrated with passion and unreasoning emotion that planting and fertilizing of lies can always be better done by charlatans.

Nigeria has become a horde of robbers and assassins. Peace, rest, and happiness have been banished from the nation. Courts of justice are corrupt. Rulers are actuated by desire for gain and love of sensual pleasure.

Intemperance has beclouded the faculties of the people in power so that Satan has almost complete control of them. Jurists are perverted, bribed, and deluded. Dishonesty of every sort is represented among those who administer the laws.

Okupe in his warped wisdom excused Jonathan’s administration horrible cruelty as a result of the criticisms, scrutiny, and relentless pounding of the administration for corruption. He believes the criticisms are based on sentiments.

Dr. Okupe, have you ever at any time in your life been detained by the toothless and gum less EFCC? Yes or No? If the answer is yes, then what part of the corruption allegations preferred against you by Sowore don’t you understand?

Dr. Okupe, what happened to the N886 million road contracts awarded to you? Where is the money? Where is the proof of the road constructed by your phony construction company?

What part of your reputation if any, has Sowore damaged or disfigured?

The moral darkness espoused by you and your likes in the Jonathan’s administration favor the spread of superstitions, oppression, and increasing liberality in the revival of tyranny and corruption.

The infatuation of vice, the wanton taking of life, the terrible increase of evil and iniquity of every order and degree, should arouse all who fear God to inquire what can be done to stay the tide of evil in our dear country.

Needless to remind Dr. Okupe, brilliance of style in propaganda is not necessarily an index of pure, elevated thought. Through the mammoth system of deception by Aso Rock under your direct supervision, you have brought dishonor and wretchedness to Nigerians.

We cannot keep quiet while we watch the slow motion catastrophe in our country unfolding before our eyes. We’ll continue to criticize, scrutinize Jonathan’s administration filthy ideas and rich load of corruption cases.  History is on our side!

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.