Buhari’s offer to help Ghana: When old age does not equate to wisdom

What possessed President Muhammadu Buhari to go to Ghana for the 71st Independence Anniversary and promise them to help fight corruption? Does the President not have sane advisers?
My grandmother is Ghanaian and if I wanted to, I could qualify for Ghanaian citizenship. I know my people. They do not suffer fools gladly. You should have seen the way Ghanaians ravaged President Buhari after his faux pas. Ghana is #81 on this year’s Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, while Nigeria is at #148. My question to President Buhari is how can you help a nation that is less corrupt than yours to fight corruption? It is like a demon offering to deliver a pastor! That is how the same Buhari disgraced Nigeria after the 2016 Munich Shooting by promising to help Germany fight terrorism. Imagine Nigeria that is rated as the 4th most terrorized nation in the world, wanting to help Germany, one of the least terrorized nation, to fight terrorism. Who should help who? Buhari should be in a retirement home, not at our Presidential Villa. Would President Nana Akufo-Addo have brought back a notorious fugitive who just happens to be the biggest thief in the civil service? Would he have reinstated him and given him double promotion? Would President Akufo-Addo have retained a Secretary to the Federal Government who was caught red handed pilfering funds that belonged to Internally Displaced Persons? Would President Akufo-Addo do nothing when a leaked memo revealed that $24 billion worth of contracts had been awarded by the state oil firm without due process? Would the Ghanaian President appoint a minister who was inducted by a panel of inquiry? A former governor who claimed to have spent $500,000 on a one day dinner for a Nobel laureate? In fact, let me address the Ghanaian President directly. Dear President Nana Akufo-Addo, I gather President Buhari promised to teach Ghana how to fight corruption. Transparency International says corruption has increased in Nigeria under Buhari! Is this your teacher? If anyone should be teaching anybody, it would be President Akufo-Addo who should teach President Buhari. Have you ever heard him speak? His diction and elocution would make you proud to be an African. His academic qualifications are intimidating. And his courage is legendary. Look at the way he confidently and politely told off French President Emmanuel Macron when the latter visited Ghana recently and thought he could speak down to African leaders as usual. Perhaps Macron thought that Nana was Buhari! Based on academic record, Buhari won’t even be hired to manage a KFC outlet. Based on business record (his 150 cows that don’t increase) he won’t qualify for a bank loan. He also failed as a military leader, yet, Nigerians expect this man to prosper Nigeria! It is like expecting a man who could not pass mathematics to teach you how to pass additional mathematics. Spin him however you like, the fact remains that you cannot point to one thing in his life that Buhari has ran successfully. I apologize in advance to Buharists, but truth is bitter! There is no area in which President Buhari can be in a position to teach Ghana. Is it the economy? He has failed woefully in that regard. Does he want to teach Ghana how to take their economy into recession? The greatest myth of the Buhari era is that he has been a success in the war against terror. Big lie. Turns out that the man has been negotiating with Boko and possibly paying huge ransoms to them to achieve the cosmetic successes he boasts about in the anti terror war. All those so called ‘repentant’ Boko Haram fighters were not all released because they had disavowed terror. No! Many of them were released in exchange for hostages taken captive by Boko Haram. It is also strongly suspected that Boko Haram’s resurgence is the result of ransoms paid to them by the Buhari administration. A good example is Shuaibu Moni, a Boko Haram commander captured by the gallant men and women of the Nigerian armed forces and released by the ungallant Commander-in-Chief, President Buhari. Now the man has surfaced in a new video, threatening the Nigerian state. He can be seen in this video surrounded by well fed fighters brandishing expensive and sophisticated weapons probably bought with the ransoms allegedly paid to Boko Haram by the Buhari administration. Like Nigeria, Ghana also experienced killings by killer Fulani herdsmen, but unlike Nigeria, Ghana dealt with the issue decisively. President Akufo-Addo famously gave a shoot at sight order on any cattle found grazing on farmlands. Not done, he gave a shoot at sight order on any armed Fulani herdsman. So effective were his orders that in January 2018, Fulani elders in Ghana were shown on television, begging the government to give them a grace period of just two days to evacuate their remaining cattle. The video is still available on YouTube for those who care to watch. Meanwhile in Buhari’s Nigeria, the representatives of herdsmen have the guts to go on television to justify herdsmen killings without fear of being arrested. Prominent members of Buhari’s government have openly made statements showing obvious bias in favour of killer Fulani herdsmen and the killings continue without let even as President Buhari gives empty assurances that he would stop them. One of the upper cuts that President Buhari received from Ghana was from Ghanaian comedian, Afia Schwarzenegger, who asked the President to get a bible and read Mathew 7:3-5. Let me help the President with that verse: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:3-5 King James Version). Perhaps I should have put it in cartoons since the President’s spokesman told us that is what the President prefers to read. So what then does Buhari have to teach Ghanaians? Thankfully, after frolicking in Kano while his nation is in mourning, President Buhari has decided to visit those frontline states currently struggling with insecurity chiefly caused by killer Fulani herdsmen. I must commend President Buhari for following the example of Governors Wike and Fayose in visiting Taraba, Benue and other states gripped by killer Fulani herdsmen killings. If President Buhari cant show good leadership, at least he has shown that he can be a good follower! Well done! But it seems that the more Boko Haram kills, bombs and abducts, the more Buhari claims to have defeated them. Is Buhari an ostrich that buries its head in sand? Wake up sir. You run a more corrupt and less secure government than the PDP according to international ratings agencies! Let me end by saying that President Buhari, who is 76 years old this year (his football age), has taught me a lesson about equating old age with wisdom. It is foolish to equate wisdom with age. For most people, age comes alone. Not everyone who is older than you is wiser than you. My advise to President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana in the light of President Buhari’s offer to mentor him is that when seeking a mentor and counselor, look for someone wise, not someone old. Absalom followed old Ahotophel’s advise and he was destroyed, and David took young Abigail’s counsel and he was saved. At age 30, Joseph gave Pharaoh the advise that saved Egypt. Never confuse age with wisdom! Reno’s Nuggets Courtesy is never wasted. Always be courteous to people of low status. Don’t treat a gateman, a cleaner or a waiter like dirt. Respond when they greet you. Even greet them first. How you treat those who can’t help you is how God will treat you. It was a prisoner that God used to make Joseph the Prime Minister of Egypt. It was Naaman’s house maid that introduced him to Elisha who God uses to cured his leprosy. It was how he treated Lazarus that sent the rich man to hell. There is nothing like a high or low man. Only statuses are high or low. But we will leave our status on earth when we die #RenosNuggets Reno Omokri