AMILOADED MEDIA HUB NEWS UPDATE

By: Reno Omokri

We thought those who made noise instead of news under Buhari would naturally flow into this regime. But gone are the days of Lai Mohammed and his Goebbels-level propaganda. Now, this is a double-edged sword. Modesty is, after all, a virtue. But when you have networks like Arise TV and a movement, like Obidients, you might have to do a little more chest-beating. If not, you may receive a good beating in the media.

The new Ministry of Information and National Orientation has moved away from the propaganda of the past to a more engaging one. Every MDA is invited to engage with Nigerians in critical areas that affect them. Lanre Oniru of the National Orientation Agency’s efforts to keep even us in the opposition informed, via his ‘The Explainer’ is commended.

Without the information ministry and Lanre, I would still have been fighting this government, being ignorant of their strides.

First, the economic miracle that the Tinubu administration has pulled off with the floated Naira needs to be studied at ivory towers around the globe. Harvard Business School would have to develop a course to learn and replicate Nigeria’s recent economic revamp.

Never in the history of human endeavour has a nation’s currency gone from being the worst-performing currency on Earth, to becoming the undisputed best-performing banknote in the world, in the space of just four months.

How did they do it? Central to this is the National Security Adviser. Yes, his decisiveness against Binance sparked the recovery of the Naira from the price-gouging mafia that operated on that platform. But his clinical surgery on our economy goes beyond that.

The revocation of the licenses of 4173 allegedly shady Bureau de Changes, which has reduced speculation against the Naira, also the brainchild of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, played a significant role in first stabilising, then appreciating the Naira. Because, as my sources in the Central Bank of Nigeria told me, many commercial banks had cyclical relations with these Bureau de Changes, which was an avenue for economic sabotage against the Naira.

And then we just had Eid el Fitri, and contrary to expectations, the prices of foodstuffs did not go up throughout Ramadan and during Sallah. How was that achieved?

Because the Tinubu administration took the unique step of sending agents to the border to stop grains from leaving Nigeria, while simultaneously releasing 42,000 metric tonnes of grains from the Strategic Grain Reserves. These grains were tracked by operatives domestically from silos to markets, to prevent racketeering. But for the action at the border, the grains would have left the silos and ended up in Niger Republic, Chad and Cameroon. Others would have been hoarded in warehouses. And the result would have been artificial scarcity, just so the usual suspects could make their unusual money.

So, we saw financial and food security restored by proactive security measures. A reflection of the fact that National Security has extended from the nonsensical level of rehabilitating Boko Haram and romancing bandits under Buhari.

Let me ask you this question. What do the bandit leaders, Ali Kachala, Boderi Isyaku, and Sani Dangote, have in common? The answer is that they have all been killed this year by the Tinubu regime in security operations organised by the National Security Adviser.

Say what you will about Tinubu, but you cannot deny the fact that he is gradually making us feel proud to be Nigerians again. If God spares my life, my party and I will challenge him in 2027. Until then, I will commend him when he does well. And for now, he is doing well.

I fully support what the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is doing to restore sanity to Nigeria and our currency. And I pray we will not hear irritating things, like, it is because he is…Nigeria is progressing, and we should be happy with the ongoing cleanup in our polity, without attaching ethnic or religious sentiments to law enforcement efforts that follow the procedure of tying punishment to crime.

It is only in Black Africa that a person who can’t speak his own native language will look down on a fellow Black African who does, simply because that person cannot speak English. Go to England and America. The average White European has more respect for a Black African who can speak their own language and bears a native Black African name. It is their own fellow Blacks, whether Japa Nigerians, or African Americans, or Afro Caribbeans who will look down on such people. And this has to change.

English is a borrowed language. French is a tongue taken on loan. Spanish was imposed on us. And Portuguese is a language that was used to defend minute our native tongues.

Stop calling your language a dialect. It is not. And do not refer to your people as a tribe. They are an ethnic nationality.

Look at the world of music. For years, Africans have been trying to make it globally by singing Western styles of music. And they failed woefully. But when Yorubas started singling Afrobeats in Yoruba, Fela, Angelique Kidjo, D’Banj, Wizkid, Davido, Asake, Tiwa Savage, Adekunle Gold, and others blew up. Today, the hottest music on planet Earth is Afrobeats from Nigeria.

Even in politics, the top Black Africans in the Western world, whether Wale Adeyemo (US Deputy Treasury Secretary), Kemi Badenoch (UK Cabinet Secretary), or Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (DG WTO), got to the top with their native African names.

Look at the wealthiest Africans on planet Earth, Aliko Dangote, Otunba Adenuga, Femi Otedola, Tope Awotona, Bayo Ogunlesi, etc., but you, you go for a two-week holiday to England and return with a funky name and an unusual American accent and think you are better than your fellow Africans!

It does not matter where you come from. If you are Black, you are an African. Even if you don’t think so, those you are trying to impress know so!

Know this. If you are bold enough to dress like a Black African and speak your native language abroad, in the full glare of the public, the immediate assumption is that you are a confident person because it takes guts to stand up to Western culture in the West. And that alone will draw positive attention and influential people to you.

If you are Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, or Ijaw, etc, and you meet another Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, or Ijaw person, speak your language to them. Only talk to them in English or another tongue, if they can’t speak Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, or Ijaw.

And even if you are not Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo or Ijaw, etc, and you can speak those languages, speak it when you meet a native speaker of those tongues. Even if we must borrow a language and culture, let us borrow from Nigeria, rather than Europe.

And be eager to teach others your language. Don’t try to keep them from knowing your language because you want to use it as a business advantage.

Almost all native languages in Nigeria are dying, except Yoruba and Hausa. Why? Because the typical Yoruba and Hausa don’t care if you are offended, if they meet each other( they don’t try to act posh and speak English through their nose. They will get down with their fellow kinsman in their language. And because they have kept their language, their language is keeping them.

Why do you think power and wealth in Nigeria revolve between the Yoruba and the Hausa/Fulani like a ping-pong game? If you cannot keep your culture, why should others entrust you with power or their commonwealth? It is better to borrow money than to borrow a culture. Money is just paper. But your couture is your life.

Please don’t insult me!.