PM NEWS
By Fredrick Nwabufo
The lies are getting deeper; the propaganda steeper, and the curses and insults sicker. There should be limits to crudity. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is Nigeria’s president-elect and will be sworn in as president in a few weeks. So, naturally, he should be accorded the dignity and regard his station demands.
In the build-up to the 2023 presidential election, tale contrivers in the service of chief traducers mass produced objectionable conjectures, fibs, dangerous fallacies, and obtrusive slander against the president-elect. I would not want to repeat them here to give life to extinguished lies exiled in the sarcophagus of dead matter.
The invented tales did not stop Nigerians from signing a social contract with the president-elect. They voted for him overwhelmingly. Really, fake news is the weapon of desperate losers. And citizens could see through the veneer of the fallacies and fermented lies.
But the mischief, malice and execrable contrivances persist even after the elections. It appears every week new malicious cock and bull stories are crocheted from the lie-knitting factory of some sore individuals. These maligners should be tired by now.
Reinventing the wheel of disinformation, dissimulation and mendacity will not upend the outcome of the presidential election. It will not change the certain fate of the president-elect being sworn in. It will not change the resolve of Nigerians; it will not dampen their faith and trust in Nigeria and its electoral process.
I believe the overarching aim of these fabrications is to create doubt over Nigerians’ electoral decision and to foist a consciousness of uncertainty, helplessness, gloom and doom on the national psyche. This is what I call scorched-earth politics. Politics of where the losing side in an election retreats into the trenches to plot on how to bring down the house; politics of self-seeking; politics of war against the national interest and national security; politics of hate and prejudice.
Are these the signs of what is to come? Will the vilifiers spend the next four years on the treadmill of malediction and profanity? Will Nigeria have to contend with a maelstrom of inconsolable belligerents and inveterate anarchists? Will it be another cycle of hate-trading, vicious propaganda, and national hysteria?
I fear for Nigeria. Not because of its threshold to withstand blizzards and tempests, but because of the ominous threats from dangerous and diabolical politics of hostility. Nigeria has always survived the night; it will survive whatever darkness.
