The Special Assistant on Public Communication to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Phrank Shaibu, has claimed that generosity of the Nigerian media was responsible for the elevation of some people he described as “charlatans” to superstars.
Shaibu, who was reacting to the spokesman of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo’s response to Dele Momodu’s critique of the manifesto recently released by the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, said the Minister of State for Labour and Employment was a mere street boy before now.
According to Shaibu, APC’s desperation to employ an “attack dog” to spearhead its onslaught on the leading opposition party in the months leading to the 2023 general elections was responsible for conceding a crucial position of campaign spokesman to someone like Keyamo.
“Even by Nigeria’s low standards, no serious political party should allow a loose canon like Keyamo go anywhere near its presidential campaign council, not to talk of allowing him to speak for it. By the way, what did Keyamo say is Dele Momodu’s crime? Is it not true that Keyamo is a certified ass-licker? Don’t we all know how Keyamo was sleeping at the gate of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi’s residence, lobbying the former Minister of Transportation to appoint him Campaign spokesman in 2019? Does Keyamo think we all have forgotten?
“Of course, we all know that Nigerian politics is a rotten salad. And it’s awful because many of our so-called politicians including gate-crashers like Keyamo are rancid condiments, with shallow consciences but unfortunately, they have been assigned crucial roles. But even at that, I never thought that the situation has degenerated to the extent that we would have a campaign spokesman that will be ill-prepared for the job of responding to constructive criticism with facts and figures.
“Rather than respond to the issues that were raised by Momodu, Keyamo quoted from an article he (Momodu) wrote two years ago, which the Tinubu’s attack dogs have been using to campaign endlessly because they are bereft of fresh ideas. Again, when Momodu challenged him to disprove the salient points that had been raised in the critique of his paymaster’s manifesto of lies, Keyamo descended into the gutter, calling Momodu unprintable names. Such is the way of gutter spines, even if they are dressed in designer wears!
