Smart Adeyemi: Of Judas and the Relentless Pursuit of Presidential Suya -By Ahmed Oluwasanjo

Senator Smart Adeyemi

Nigerian politicians often think the electorate comprises yam heads who could be easily bamboozled to take whatever they are doing or saying – hook, line and sinker – without cause to critically reflect on this in relation to what they did or said in times past.

However, we must prove to them that we are smart enough to see through their dirty lies and hypocrisy, by putting their past and present statements/deeds side-by-side to logically come to a conclusion on who they really are.

This brings me to the crux of this piece, which is: to expose the hypocrisy of senator Smart Adeyemi to fellow constituents and other Nigerians at large.

Smart Adeyemi was twice elected a senator on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party. He represented Kogi West senatorial district in the 6th and 7th Senate. Unfortunately, he was voted out at his third attempt to return to the Red Chamber as his constituents had become totally dissatisfied with his dismal performance in representative governance.

Truth be told, had Smart performed averagely, his constituents wouldn’t have sought a messiah in Dino Melaye – the purveyor of ‘Dino-Myelitis’. And, I plead with his supporters who might disagree with me to counter my claims with facts after they must have compared what Smart received federally as constituency development funds for eight years with the constituency development projects he purportedly executed, to see if his constituents got a fair deal from him.

But I digress.

That Smart Adeyemi defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) a few days ago is no new thing under the sun. I understand that he has a constitutional right to cross-carpet to any political party of his choice, as long as they would have him over there. However, his statements before and shortly after he defected to the APC reveal how hypocritical and unprincipled he is. A few examples would support my claim.

A few years ago, at a wedding reception of a daughter of Kogi Oil man Jide Omokore, held in Dubai, Smart Adeyemi had publicly berated Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu for supporting a former dictator, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd). In his words, “…Senator Tinubu sir, I am, however, shocked that someone of your pedigree would be devoting his political acumen for the service of a non democrat. Someone who had truncated democracy in the past.”

On the contrary today, the same Smart Adeyemi who traduced Bola Ahmed Tinubu for supporting a man who once truncated democracy in the past, has openly declared his support for the same Muhammadu Buhari, a he defected to the ruling party on April 8, 2016. Given this, would it be wrong if we ask if Smart is smart at all? Or has the fact that Buhari once truncated democracy, as he stated about a year ago, changed?

Also, in the run up to the 2015 general elections that rendered Smart Adeyemi jobless, he unequivocally said: “Buhari’s background is not a background that is good for democracy… Buhari’s government came and oppressed us to the point of death. I do not see how I can support that kind of a man who has not apologised to Nigerian people.”

Given Smart’s words as cited above, one would have concluded that he would remain a loyal member of the opposition party against all odds.

Ironically, Smart now grovels before a man he avowed never to support, just to remain politically relevant. I though Smart would have been smarter than the regular shameless ‘chop-there-chop-here’ politicians who dally with any government in power just to pick up crumbs from the president’s table. Alas, he is merely cut from the same cloth, and could I be shocked by this?

That said, that Smart has just realised and acknowledged that Kogi West is the capital of misery and poverty in Kogi State as a result of the failure of the political party that gave him all he has today also reveals the Judas in him. Because, had he won re-election on the PDP platform and still enjoys a jumbo allowance/constituency development fund, he would never betray such company.

To crown it all, Smart once claimed that APC sinned against God and Nigerians by fielding the duo of Buhari and Osinbajo as Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates for the 2015 presidential election, because Buhari is an irredeemable dictator, while Osinbajo is a pastor who should have nothing to do with politics. Today, the duo are Nigeria’s substantive President and Vice President respectively, so does it make any sense for Smart to defect to a party that has continued to sin against God and Nigerians?

Moreover, why should Smart leave the gathering of holy men like Olisah Metuh, Sambo Dasuki, Ali Modu Sherif and his ‘hero’ Jonathan to pitch his tent with members of a political party that sins?‎ Could betrayal of his PDP folks be worse than this? Is Smart only now being smart enough to forget his earlier words when there is, potentially, food to be eaten? Indeed, the fear of fading into political oblivion and the love of presidential suya are enough reasons for Smart to join a sinning party.

From being an ardent PDP member, a traducer of APC and Buhari, Smart has morphed into a member of the APC, a supporter of Buhari and a traducer of PDP. Now, this is politics, Nigerian style!

Anyway, I hope that members of his new party, APC, and more importantly the Nigerians who wouldn’t mind killing themselves in the cause of shameless and unprincipled politicians to learn a thing or two from this.

Ahmed Oluwasanjo writes from Abuja and can be reached through ahmedoluwasanjo@gmail.com