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“Is it possible to be overzealous, to destroy that which you hope to save – so that nothing is left but emptiness?”
–Jerome Lawrence
By Cosmas Omegoh
Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity to the President, Mallam Garba Shehu, gets popular every day. He inches into the consciousness of Nigerians, doing so with ease courtesy of his high office. Perhaps soon, Mallam Shehu would grow into such a big brand that will command a large chunk of space in many hearts.
As it stands, many who knew nothing about Shehu are beginning to look in his direction. They want to know what he waxes next. He never disappoints as he keeps creeping into every discussion – whether in a closet, beer palour, molue bus or street corner. So, everywhere, Shehu’s name now resonates.
Now, depending on what side of the divide you may fall, each time Shehu belches, his breath is selectively interpreted as either right or wrong. And he draws either commendation or condemnation or both.
For those in Shehu’s current constituency: the Presidency, and lovers of President Muhammadu Buhari, Shehu is one nice guy who is never wrong. His words are razor sharp, packed with punch. He is the right megaphone that delivers the president’s will and words.
On the flip side, Shehu is perceived in some quarters as a loquacious fellow, who often over-steps his set boundaries. He hides behind the Presidency to deliver injurious uppercuts. A commentator described him as “an attack dog, so reactionary, so combative.” He fires at full cylinders, always surreptitiously going for the jugular. He said but now, his tilt and thoughts are known and predictable, same for his templates.
But a segment of the populace calls the president’s spokesman “Poor Shehu” – one between the proverbial “Rock and the hard Place,” whose hands are tied. All he says or does are dictated by his master(s). He only dress them in hyperbolic gab. He must suppress his will and nothing more. This is Shehu’s dilemma a lot of people do not know, let alone understand, yet, they vilify him.
Some say once you are in Shehu’s kind of job, you stand deflowered – permanently! That is the man’s fate!
But there is a caveat here. Some persons believe that Shehu, although he is doing an honest job and earning his legitimate pay, ought to strike a rich balance between serving his master and talking down on his audience. Their angst is that once Mallam Shehu climbs his high horse, he gives his emotion free rein – firing freely – sometimes missing the point. They want him reined in.
Although Shehu is a seasoned journalist with many years of hands-on experience, some people believe he is treading on a slippery turf and needs to be circumspect.
Some of Shehu’s friends and foes are unhappy he largely deploys words that build walls rather than bridges – that each time Shehu weighs in on the big issues – he creates gulfs and chasms. That he seems to draw a line: “it is ‘us versus them.’” And that appears to irritate. So, they want him to always weigh his words on the scale to strike the right cord, and gain good mileage.
Over the past days, for instance, what Shehu had pushed out into the media purportedly on behalf of his principal in reaction to the Southern Nigerian governors’ declaration in Asaba, the banning of open grazing and other matters have been generating ripples.
Among other things, Shehu said: “It is very clear that there was no solution offered from their (Southern Governors) resolutions to the herder-farmer clashes that have been continuing in our country for generations.
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“But the citizens of the southern states – indeed citizens of all states of Nigeria – have a right to expect their elected leaders and representatives to find answers to challenges of governance and rights, and not to wash their hands off hard choices, by instead, issuing bans that say: ‘not in my state.’
“It is equally true that their announcement is of questionable legality, given the constitutional right of all Nigerians to enjoy the same rights and freedoms within every one of our 36 states (and FCT) – regardless of the state of their birth or residence.
“Fortunately, this declaration has been preempted, for whatever it is intended to achieve ….”
Shehu’s words drew instant flak from a cross section of Nigerians: the Chairman of the Southwest Governors’ Forum and Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, Afenifere, Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), lawyers and others.
Akerodolu who chided Shehu for deriding the Southern governors’ declaration, warned him to stop making comments capable of plunging the country into anarchy.
He described Shehu as “a pitiable messenger who does not seem to understand the limits of his relevance and charge,” noting that he “works, assiduously, for extraneous interests whose game plan stands at variance with the expectations of genuine lovers of peaceful coexistence among all people, whose ethnic extractions are indigenous to Nigeria.”
He added: “Garba must disclose, this day, the real motive(s) of those he serves, definitely not the president. He cannot continue to hide under some opaque, omnibus and dubious directives to create confusion in the polity. The easy recourse to mendacious uppity in pushing a barely disguised pernicious agendum is well understood.
“Garba contends that ‘their announcement is of questionable legality,’ referring to the 17 governors of the southern states, but the decision of certain elements to take the ancestral lands of other people to settle their kinsmen, including the ‘gun-wielding killer herdsmen’ and their families is not questionable legality.”
Akeredolu is vexed that “dispossessing communities of their ancestral lands, encouraging denizens of the forests to overrun lands belonging to other people and forcing alien bands of migrants on the local populace to live ‘side-by-side’ with other communities cannot be for the purpose of animal husbandry.
“It raises suspicion on a grand, deliberate, persistent, and insidious design to use naked force to subjugate the real owners of the land. Mr Garba Shehu is a major supporter of the current pervasive anarchy in the land. “May we warn Mr Garba Shehu and his cohorts to desist from hurling insults at the elected representatives of the people.
“He lacks the authority to make policy statements for the Federal Government, unless directed, expressly. His acts are clearly those of an agent provocateur. Other closet dreamers, aspirers to colonial fantasies, must be weaned off their delusion.”
Although Mallam Shehu has since gone ahead to make clarifications, his submission has not reversed the anger his comments had elicited.
As the dust raised by the Shehu-Southern Governors Forum’s brickbats were yet to settle, Shehu opened another Pandora Box.
Speaking on why President Buhari did not attend the late Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Ibrahim Attahiru’s funeral, he said that the reason was the president’s unwillingness to cause traffic gridlock in the city.
“Do you know why he now prays his Jumaat in the State House and doesn’t go to the national mosque? Because he doesn’t like this idea of closing roads, security men molesting people on the road for the President to have the right of way.
“These are small things for many people, but they are important for President Muhammadu Buhari. So, it is a mourning situation and the President didn’t want to take away attention from that.”
Currently, this defence leaves many bewildered, some in shock. They see his comments as another goof. Some insist Shehu didn’t speak his principal’s mind; but some contend that is vintage Garba Shehu for you.
