How Keyamo goofed
It was Albert Einstein who said: “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”.
But a once-upona- time human right activist, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, who once described himself as “anti-establishment” has removed the daunting toga of bravery, fearlessness and perseverance to join the league of parasitic cocoons who cajole Nigerians towards unnecessary patriotism in order to have access to our common wealth……Continue Reading
The spokesperson of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council has become insensitive to modern realities to become a 19th century lawyer who turns black to white by defending the indefensible.
He goofed by shooting himself in the leg in an attempt to sell his principal, the APC presidential candidate, Senator, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the Nigerian electorate.
Keyamo was quoted by the Saturday Tribune of 8th October, 2022, in a news feature story that adorned the front page where he said: “We can all vividly recall the famous Dasukigate, where money allocated for national security was shared among party chieftains, while Boko Haram was ravaging the country.”
He might have forgotten that the arrowhead of, and distributor of the said fund was the Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musliu Olatunde Obanikoro, who after disappearing to reappear was in the gulag of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) for days.
He was subsequently released on bail on a plea-bargaining arrangement after publicly confessing and listing the names and companies of beneficiaries of the said fund in national newspapers.
He was smart enough to thereafter switch camp to the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) for a soft landing and till date Nigerians are still in the dark as to whether the plea- bargaining has been fully implemented. I was on an errand to deliver a message for him (Obanikoro) at his Ajayi Bembe close, Park View Estate, Ikoyi about three times towards the tail end of his tenure as minister of state. During one of such visits, immediately he saw me at the entrance.
He jumped into one of the vehicles in his convoy, but stopped outside perhaps with the hope that I would run after his convoy, which I never did. It was at this stage that his Special Assistant (Political Affairs) came to meet me and said: “You are lucky, if you had attempted to go near him, those soldiers in his convoy could have shot at you.”
I asked him why and he said: “Your name was not on the manifest, the chief that sent you to him ought to have called him to intimate him of your coming.” I left but noticed that the elevator in his house was more functional than the one installed at the Federal Secretariat, Abuja.
But a few days after this same political aide called me to help them arrange for a meeting between the chief that sent me and the defence minister who was now warming up for the Lagos PDP gubernatorial primary held at Yard 158, Kudirat Abiola way along Ojota Road. I was on hand to receive them at the chief’s Apapa residence.
As he was about leaving, the Ile-Ife-born wealthy chief was blunt in telling him that even his son’s father-inlaw, an Egba High Chief, who is now late, had some misgivings about him, and advised him to go and mend ways with him. Immediately after hearing this, he rushed into a car in his convoy, and I quickly jumped down from the chief’s car where I was seated to assist Obanikoro in closing the door of the vehicle he entered, so that he could leave the premises on time.
A few days after, he was humiliated and defeated during the primary election by Jimmy Agbaje, despite the security fund at his disposal then. I found wisdom in the saying of his political aide, because not too long ago an Abuja based vendor was shot dead by security aides when he moved very close to House of Representatives Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila’s vehicle, who thereafter went to the late vendor’s house to console the family. Progressives indeed! Wicked, callous, and sadistic. They don’t like sighting journalists, except when they want image laundering, forgetting that you don’t light a candle and put it underneath the bed. The moment you become a public officer, your private life becomes public.
Aftermath of the 2020 #EndSARS protest where Tinubu’s industries were razed by arsonists, unfortunately those touched were public spirited ones, but it dawned on me that Tinubu’s hegemony in Lagos is a matter of time.
When I also noticed that a park at Opebi Link Bridge named after a prominent Governor Advisory Council member was partially burnt and vandalized, I quickly sent a short message to the medical doctor, whom I have interacted with for over a decade, congratulating him for surviving a wild protest that could have snowballed into a bloody revolution.
As the Director of Strategic Communications Atiku Campaign Organisation, Chief Dele Momodu was tinkering with the idea of reporting the violent attack on his principal in Maiduguri to the General Abdulsalam Peace Panel; Keyamo was legitimizing the attack by saying: “No reorganised law gave the ad-hoc committee any form of power to penalise or disqualify any candidate.”
The cosmetic approach to corruption by EFCC has also become a major concern to stakeholders, when a Kogi State House of Assembly candidate and two others from the Rabiu Kwankwaso-led party were arrested November 1, 2022 after being caught with N326 million and $610, 500 cash were arrested, and the bullion van democrat of Bourdillon has not done anything wrong to warrant being arrested for prosecution. Keyamo also described the recent, revelation of $460,000 forfeiture judgement against an account traced to the APC presidential candidate, Bola Hammed Tinubu in the US as a “buried case”.
With this, I have been vindicated in my previous write ups that the APC presidential candidate has a penchant for wealth acquisition. “Oh God! Hearken to my supplication and prayer on Tinubu’s” presidential ambition. Impose your spirit of person-non-grata to Aso Rock Villa on him, to save Nigeria from global embarrassment.
