The trial of Bro Garba Shehu

DAYS back, junior presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu looked bemusing defending his principal, President Muhammadu Buhari on a national television over multinational issues. Even without adopting telepathy, something gave something away in him, anytime he mentioned “as a government of change.”  Oga Garba isn’t a mesmerizer in delivery. However, for the fluency inadequacy, providence supplied him surplus of character. When the content of the character is top-notch, the man is made and other limitations are buried in the afterglow of such personality and his persona. That was Garba Shehu before his current job.

There are habitations that are very natural. Put a pig on the throne and it would seek out a muddy trough because its snout was created for dirt. Shehu has been too schooled in Atikuism, to pretend at precision in reciting Buharism, unlike Femi Adesina, the naturally-debonair bros, now made truculent like a man with agonising whitlow in his ten fingers, by a job he’s doing rightly the wrongly way. Adesina began his courses in Buharism when many of the Jambites of today would not even consider it a special elective, with free 100 per cent score, without writing an exam. That is why his emotions always run riot whenever his coterie of degrees in Buharism is being rubbished by those unfazed with what Adesina preaches as the enduring notions of the philosophy from Daura.

There is something fatal about metaphysics. It could get you drunk with supposed harmless compound. But the problem is that because the elementals are compound, you may be consuming toxic substance in intoxicating proportion with other easy-on-the-tongue, jojo. That is how Pastor Laolu Akande has been handling his classes in Buharism. Despite being listed as a presidential aide, he has succinctly kept away from theories he didn’t know the ideas, mindset or thought-processes that birthed them. He knows where his pastor-boss is coming from. He sticks with the known, in speaking Buharism.

That makes Garba (I like the more-localised Garuba version) the odd-man-out, selling a phenomenon he knew nothing about the foundation and possibly didn’t believe in. He could continue with the Nollywood script he’s rehearsing in Villa, but the world knows he’s flesh and blood Atiku.

What really is the job of a media aide? The temptation is to say “defend your boss at all times.” Even such a narrow interpretation would not make it a settled Yes or No. It is a mostly circumstantial job, because you may be required to speak for oga when he isn’t reachable. Such situations have been the Achilles heel of many spokespersons. A man you don’t really know, or know the workings of his inner-man, or life-guides, could make you look sharply foolish when trying to clear his mess.

Adesina, without apologies, is so covered in Buharism soot, to even help the concept. These days, he has an aggravating style to his job that what should ordinarily be a Public Relations engagement, has almost become Public Pariah stunt, so much so that anytime he ventures out to help his boss manage a discontenting public, he brings more avowed enemies home for him. But he can be pardoned. He is like a gifted actor who worked himself into the lead character and unable to get out of it, in a movie that should have a “happily-ever-after” ending, which suddenly turned tragic, and the director failing to redirect the sub-themes again, to achieve the desired epilogue.

As a leading and beloved media merchant, untested Buharism looked like the next-best-thing after Maoism to him. The grit Adesina thought would wow the world, now in practice, is grimmer than grief. It is not his fault; the theory isn’t delivering, the problem is that when it looked great. It was just a theory. But he is mainly responsible for his unflattering persona of today. He refused to move from idealism of a theory, to the grim realities of its practicality.

Garba Shehu is even considered better in conduct, carriage and panache application, in projecting a circus in which he isn’t better than a waka pass. But try as he could, he knows, it would be a lot easier doing the same job in an Atiku presidency and the results are very much likely to be worthy of genuine applause. It can’t always be easy to switch from cosmopolitan to nativity, globalisation to provincialism and informed to cluelessness. You have to be a wizard, to seamlessly manage those two extremes and Garba isn’t laying any claim to PR wizardry even with strong footing and reliable backing as Atiku’s megaphone, both in and out of office.

People should know when to quit, instead of being deluded by textbook definitions of patriotism, nationalism, professionalism, flexibility, adaptability, managerial ability, et al. Does it occur to Garba that he’s performing more poorly today, defending a supposed clean government than when he was the face of an alleged roguish half of Olusegun Obasanjo’s government, headed by a broke and broken pardoned jailbird who worked for only eight years and became mega-wealthy. Oluwa lo mejo da!

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Is it not because Garba wasn’t well-steeped in Buharism and its applications that he had been creating tension and making a mockery of his professional accomplishments like his current public statement on fresh church killing in Benue State? Is it not time to go back to what he knew before dabbling in this strange “methodology”? Can he be more of “changer” than the man who brought him in?

Let’s assume in the unlikely event that Garba and Atiku no longer enjoy a verdant relations. Friends do part ways, regardless of affinity. So, for the sake of argument, Garba had decided to dump Atikuism for a new orientation. For his name sake and generations unborn, should he become a strong taste in the killing mix, in the country? Does he want to be remembered as the man who always jumped forward to justify endless, mindless and planned sorrow for his countrymen, because of a president he could only serve for a maximum eight years?  The day Bro. Adesina went statistically comparative with killings, to justify his boss hadn’t done badly against the one he was elected to do better than, I wept in my spirit, because I know he isn’t a blood-guzzling mammal. He is a decent human being, doing an indecent job, unfortunately, in an indecent manner. Today, is the day of truth. Tomorrow is for history recital. Now, I have my hand on Garba’s dilating performance the other day; he’s pushing himself to believe himself.