I am trying hard not to succumb to the temptation of believing Dr. Fredrick Fasehun, the founder of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) has reached the age of diminishing values or returns, natural with the human person. I don’t want to accept the reality starring me in the face that Fasehun has become senile. Accepting his senility would place a moral burden on my conscience for not voicing out at the obvious risk of venerable Nigerians who might throng to him for medical attention.
A few days ago, Fasehun addressed a clan of journalists in Lagos. At the media interface, he declared President Buhari unfit to continue in office and counseled for his resignation. Fasehun is a medical doctor, but his conclusions about the unfitness of President Buhari to continue in office is not based on any empirical or verifiable medical inquest.
Fasehun has not told Nigerians whether he medically examined President Buhari personally or he is privy to any report by the London doctors of the President who may have declared him too frail and weak to continue in office. Fasehun spoke like touts in the motor park.
It is sad that Fasehun disgraced the noble medical profession by relying on what Nigerian comedian Gordons call “eye gauge”, to pass his judgment for public consumption. To civilized minds, Fasehun’s outbursts on the medical condition of the President belongs to the realm of quackery. It explains my initial fears about the potential risk Nigerians face if they dare to patronize his medical shop.
Nigeria is an interesting nation. It is a country where people earn a living through farcical confrontation of government or the holder of an important office in the land. And the only inducement for such dishonorable conduct, most times, sprouts from a personal or selfish interest that is thwarted or truncated somewhere. So, they become disillusioned and utter all inanities like accident victims.
Fasehun has advertised himself on this shameful plank. Freedom of expression democracy has guaranteed is a sharp and dangerous sword. Those immersed in its liberty and excited by the protection it embodies, sometimes, expose themselves to ridicule, like in the instant case of Fasehun. In his perverse conviction, he was cleverly blackmailing President Buhari and instigating Nigerians against his continued occupation of the office of the President. But he ended up chanting the chorus of his foolery.
The OPC founder is bruised and sad with the APC government led by President Buhari. He is angry because the Buhari Presidency has terminated the multi-billion naira juicy contract awarded OPC for the protection of oil pipelines. They did nothing, but got paid handsomely as their “share” of the national cake.
It translated into government paying people for idling. But President Buhari is not ready to play that kind of game. So, he terminated the contract and, Fasehun is piqued that the cord nourishing his thirst has been severed.
So, Fasehun sees no reason for the continuation of the Buhari Presidency, now that sickness, the unforeseen, took him off his duty for months. Therefore, the OPC leader has seen it as an opportunity to lament and wail himself out, but through the dubious façade of playing the card of public interest.
But Fasehun’s antics have refused to fly in the face of Nigerians. The antics are meaningless and no sane Nigerian recognizes him as a personality deserving serious attention. He is a bad case and should zero his mind about inciting anybody.
I am sure President Buhari will not annul his decision of cancelling the oil pipelines protection contract the PDP government awarded to OPC. It makes no sense to him, because it is duplication of public expenditure. If government pays security agents to secure Nigeria, it has no business paying private people to again secure Nigeria. It is like government encouraging the usurpation of the job of security agents. Fasehun is obviously unhappy that security agents are performing this duty excellently.
Even if Fasehun stokes the blackmail of the Buhari Presidency further, by instigating renewed oil pipelines vandalization in the region, the President Buhari I know will not engage the services of private security providers. He will opt for Nigeria’s conventional security – the Police, Civil defence and possibly, the military, if the situation escalates beyond civil security agencies.
In Nigeria, most elders like Fasehun have mortgaged self-worth and gambled their conscience on the altar of mindless quest for wealth acquisition. Their utterances betray everything noble. President Buhari has just returned back to Nigeria after his medical vacation in London. Every Nigerian, including those who have decided to declare him their enemies are jubilating and thanking God for preserving his life for the nation.
But it does not make sense to the likes of Fasehun and his comrades in distraction, such as Ekiti state Governor Ayodele Fayose and the irritant character, Femi Fani Kayode. And so they are kicking and mouthing meaningless obscenities that dissipates faster than whirlwind.
Fasehun is thinking on the reverse side. He wants to be more catholic than the Pope. So, he knows better than Buhari and his doctors in London. He has placed himself in a position to dictate recuperation time for President Buhari.
The rational question I wish to ask Fasehun is, must a person recuperating from illness necessarily resign his job to guarantee full recovery? Such thinking is only in fool’s paradise. And unfortunately, Nigeria is not a fool’s paradise, but a nation peopled by intelligent, sympathetic and conscionable men and women. The likes of Fasehun would certainly resent the decency that has become of Nigeria, especially under the Buhari Presidency.
The OPC founder laughably alludes to a cabal in the Presidency who are frustrating the resignation of President Buhari. I don’t want to dabble into the myth of a cabal in the Presidency as bandied by some Nigerians. But it is insulting for Fasehun to attempt to diminish the intelligence and aptitude of the President by insinuating that President Buhari is incapable of independent and rational thoughts and decisions.
Buhari is not a robot and cannot be regulated by a cabal. But if the cabal is so powerful as to restrain President Buhari from resigning, would the ranting of a Fasehun dissolve this resolve or weaken the capacity of the “cabal” to hold unto the strings? Its absolute nonsense! It makes no sense to me.
Nigerians are quiet and would neither protest nor call for the resignation of President Buhari as canvassed by Fasehun. It is so because there are no compelling reasons to toe the path of Fasehun’s irrationality.
What Fasehun is dreading or the reason for his fears is something I cannot fathom. But I guess he is voicing out for the veiled interests that wanted President Buhari dead in London in the first place. Or those who were expecting to see him comeback an incapacitated man who is aided to disembark from the Presidential aircraft; aided to his official car, speechless and assisted to feed. They would have shouted hallelujah and giggled to themselves in their dark shrines, that “we said it”.
But they are not God who gives life and good health. So, they are disappointed to see President Buhari bounce back incredibly. They should just lick their wounds quietly, before they provoke national outrage against them.
Okanga writes from Agila, Benue State.
