Reno's plastic surgery by Abdulhamid Al-Gazali

BY ABDULHAMID AL-GAZALI, OCTOBER 05, 2024 | 12:12 PM

Reno Omokri’s recent political U-turn is normal. It is impossible for unstable people to stick to any cause for long. And it would have been something else if the instability is natural, as it would be treated as a mental case, with some sympathy. His is, unfortunately anchored, or rather swings on the strings of material pulleys. If Reno sticks to a thing for a relatively long period, I will be shocked.

He was in Nigeria last week, which is not a news at all—because he is just Reno and even on the plane he came, there were numerous others; but since he didn’t know how to be just that, he went beyond everything and thought he was to Nigeria that Neolithic man who taught the world how to use the hoe. Instead of taking the course of his actual agenda, which is plainly courting the embrace of the present government and eat from under their feet, in which case he should have simply just gone ahead and do ‘dobale’ wherever they do it—I mean where he did it already anyway: he went on to school Nigerians who are being impoverished daily by a woefully failing policy experiment, on how to perceive their situations.

Reno thinks he is smart. And yes, he is smart; which is unfortunately pathetic because what a man needs is wisdom. Imbued by what he thinks is a virtue but which is truly a shortcoming, Reno is trying his hands on plastic surgery about his real agenda, a chronic lust for the national cake, the Nigerian commonwealth treated as spoils of war by those in government, so he is riding on the back of a false love for Nigeria to launch his game-plan, thinking that we would be confused. It is false because if it were anything, it was him who appended the final signature on the death sentence of Nigeria’s integrity in the global public court. For, it was him who led a protest to the Chatham House against President Tinubu, calling him a drug baron and a certificate forger. Now, his darling Nigeria is led by a man he told the world is a drug baron and whom he sought global support to save his country from. Without issuing any apology, as to having done so in error or misunderstanding, he is now hailing the same person.

It is under this kind of cosmetics that he is going back on his own words, to now bootlick a man he only recently called names, assuming, but only inside his Afro punk, that Nigerians can be easily hoodwinked. Reno, as everyone else, has a right to delude himself. But only himself. However, if he also doesn’t know how to delude only himself, he should not compound it with telling us how to perceive the effects of the policies of this administration. At least, the helplessly empty, yet, severely errors-laden Independence Day broadcast of the president ought to have drawn his attention to the awfulness of the decisions taken by the administration. For instance, the president said his policies have attracted $30b FDI. One would think that only the handlers of the president would, to justify their paychecks, descend to the level of celebrating mere commitments, or even just discussions with suit-wearing strangers seeking photo opportunities in Paris, London or Beijing. You would think the president wouldn’t, and actually shouldn’t. But the president our truth-phobic political wanderer is celebrating as the best thing to happen since Stone Age, even went beyond them to put it out as though an already received investment, were it not for ensuing media scrutiny. His only evidence is the cow face with which he said it--and nothing else. A fact check by pundits however showed that only a paltry (given the amount quoted) $448m is so far realized. For me, even if true, the thinking, typical of Africa, is even generally an upside down one because those making the investments are the ones to be celebrating it. It doesn’t encourage the African mindset to think outward or inspire it to become global brands or givers to a world we all have a duty to make better, but rather chronic receivers.

Elsewhere, Reno wants us to celebrate this administration for what is obviously to President Buhari’s credit. But of course, Reno’s objective is not the truth. He was awestruck by the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport in Abuja, and as part of the elaborate public patting he is bringing to the back of President Tinubu, he went on without carrying out even elementary checks, to praise Tinubu. It was Buhari who, contrary to the lies sponsored against him as having drawn the country aback, broke and irredeemable, upgraded the airport, along with many others in the country. Even as they (mis)attributed everything bad to his government, including their own obvious missteps, Buhari’s minister of works, Babatunde Fashola almost turned the whole country into a mega construction site, building and rehabilitating roads, bridges, houses, rails and tertiary schools. Nobody knows what this one is doing.

After meeting the National Security Advisor, he came out with what he thought was the verdict all Nigerians were waiting for. He said Nuhu Ribadu is the best NSA in Nigerian history. Interestingly, he gave away the trophy before the race is over and this ingenuity is better left to be imagined. But if the recent escape of the Binance’s CEO under his nose was not enough smack, let’s look away. This government has killed bandits and Boko Haram members, yes, a very commendable thing; but Buhari’s administration killed Shekau, and Abu Musab Albarnawi, his ISWAP rival, among others, forcing over 100,000 of their members to give up arms. Reno didn’t know that the two administrations cannot be compared. One, this is just a year and half, within which its failures are already irredeemable, while the past one spanned 8 years and handed over an intact government to it. Two, their circumstances are entirely different and even at that, despite the many attempts to condemn it for the present economic situation in the country, Nigerians were better economically.

In any case, I hope that his trip has paid off, and he has been adequately rewarded; for, it is very costly to put up one’s integrity for sale. Nobody would wish you any disappointment because there’s no pain greater than knowing no one is in for it and you wouldn’t want to take back a valueless trinket home.

Abdulhamid Al-Gazali