The Nigerian Stock Exchange gained a record ₦2.1 trillion in just 24 hours, moving from an All Share Index with a total market capitalisation of ₦59.416 trillion, up from ₦57.293 trillion on Thursday last week. You also said nothing. The Port Harcourt Refinery has been revived after many years of being moribund. You were quiet.
But when two female undergraduates of Nasarawa State University, Keffi, died from a stampede yesterday, you chose to speak and rather than commiserate with the families of the victims, you decided to politicise their deaths to further your 2027 Presidential campaign. Don’t you think this is a new low, even for you? Are you only happy when evil things occur?
And you sought to lay the blame on the Federal Government. Was the Federal Government to blame when almost twenty people lost their lives in a stampede in Anambra in 2013 when you were Governor? Were they also to blame for the hundreds of young Anambra men who were extrajudicially killed under your watch and their bodies dumped in the Ezu River?
Desperation is dangerous as it can lead a hitherto right thinking man to take action and make utterances that he would never have even considered were it not for the desperation.
That is why you were silent when the brothers, Chinedu and Omama, were burnt to death by a mob in Onitsha. You said nothing. You did not condemn it. You did not call for the arrest of the perpetrators. You pretended not to hear about it. But now that two female undergraduates died in Nasarawa, it is time to shed crocodile tears!
This is the holy month of Ramadan. Our Muslim brothers and sisters are fasting. It is also the Lenten season. Our Christian brothers and sisters are also fasting. We need unity. We do not need a desperate politician trying to set Nigerians against each other.
Reno Omokri
