NewsRescue
Former spokesman of former PDP president Goodluck Jonathan, Reuben Abati has been roundly lambasted by Nigerian commentators reacting to his recent article, “The Phones No Longer Ring.” In the article, Abati went on and on to whine about how since being booted out of office, he no longer gets any calls and attention except a few friends and those soliciting financial assistance.
Reuben was a respected public commentator and government critic till he was appointed by Jonathan; since then Nigerians saw him as a hypocrite and betrayer who served the interests of his corruption immersed master who was booted for mass impoverishment of the nation and amassing stupendous wealth and enriching the cabal only.
Everyone blasted him on PremiumTimes and SharaReporters comments sections:
Reuben Abati, shut the hell up. Traitor. Turncoat. Shameless, unscrupulous, unprincipled fool. Boy don’t even try to broker any form of resumption of dialogue with mainstream Nigerians. Nobody wants to hear from you. For 4 years, you imperiously turned a deaf ear to your original constituency, the loyal Nigerians that respected and looked up to you. Rather you chose to serve your belly at the decadent tables of your corrupt masters of impunity, perfidy and profligacy at Aso Rock. Now the party is over, the music has died down, the DJ has gone home and the celebrant has returned to the creek, you now want to resume talking to those you ignored and let down all these years? Hell no. Recede into infamy and ignominy. Your voice no longer carries any weight of integrity, respect nor honor. You left all those virtues at the tables of corrupt merriment of old Aso Rock. Now you are spent and empty and your hands are soiled with the filth of corruption. Shut up and crawl into a hole somewhere in the creeks with your creek cretin master.
Punk just shut up already!
Now he knows how the good side of his conscience feels. After Jonathan dangled the forbidden fruit in his face, Abati succumbed to the nudging of the bad side of his conscience, and ordered his brain to stop calling the good side. After the well has run dry, he’s trying to reestablish connection with the good side. May be too late. Good side changed it’s phone number.
Story for the gods!!!! Your name is in the memory of Nigerians as member of a terrible and corrupt government, no amount of stories will change that, and I was expecting that you will swear by the god of iron (ogun) that you never shared among the Million dollars, please keep your story to your self, so you only spent your salary all through the time you were with the president, we no be Maga again o, Buhari don open our eyes of how millions of barrels of crude oil was stolen on a daily basis, while you are busy as a good writer to published good grammar to back the stealing up, According to Oshio baba, Elephant leg is missing in our pot of soup, you are part of the story, keep your story for the gods, if you want your phone ring again, put your number open to Nigerians, we will call you to ask questions on how terribly you guys have damaged the country, Mr Phone ringer….
You want to know why the phones are silent? I will tell you.If the phones are silent for the whole day just because you lost election even when you are still in government then something is also wrong with that government. Nigerians are not as bad as government officials and failed politicians paint them to be. If the phones are silent it probably is because you failed the expectations of the people who laboured and suffered to elect you.
Theodore Roosevelt went to the White House on a visit after leaving as president and people- staff and officers- left their offices to honour and greet him, some with tears even without fearing of offending the current president. They told him to his face that since you left no one has been like you. Even after he has left government. He still greeted each of them by name. Now how would the phones of that man ever be silent? Because he was a good man and a good man will always be relevant and needed as sure as night follows day. He did not live for himself but for others and people could see this. Human beings are not fools, they know their friends and their enemies.
Now where were you when 2000 perished at Bama? Your Oga has a word for France over Charlie but no comment for his own people. Have you forgotten how you insulted the critics of your government and principal and called them all sorts of names? It is still a mystery to me and a reflection of the culture of honour here that a person who wrote under your column in the Guardian would agree to serve as a spokeman for a regime that is universally agreed as the most corrupt government in the history of Nigeria. Honour, Nigeria, honour.
I think this is an attempt to test the waters. To guage the amount of sh*tstorm that would be triggered if he ever rears that head or shows that face again. Well mr Abati, skillfullness in writing and good command of English Language does not add or remove anything from the fact that you are a desperate,valueless,cheap hustler,like a lot of Nigerians are!!! You are a defender of crime and corruption. Thousands of lives were destroyed by the actions of your masters and your job was to trivialise and justify those crimes and you tried really hard. You are like the Goebbels of the Hitler-era. You should enjoy your share of the loot quietly. But please don’t try to play on our intelligence by trying to pass yourself as a decent citizen ever again. You chose money over honour so enjoy your loot and leave honour to those that deserve it.Please duck back into your hole, spare us that face of yours and do not rear your hydra-head ever again. Bury it in shame!!!!
