NIM Co-ordinator, Moses Jolayemi: Buhari is Nigeria’s Affliction
Moses Jolayemi, a former editor at THISDAY, is the coordinator for the Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM) in Ekiti state. Before his appointment, he was the Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch newspapers, which he pioneered and ran to prominence. Prior to that, he was a member of the Editorial Board of THISDAY, pioneer Foreign Affairs Editor of Daily Independent, Head, Advert/Special projects for The News magazine, Head of the Ibadan Bureau of The Guardian newspapers. He was later invited to serve as spokesman for the former Governor of Ekiti State, Chief Segun Oni, and was later appointed as Special Adviser, Culture and Tourism. In this interview with Adedayo Adejobi, Jolayemi talks about his involvement with the Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM) and how the much-talked-about Third Force hopes to change the dynamics of the country’s political climate, come 2019
hat are you doing with NIM and what is the whole idea of NIM?
I’ve been in journalism for a while now and I only veered into the business of government sometime in 2007 when I went to serve Ekiti State. That ended the moment our government was sacked by the Appeal Court in Ilorin in 2010. NIM as the name implies, is an intervention movement aimed at rescuing Nigeria from the current precipice. You don’t need the services of soothsayers, prophets, alfas or herbalists to know that this country is going towards a major fall, from which it may never recover, going by the crude and callous carelessness of the current President, General Muhammadu Buhari who is running this country like an undertaker. It has never happened before that a president would comfortably and happily look away while his fellow citizens are being slaughtered like cows by herdsmen who are his tribesmen.
At what point did this President get to know that? How long did he take him to know that, after years of carnage and several hundreds of killings of innocent Nigerians? Now that he is desperately seeking re-election, he wants to shift blame as he has always done in the last three years? His inability to make any meaningful impact in the lives of Nigerians in all areas you can think of, he says is because Jonathan’s government was corrupt. Now that Nigerians are crying that they have never felt so unsafe in their own country, our clueless president is taking us to Libya that that is where the herdsmen came from. So do we go to Libya now and beg the relations of the killer Libyan herdsmen to to placate the killers? This man probably thinks we are all fools in this country. How did these Libyans enter Nigeria? Did they come in by road, air or sea? Or did they trek in with their cows from Libya? And on getting here, they would now decide to be killing Nigerians? They are the same people asking for grazing colonies from the government of Nigeria? They were the same people who sought and got the backing of the defence minister who did not hide his support for them? They are Libyans indeed.
As one of my friends suggested, Buhari should set up the Ministry of Excuses and maybe a federal agency for ‘I don’t know’ because our president never knows anything. He didn’t know his own chief of staff was on the board of NNPC. He didn’t know the Inspector General of Police did not carry out his instruction; the list is endless. He is quick to blame others while he remains Mr. Clean; Mr. Integrity.
There is therefore, a dire need for an urgent intervention. Our country needs to be rescued from these undertakers in government. We need to install a credible and responsible leadership that will bring back smiles that seem to have disappeared from the faces of Nigerians. That is the whole essence of NIM and that is what I am doing in NIM. We need to take our country back. All of us, you and I . We need to take full ownership of our land. If we don’t do it now, we might as well forget it and see ourselves as truly a wasted generation.
For a layman on the streets of Lagos and Kano, what they can relate with or easily understatnd is a political party. They want to know the party to go for especially in 2019, considering the fact that majority of the people are reportedly fed up with the two prominent parties. Don’t you think this is like an intellectual movement, a kind of pressure group that will have the shape of an underdog and at end of the day, nothing happens?
(Cuts in) No, no no, that’s not the point. That’s why I said we must rise up and do it now. We are gathering more and more members across all the zones of the country and you will marvel at the number of people who have signed in. That alone is a conviction that we are not off track because it means our position is the popular position of the majority of Nigerians. Except the few who are feeding fat by serving in this pretentious and inept government, I have not seen any sane Nigerian applauding this wicked regime.
Buhari has declared his intention to run for president in 2019. He said he was doing so because majority of Nigerians appreciate what his government is doing. What is your position on this?
President Buhari is not only grossly incompetent, he is also insincere and highly insensitive. If not how on earth could he muster the courage to tell such a fat lie to the entire world that he declared his intention to run for a second term because ‘The majority of Nigerians appreciate what we are doing, and that is why I am re-contesting.’
It is annoying and insulting knowing that this is most untrue and as a leader and an elder statesman, this is a very wicked a lie. Who are those majority of Nigerians? Was he referring to the families of thousands of people who have been killed either by herdsmen or Boko Haram? Is it the millions of unemployed youth who populate the land? Tell me one specific area of achievement that Buhari can point to? Just name one, my brother; is it healthcare, education, power, infrastructure, economy, security, name one please. This man has not fulfilled one, I mean one single campaign promise he made. It is a big shame.
Anyone who votes Buhari in 2019 is an enemy of this country because this president is just not getting it right at all. May be deep down him he intends to do well but he is clearly incapacitated. He cannot cope with the rigours of that office to start with. He is also intellectually ill-equipped to understand how things run in today’s world. A president who does not know how to send a text message, how does he cope, when he is surrounded by sharp guys who are internet savvy and smart enough to make things happen for themselves while pretending to be fighting corruption with him?
Buhari should set up the Ministry of Excuses and maybe a federal agency for ‘I don’t know’ because our president never knows anything. He didn’t know his own chief of staff was on the board of NNPC. He didn’t know the Inspector General of Police did not carry out his instruction; the list is endless. He is quick to blame others while he remains Mr. Clean; Mr. Integrity. There is therefore, a dire need for an urgent intervention