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Between Jonathan and Nyako

• Have you read the latest letter in town?

• First of all, I will advise you to rise above the tide and stop indicting the nation’s armed forces. There are more gallant officers in and out of uniform with something good to say.

• Hellooo, I am talking about the governor’s letter to his colleagues in which he tackled President Jones.

• A nation’s armed forces is its backbone, stop its denigration. • How? • Let the governor send his image makers back to school for history lessons, but most importantly elementary grammar and sentence structure. • Why? • That man is a twotime governor, has headed the navy yet he lacks a basic understanding of national history; finds it hard to situate issues, even the things he witnessed or took part in and if he continues, would be denigrating the uniform and the babban riga.

• Abeg leave grammar and syntax to Farooq Kperogi, we’re talking politics here and the interest of the north.

• I have no problem with politics and I align with the interests of the north. The trouble with identifying with every rabble rouser out there is that they muddy the waters of political discourse and make it impossible for people to identify the real issues.

• Are you calling the governor a rabble rouser?

• My argument has always been that if we must parade northern credentials, we should come with our First 11. You cannot play against a winning team playing with your reserve list or by picking ball jugglers from the spectators and expect to win. This man’s convoluted rants is not worth identifying with. He has nothing to show for the investment the nation placed in him. Trying to jump into a national discourse the way he did with slapdash illogic and petulant rumour is one of the reasons people insult our region.

• You won’t leave the shadow and let’s chase the substance.

• This townsquare is large but there is only space for one jester-in-chief at any given time. The others are distractions we would do well to ignore.

• I thought he raised genuine issues that are known.

• Like Boko Haram is a government ploy to reduce northern population, decimate Muslims and cause disaffection and illwill between Christians and Muslims? Or his selective amnesia in misinterpreting global events and trivialising national disasters?

• Is it not a known fact that Boko Haram is a government creation? The president said they are in his cabinet. I have read allusions to that in some of your writings.

• Please spare me the smear. Just because almajirai discuss issues at their levels does not turn them into facts. You cannot make headlines of pepper soup gossip.

• I know you are not a genuine critic, you are like your predecessors just talking to be noticed and settled.

• Thank you. My point is that the Naija circus, can only accommodate one entertainer at a time before the comedy turns into a farce. The insurgency predates the clueless one and is a serious national calamity that has defied solutions. On the one hand, Nyako says it’s a ploy, but he wants amnesty and a fund that he and those who think like him can mismanage. He should give account of how he managed Adamawa’s funds first, because when you point one finger at anything, one finger points to God and three points back to you. This man’s views are disastrous at all levels and does not align with northern or any interest at all.

• So why is the presidency worried about the message?

• They are the real circus. Next time, the man should put his thoughts together in the language he can speak and then find someone who is well versed in translation. Did you notice that there are sentences in his so-called letter that are 90 words long and separated by only one comma? This man had the temerity to insinuate that majority of Boko Haram victims are northerners. Please let’s talk about something else. • Like what now? • I don’t know… CCTV cameras, cattle grazing, NNPC in-house storm, lack of electricity; inability of this governor to replicate his farming success in his state. Let’s talk about governments marrying off widows from the common wealth with no clue about how to feed and sustain the union. There’s a lot to talk about here than give room to regional clowns.

• Any excuse to deviate from the substance in the letter.

• You are yet to show me one substance in the letter.

• And you are yet to disprove that there are no substances in it either.

• First show me the meat in the letter and I will proof to you that it’s all bones – clowns one and all.