(A Reaction To Azu Ishiekwene's Opinion Piece Published In The Nigerian NewsLeader Newspaper Online Edition of Friday, May 16, 2025)
AN UNNECESSARY COMPARISON:
By Uche Chris
The article by Mr. Azu Ishiekwene (titled: How To Crown An Impostor) is clearly a product of bad faith and muddled reason. Azu may be a celebrated writer and journalist, but that doesn't confer on him the best gift of logic and intellectual acuity. Whatever the young man, Captain Ibrahim Traore, is doing or not doing in Burkina Faso should not elicit such malevolent opinion from a Nigerian, whose country has remained an unfulfilled promise of greatness since independence - betrayed by its leaders, and endured, and even encouraged, by a docile and cowardly resilient people.
Journalism is not an exact science, and journalists are not always neutral and unbiased. To use a report of one journalist or magazine to judge, even demonize, a leader of another country, is uncharitable and premeditated. What has he done that Nigerian leaders are not severally more guilty of? it is a case of kettle calling pot black, or giving a dog a bad name... None of gnawing issues in Nigeria deserves Azu's attention, instead of picking on a leader doing his best for his country.
Here are the issues rankling Azu? First, that he is a social media creation or success. How is that his problem, and how does it affect his performance? If the Gen Z want to make him their hero, and another Thomas Sankara, again how is it his problem?
The second point that ilks Azu is that he is hob- nobbing with Russia, and even China. What's that? Which country doesn't? Is Azu not aware that President Tinubu is impoverishing Nigerians because of the policies from France and the West? We are yet to read him calling him out on those ill-thought and badly digested policies.
The third point is that Traore is using the Wagner group to fight jihadists. It is a shame that Nigeria has not been able to defeat Boko Haram in over 10 years after spending billions of dollars, when the South African military contractors were almost decimating them in just three months before politics and self-interest scuttled it. In fact, I believe he has seen the video of Borno people calling for the return of the mercenaries.
Fourth is the issue of ECOWAS - which he blamed Traore and his colleagues in Mali and Niger, for disintegrating. That's revisionist history. It was President Tinubu's infantile diplomatic blunder that orchestrated the break-up, which makes one suspects Azu's motive.
Fifthly, he alleges that Traore promised return to democracy after two years, which he has abandoned. Which democracy does Azu mean? Is it the type we practice, where a fourth placed candidate becomes the winner, or one where results are written before voting end? Or the like the produced the slavish dictators they removed?
Virtually every reasonable person in Nigeria today, perhaps, apart from only those in government, including Obasanjo, Anyaoku, T.Y. Danjuma, disapproves of this democracy. Yet, he wants us believe that we are better than Burkina Faso. That's nonsensical.
Finally, the comparison with Sankara is unnecessary and inappropriate. Why is it necessary? Can you compare Tinubu and Awo, or Buhari and Shagari? As a student of history we only compare likes - people who operated under similar circumstances. It is merely over-stretching logic and imagination, and seeking unavailable validation to accomplish the task of vilifying a leader, to embark on such academic exercise.
Nigeria, and Nigerians, should mind their business by removing first the log in their eyes so they can see clearly the speck in others' eyes. NNL.
...Uche Chris is a senior journalist in Nigeria, a former editor of Sunday Mirror and currently the Managing Editor of Hallmark Business Newspaper. He is a member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE). NNL.