Abati is really ridiculous. He says that people behaved as if there was a tree at the ‘Residence’ that produced money. We all know that not only was there such a tree, there were many of such trees. Dieziani Allison-Maduekwe surely plucked money from such trees. So also with numerous Jonathanians, like Onyeka Onwenu, Kuku, Okonjo-Iweala etc.
We are going to hear more of such people who pocketed money from trees growing at the ‘Residence’ in due course. If Abati wants us to believe that he was a saint in a cauldron of grotesque sinners, then good luck to him, all puns intended. No doubt about it: he served as media advisor to probably the most corrupt President that Nigeria has ever had, including the notorious Abacha.
Your post belittles Diezani as plucking money from trees! Her case was a river of dollars, pounds, etc.- a permanent flood! Instead of plucking, she just brought her vessels and filled them brimful!
Abati, if this is a subtle way to warm yourself back into the consciousness of the Nigerian masses, then you have woefully failed. You wrote incredibly well, criticizing every government prior GEJ’s only for you to use your noble craft as ransom for a pot of “political appointment” porridge. Now you have finished feeding frenzy on our patrimony corruptly stashed at the “Residence”, you are back to unabashedly tell us tales of how the saintly goat was routinely summoned to look out for the yam instead of confessing how the yams fell victim to the goats’ ferocious devour. You must have thought Nigerians to be ordinary fools with short memory to have hurried back so soon to continue your self serving write ups. We expect some remorse and not this volt face impenitence from you and your shameless masters. That your phones suddenly gone silent is nothing but anticlimax. So, go ahead and enjoy that lonesome peace of the grave yard while the Nigeria vault counts its losses.
Don’t worry your phone will soon be ringing from efcc and kirikiri.
IT’S YOUR POSSION. ,,,,,,,,AMEN.
This idiot Abati is trying to wash himself. Let us not give him the soap and water.
Abati, you and i both know that this is story for the gods. You will go down in history as the worst presidential spokesman in Nigeria’s history. You were condescending in your conduct before you got to office, in office and even when you were out of it and you even always lack respect for your fellow journalists, probably because you were never truly a trained journalist in the proper sense of the word. And since when did you have “a wife?”, You have two wives joor…stop lying. Yesterday’s men…yeye dey smell
You see this crooked abati, he is at it again, lying about his wives. Can somebody drop abati in the trash because he belongs there.
..
This should have been titled: “The Telephone Lament of a Poor Media Manager”. The piece is childish, obtuse, narcissist and totally out of tune with the requirements of the moment. Indeed, it’s a shame that this is what Reuben Abati thinks is a worthy bridge back to public engagement after his failed term as President Goodluck Jonathan’s spokesperson. Poor piece, very poor piece.
I wish I could upvote you 100 times. Thank you, my bro.
Hmmm!!! Surprise, surprise, dog trying to eat dog. How is Abati’s tenure a failed term as GEJ’s spokesperson if GEJ’s government according to your past rating in all those watery articles was very successful and Nigerians made a mistake electing Buhari instead? Is this a case of envy, having been unrecognised as worthy of appointment instead of Abati? Hahaha!!!
Nice reflective piece, a true reflection of a society that thrives on sycophancy, opportunism, greed and avarice. I must say some of the sentences where quite funny like but striking with meaning :-
“Busy bodies who had just picked up the information that Abati was needed also often took it upon themselves to track me down.”
“All kinds of persons have earned great reputation as editors and opinion influencers on social media where you don’t have to make sense to attract followers.”
“I have called you repeatedly, you did not pick my calls. I hope you know that you will leave government one day!”.
“The number of phone calls began to drop. By May 29, my phones had stopped ringing as they used to. They more or less became museum pieces; their silence reminding me of the four years of my life that proved so momentous. On one occasion, after a whole day of silence, I had to check if the phones were damaged!”
“Abati, Oga dey call you!”
