The Searchlight Journal

AMAECHI: LETTING SLEEPING LIES LIE

Rotimi Amaechi has a very touching—but very familiar—story. Familiar because it sounds like that fable many of us heard in our youth: that four corner kicks make one goal in football. Not only is it a lie, but some lies are so extravagant that they make you question the psychology of the liar.

He claims that if President Tinubu wins a second term, he could “damage Abuja” and even move the Federal Capital Territory to Lagos. Vintage Amaechi! He has the uncanny ability to juggle allegations and falsehoods with more dexterity than Jay-Jay Okocha once juggled a football. He appears to believe that ignorance is the o***m of the masses and that, with enough confidence, one can get away with anything—anything at all.

Let us remember that this is the same Amaechi who, in 2015, confidently announced to the nation that the Jonathan government paid ₦6 billion to churches and Christian leaders to support him in the election—six billion, not the kind of money that can be disbursed quietly without leaving a trail as thick as the fumes from a diesel-powered generator in a blackout.

Naturally, Nigerians asked the obvious questions: Which churches? Which pastors? Where are the transfers? Where are the receipts? Some pastors even played into his hands by denying knowledge of the money. But you do not deny fiction; when you do, you risk promoting it into the realm of reality.

Till today, not a single name, document, bank alert, or shred of evidence has surfaced. Not one pastor. Not one church. Not one kobo traced. But, good, old Amaechi had done his yeoman’s job and, for his troubles, bagged a ministerial appointment for what could only be described as a rather dubious display of “genius.”

Now he returns with an even more outrageous tale, apparently convinced—like you-know-who—that Nigerians are gullible and hungry enough to swallow anything. But one simple question remains unanswered: How exactly does one pack Abuja into a moving truck and relocate it to Lagos?

Unfortunately, this is not a question Amaechi is likely to answer. He is far too busy concocting fresh “moonlight” tales to explain the old ones already floating in the political atmosphere. And so he would rather let sleeping lies lie…and move on.