I’ll start on this by referring you to an earlier piece I had written on 17 April 2021 about Kperogi when he attempted to hoodwink his readers and Professor Pantami that he was the latter’s friend but still went ahead to disparage him by spewing lies and supposed private matters on the Professor, the piece can be read here: https://swiftreporters.com/kperogi-the-fake-friend/. At that point, I had just switched from being his ardent fan to seeing him for who he really is, a propaganda merchant who thrives on the docility of Nigerians to cash out. Kperogi had to acknowledge that article as it busted his little games on 24 April 2021 in his column tagged ‘On my friendship with Pantami’ and which can be read here: https://www.farooqkperogi.com/2021/04/on-my-friendship-with-pantami.html.
I read Kperogi’s piece of today 11th February 2023 where he attempted to, as usual, disparage Buhari’s naira policy and linked it as a ploy to stop a BAT and I found the analogy in it very ludicrous to say the least. I wonder why Kperogi has developed a permanent feeling and understanding that Nigerians are extremely daft and so he could spew anything at them albeit hypocritically after cashing out his little coins behind the scene. Kperogi is a supporter of Tinubu but just like so many Nigerians who share his type of double character, he is finding it difficult to come clean about it, so he is using mind games this time around to blame Buhari and his policy as the reason why Tinubu would fail even though according to him, he doesn’t want it but he would prefer that the failure of Tinubu occurs through ballots and not through sabotage.
However, what Kperogi and the likes who don’t have the audacity and criticality to formulate critical campaign strategies to market Tinubu don’t understand is that the suffering of Nigerians which had largely made them make up a mind did not start with the naira scarcity and its attendant suffering which in my opinion is over bloated by the likes of Kperogi and other propaganda merchants to unfairly blackmail Buhari into succumbing to perhaps use state resources to install Asiwaju as president and that won’t happen because, in reality, Nigeria has long moved away from such. You have to have some level of popularity to rig elections in any society and rather than campaign enough to get the mass’s support for Asiwaju, Kperogi and the like believe the victory must only be gotten through blackmail.
While on my way back from the office yesterday, I critically examined the menial marketers like ‘suya’ sellers and the rest, and I saw a normal activity going on as I used to know it and I wondered in my mind where the excessive suffering that was been hyped was. It has also been established and I know that those people in the remote villages that Kperogi attempted to refer to do not need more than one to five thousand Naira to transact and while in the beginning things got a little rough, POS merchants have since gotten cash for them and things are normalizing, so I’m sure that the whole propaganda about suffering is being spewed by some political elements who perhaps see the free and fair contest as a threat to their victory and such narrative has to stop quickly because in recent past it was some kind of narrative that made Jonathan lose elections, Nigerians desist such fearful narrative.
Furthermore, Kperogi alluded to the fact that Asiwaju always used a billion vans to win his way through elections, assuming without conceding that was true as coming from him, is Kperogi then telling us that he supports a corruption of the electoral system? If anything, is ensuring a free and fair contest by Buhari not worthy of commendation? I can bet you Nigerians, especially those from Northern Nigeria have accepted this policy not because there are not minor and temporary discomfort about it but because they see it from the prism of Buhari doing what he ought to have done a long time ago which was to annihilate corruption and its practices, so it appears the people were ready to bear this brunt in as much as it guarantees free and fair contest.
Speaking about a payback by Buhari after Tinubu had supported him, I have maintained in different fora that the agreement for the reciprocation was a party matter and that had been settled at the primary elections because indeed all stakeholders allowed Tinubu to emerge even though they had other preferences which is normal with every human. However, general elections are totally different games because there are other contestants and it is a democratic regime we are in where a number of votes garnered matters most, so Kperogi and co should rather concentrate on fetching votes for Tinubu rather than blackmailing Buhari to hand over power to Tinubu already baked.
Kperogi supports Tinubu, I knew this penultimate the primary elections, when he kept dropping hammers on Osinbajo, a contract he collected to disparage Osinbajo in the eyes of the northerners so as to pave way for Asiwaju and that worked but the current one won’t work because the ordinary people from the north have bought into it to a large extent maybe not so much from the beginning of it but much more now. Rather than all these intellectual shortcuts, I have advised the APC and its campaign to make appropriate recruitments to formulate strategies and such recruitments can be out of the ‘big names and the usuals, there are millions of smart boys and girls out there who can beat Kperogi and the likes to their cheap and opportunistic games, Daniel Bwala is one of such examples!
May the best man win for Nigeria’s increased progress, Amen!
Hashim Suleiman can be reached via oneheartnaija@yahoo.com
