By Lawal Yusuf
If any doubt existed about the sponsors of that odious, libellous write-up published in the Sahara Reporters, the press statement on it released a day after the publication by the Bauchi government, giving credence to the obnoxious labels and false allegations contained therein, has erased it (the doubt). The government is too clumsy to cover its track.
Any true, professional journalist who read that write-up, would easily dismiss it as a hatchet man’s job, undertaken by an unprincipled and godless character who trades off his conscience for a fee.
Ever since the former Chief of Air Staff of the Nigeria Air Force, Air Marshal Sadique Baba Abubakar, indicated interest to contest for the governorship seat of Bauchi state, the state government became panicked and jittery, and with every passing day becomes desperate to cling to the fast slipping power.
The government’s condition worsened when the retired Air Marshal Sadique emerged victorious in Bauchi state’s APC governorship primary election.
This put the government in total disarray, making the governor to go haywire, unable to control his anger and frustration to the extent of making some inflammatory, inciting and defamatory statements against the APC governorship candidate.
To anyone who has elementary knowledge of politics, these are signs of defeat, but the man is determined never to go without a fight even though he knows that defeat is a foregone conclusion.
However, in spite all the provocations by the Bauchi government, Air Marshal Sadique remains focused, maintains his gentlemanliness mien; never even once makes reference to, let alone mentions the name of the governor, his government or its policies.
Similarly, the Air Marshal’s media team resists all temptations by the Bauchi state government to play dirty with him.
Instead, they exercise utmost restraint, remain thoroughly professional and concentrate on only selling their candidate, focusing on his track records of excellence and superlative performances in all the public offices he held in the Nigeria Air force and even in his short sojourn as Nigeria’s Ambassador to Chad Republic; as well as sensitizing the state’s citizens on what the former Ambassador has in stock for the state, especially on out-of-school-children, healthcare and the alarming maternal mortality rate; lack of jobs among youths, education in general, industrialization, among others, come 2023.
However, on the other hand, with defeat staring them boldly in the face, and with absolutely nothing to campaign or lie to the people on, having failed woefully in all its campaign promises to the people of Bauchi state, the government believes that the only way to save face is to descend so low as to be mean and petty, peddling lies and embarking on campaign of calumny and defamation of character of a person whose squeaky clean integrity was never blemished throughout his public service career.
So far, Bauchi state government has demonstrated to the whole world it is all out to play dirty.
In view of that Air Marshal Sadique must not take this lightly. Giving their antecedents and capacity for evils, these people are capable of anything including contriving and engineering a violent crisis, which they could use afterward to rope in the Air Mrshal, all in their desperation to remainin power.
Equally important, is to appeal to Bauchi state citizens to be vigilant, and refuse to be lured into fighting anybody’s dirty ‘war’.
It is advisable that Air Marshal Baba Sadique Abubakar should seek redress in a court of law by suing the online news medium, and join the state government in the case.
Yusuf is a political analyst, he wrote in from Bauchi