The Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, Femi Adesina, has upbraided some Nigerians who have been asking the President to again address Nigerians on the Coronavirus Disease.
Adesina said this in his weekly Friday Column: “From the Inside… Fridays with Femi Adesina.”
He said it was painful that after five years, some Nigerians have chosen not to understand the style of President Buhari not to keep talking instead of working.
He said it was even more disappointing that after the President had addressed Nigerians three times on the COVID-19 pandemic, some Nigerians were still asking him for another broadcast, with some demanding for a Presidential Media Chat.
Using his experience on a live radio programme on Naira Info FM, Adesina said he was harangued by callers who wanted Buhari to address them and also insulted not just himself but the President.
In his weekly Friday column, Adesina said no one would have tried such with former President Olusegun Obasanjo and that if they did, the reply was certain to be caustic.
In the column this week, titled: “If you can’t take blows brother, don’t throw blows,” Adesina said he also decided, using the platform of the Naira Info FM, to give back to some Nigerians in equal measure what they have been dishing out to President Buhari.
He they wrote of how former President Obasanjo would have replied such Nigerians: “You know what? If it was former President Olusegun Obasanjo that had come under the ‘you must talk to us’ barrage like that, and on live television, he would have first cleared his throat noisily, adjusted himself in his seat, and then bellowed: ‘And who are you, that I must talk to you? I say who the hell are you? Who is your father? Who is your father’s father, that you are commanding me to talk to you? Were you born when we fought a Civil War to keep this country together? Where was your father when I received the instrument of surrender from the Biafra Forces? Don’t come here and tell me nonsense. Talk to us, my foot!’”
Adesina added: “But President Buhari would not upbraid anyone like that. He rather keeps his peace. And some people have now taken liberty for license, till they begin to sound like broken records. Yes, no apologies. That’s how they sound.”
Adesina, who gave credit to late reggae star, Peter Tosh, for the headline of the article, which he lifted from the album: “Mama Africa,” with song title as: “Glass House,” said he was shocked that those who took time out to abuse himself and President Buhari during the Naira Info FM could not take a return blow themselves.
He wrote after giving the lyrics of the Peter Tosh song: “I’ve recently found out that it’s the opposite that some Nigerians want. They want to use foul language, harangue their President, abuse him, and then nobody must respond to defend the President. They want to dish out blows, and they don’t want to take any.
“But it doesn’t work that way. If you can’t take blows brother, don’t throw blows. That’s the way life goes.”
The full article, published elsewhere on this news website, had Adesina writing at the end: “You Tarka me, I Dabo you, God no go vex (the younger generation may not understand this. A story for another day). What am I saying in summary? Those who run down our President on every platform for inexplicable reasons should not think they will always get away with it. If you live in a glasshouse, don’t throw stones. And if you can’t take blows brother don’t throw stones.
“United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, recently warned against what he called the ‘virus of hate.’ His words: ‘We must act now to strengthen the immunity of our societies against the virus of hate.’
“Yes, that virus is well and alive in Nigeria. It is even deadlier than Coronavirus. But those who harbour it will not always get away with it. There will always be a fight back.”