Abati’s ‘dead phones’: An ode

Some two years back, Denis Kleinfeld wrote a piece titled:  “Lies, Damned Lies, and the Worst of All, Government Lies”. He accused Republicans of claiming to be a “political party of family values, lower taxes, more defenses and balanced budget” while Democrats claim to be a “party of universal healthcare insurance, renewable energy, diversity and inclusion, education and minority’s and LGBT rights”.

Kleinfeld said on “both sides of the aisle, it is all lies!”

To achieve this LIE, he said politicians “spin” their stories through the 3Ds…Deceit, Duplicity and Dishonesty.

To ensure this spin to create “LIES on both side of the aisle”, politicians employ willing tools who have acquired avid communication skills either from corporate experience or journalistic vocation. Once they get in, they undergo a surgery that purges them of whatever “prim and proper” leaning on morality or activism they came into government with. A lot of them suffer a social culture shock through bare-faced experience of impunity arising from a confluence of events torturing their conscience but which they can no longer rise above because again, the allure of office remain ever tempting.

It therefore would take a rock solid stamina of morality for a government spokesman to either say no to spinning lies or opt for outright resignation altogether.

Were such a spokesman the hollow type and desirous of a short-cut end to poverty, the type who had over time deployed his platform to seek attention, gain stardom and grab the job, the type who (to use the words of my good friend, Chris Adetayo) writes “glittering words without a golden heart”, then he would naturally find himself at home within a convenient habitat of hypocrisy.

Such is the story of our friend and professional acquaintance, Reuben Abati, former Chairman of Guardian Editorial Board who never spared irresponsible governments in his column through people-oriented public commentaries, criticisms, sometime in satiric-laden fine articles and sometime in straight-arrow darts of diatribes.

When Abati’s immediate and distant dependents sought for jobs and couldn’t find one, he excretes what the government of the day would find unpalatable in smelly defecations from the pen. A few close observers however did not find Abati surprising when he commenced the spokesman job of  probably the worse government this country ever produced in a democratic setting.

Many said “Abati was never on the side of the people and that he desperately wrote because he wanted appointment and he’s got it”. As debatable as this sounds, defending the untenable misdeeds of the past administration which includes gross and unprecedented corruption by a man whose columns never spared past corrupt administrations put Abati in a complex corner of moral and professional compromise.

In our country where the fear of poverty remains the beginning of wisdom, Abati ignored every conscientious beep of self restraint, ethics and values and rather chose to hold unto the self-destruct straws of survival and self preservation while his hitherto deceptive integrity and popularity drowned amongst the bewildered pool of his teeming followers.

So Abati came out on Sunday, 27th July, in an attempt to subtly relaunch himself in his mind-boggling protest and outcry against his “dead phones” that just won’t ring anymore! Abati lampooned those who sought for his clarification on issues and insulted those who he claimed sought his “financial assistance” because they thought he was working in some place where “national cake was being shared”.

Needless to say that Abati’s scathing remarks were resoundingly rebuffed by both his constituency and former enthusiastic followers. He sounded more like the repugnance in diabetes than the Reuben of Abati.

A lot must have gone through the minds of Abati’s readers (in this latest jab) about his ignoble days in the defense of a most embarrassing government that publicly endorsed stealing and declared it wasn’t corruption. But perhaps the most demeaning was when in sheer desperation for retention of power for and by President Jonathan, he found himself not only defending but also appearing behind a certain illiterate carpenter who became a public nuisance a few days to the election as an emergency warlord in the Southwest to corner pipeline “protection” contracts.

Abati’s condescending appearance behind this juvenile-delinquent adult finally symbolized his fading glory as a once boisterous appeal-of-the-pen who gave way to a rambunctious function of an iniquitous Spin Doctor! Abati’s phones may still ring but most likely in the vibrate mode of widespread apathy.

In the public square, I dare say, “Adieu” Reuben!