By Dele Sobowale

“That was the full extent of his [Senator Sheriff] participation in the visit and it was also at Ndjamena Airport that the pictures which formed the basis of the bogus allegation of President Jonathan hobnobbing with the ‘accused sponsor of terrorism’ were taken.” Dr Reuben Abati, PUNCH, Friday, September 12, 2014 p 13.

Seldom does this column carry a picture of any reported event. But, Reuben Abati’s disclaimer of any participation by Senator Sheriff, in the meetings at Ndjamena stretches incredulity to the breaking point. Below is a front page picture in the PUNCH of Wednesday, September 10, 2014.  The photograph was credited to NAN, News Agency of Nigeria, which is a Federal Government agency.

There were no crowds of “other Nigerian residents….coming to welcome their President” as Abati claimed. Even if there were other Nigerians welcoming their President, why was Sheriff singled out for the closed door meeting we saw in the NAN photo? Which of the two Presidents, sitting with him, extended the invitation to join the meeting? Or are we supposed to assume that an unwanted participant gate-crashed his way into the meeting of two African leaders, with all their security details? Shouldn’t the Presidents have distanced themselves from Sheriff instead of being caught in the same room with the man? The picture also did not tell us that it was taken at the Airport. And since when did Presidents discussing serious security matters afflicting their nations start to allow someone accused of being a sponsor of insecurity to seat in their midst? The entire episode was a blunder and no amount of clever “grammar” can erase it. Nigerians don’t need the APC to think for them. No right thinking Nigerian, including PDP members, can look at that picture and not feel disappointed and alarmed.

Advisers like Reuben Abati are not helping the President. Instead of admitting, when a mistake is made, which is human, they attempt to bully the truth and lead the President to make other avoidable errors.

The last persons Jonathan should be seen with, in public, are those under investigation. Otherwise, as the nation’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer, he sets a bad example for other officers of the law.

There are occasions when it is better to keep silent and be considered a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. Abati just made a Presidential blunder worse with that press release. Silence would have been better.

THE REVOLT OF THE SLEEPING MASSES.

“Anger supplies the arms”, Virgil 70-19 BC

“Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man is starving.” O. Henry, 1862-1910, (vanguard book of quotations,  p232).

Nigeria’s sleeping masses are about to receive a shock which will wake them up like nothing else in history. It might result in massive revolt. The war in the Northeastern part of Nigeria will end one day – one way or another. Even the hundred years’ war ended one day. Mankind will conquer HIV/AIDs and Ebola, as we dispatched the plague, small pox, polio and other types of pestilence which threatened to finish us. Those wars will end because the international community has an interest in bringing them to conclusion at the earliest possible time.

But, there is another war, silently creeping on us, and it is peculiarly our own. For this war, there will be no foreign assistance, no helping hand and no sympathy. Indeed, the international community would have individually and collectively contributed to this calamity – which is just round the corner. Let me summarise the nature of this war – which we will fight alone by making a categorical statement.

THE AGE OF ABUNDANT REVENUE FROM CRUDE OIL EXPORT IS OVER.

As most countries of Europe, the world’s largest economic bloc, and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) experience economic slow down; and as more countries discover oil in large quantities in their own backyard and as the USA moves to dominate global oil supplies, Nigeria’s economy will become the most endangered worldwide. No other country depends so much on crude oil exports as Nigeria and all economic activities lean heavily on it. Crude oil prices have reached the highest peak they would, barring another major war in the Middle East, and there is only one way to go –DOWN. That will happen because Governments, Federal and States, have failed to read the handwriting on the wall. There is no Strategic Plan to avert this impending disaster. Everybody is now focused on 2015 election. That is the greatest tragedy.

The failure of every government, since Gowon’s, to force  diversification of our economy will, in no distant future, be regarded as economic sabotage by our leaders by future historians. But, the hunger pangs will start very soon; as early as next year, in fact, as the Federal and State Governments will have to embark on another series of Austerity Measures. Public servants will suffer; so will their dependents. Even Boko Haram’s guns will appear like a merciful way of dispatching with those slowly starving to death any way.

When it happens, remember you read it here first.