Shaka Momodu and Tunde Rahman
By Jimmy Enyeh
Former Editor of THISDAY Newspapers and head of Tinubu’s Media Office, Mr. Tunde Rahman and Editor of THISDAY Newspapers, Mr. Shaka Momodu, are at loggerheads over the presidential ambition of National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
NATIONAL WAVES gathered that so bad is the situation between the duo that they have started spewing vitriol.
Momodu seems to have fired the first salvo when he authored a back page column in the THISDAY Newspaper of January 28, 2022 edition titled, Tinubu: Nigeria No Be Lagos (3). In the said article, the THISDAY Editor x-rayed the activities of Tinubu while he was Lagos State governor.
Momodu wrote “We will face an existential threat if we fail to act now to preserve whatever little is left of our values. The current calamity in the land was brought upon us by Tinubu and his unrighteous coalition. Look at what they have turned our fatherland into. A vast ocean of poverty and killing field of blood-thirsty terrorist gunmen slaughtering at will, unchallenged by security forces’.
“If for nothing else, the mere fact that Tinubu is the architect of this leprous administration, should deny him support from any sane Nigerian. But as I have often acknowledged, Nigerians are incredibly smart people, with a history of foolish choices. So I cannot take it for granted that we have learnt any lessons from our current travails. Just take a moment to think of all those who have been killed, kidnapped, raped, etc., since the All Progressives Congress (APC) came to power. Doesn’t that mean anything to these people who are campaigning for another affliction? Does the state of our country today mean anything to those campaigning for Tinubu?
Momodu alleged that Tinubu was embroiled in inconsistencies in his biodata and corruption “From his date of birth to his educational qualifications, career, business dealings, his mercantile politics and even his name, everything smacks of the more you look, the less you see – underscoring a lifetime of crime. A man who constantly changes his name without valid reasons must surely have something to hide. His time in office as governor of Lagos birthed one of the most audacious corruption schemes in this country’s history. I am talking of a then sitting governor awarding a sole tax revenue-collection contract to his own company, Alpha Beta, with 10 percent from a certain threshold going to him. Which governor has done that since 1999? So, at the minimum, Tinubu rakes in billions of naira monthly. As Lagos’ revenue grows, so does his bank balance. I don’t know where in the world this is allowed except in Nigeria”
He also criticized Tinubu’s tenure as governor of Lagos State” I watched with concern and profound disdain the man who wants to be president of Nigeria in his declarative press conference. He rambled and rumbled about his experience and capacity to turn things around. Hearing him and his supporters speak about Lagos, you would think the city-state is a Dubai on the lagoon. Yet, despite the best efforts of his successors to fix the broken and derelict infrastructure Tinubu left behind, when peer-reviewed by international bodies, Lagos consistently comes first from the rear as the dirtiest city in the world and one of the worst places to inhabit on earth. Traffic gridlocks remain a challenge. Many schools are without roofs, windows and chairs. World-class healthcare is non-existent. Ambulance services are epileptic. Basic infrastructure is broken. So is this the Lagos model people talk about?
“It is to his eternal shame that there is no pipe-borne water anywhere in Tinubu’s Lagos. What is this nonsense talk about the Lagos model? Ease of doing business is a mirage as businesses are hit regularly with a multiplicity of taxes by the state. The investment climate is hostile. It takes forever to get a land title with all sorts of charges in tow”
Momodu took a swipe at Journalists who use thier writing skills to praise rogue politicians to the heavens “Without a shadow of a doubt, I know there are many unscrupulous, useful idiots who have no issues putting their intellect and writing skills at the service of ravenous politicians. In the name of tribe and religion, they rally support for this cadre of hacks, cranks and grifters lionized as heroes of our democracy, people that have amassed so much wealth and perfected the art of stealing from the state in broad daylight while claiming to be working for the people. For ethnic and whatever subsidiary motivations, they use their knowledge and writing skills to embellish falsehoods to advance the ambitions of these perfidious characters and fraudsters. Frankly, these writers, journalists, academics, etc., constitute a bigger danger to this country than even the politicians they try to deodorise
Peeved by Momodu’s article, Rahman sent a right of reply written by Angela Rusida, published in THISDAY Newspaper of February 11, 2022 and titled In The Country of the Blind, Shaka Momodu is the One-eyed King. The right of reply lampooned Momodu and wondered if he’s mentally balanced, “There are cogent reasons to review Shaka Momodu’s three- part tirade of hate and spite against Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. (Tinubu’s Mission Impossible, March, 5, 2018; Lagos Must Be Free, October 12, 2018 and Nigeria No be Lagos).
“As Editor of THISDAY, his opinion indexes his editorial judgment and exposes the contradictions and confusion of his psyche. Understanding that psyche is therefore critical to any serious evaluation of his malady. Since not all patients understand the medical implications of the symptoms they manifest and research has shown that mentally deranged persons are the least to admit the precariousness of their situation”
“in Momodu’s Country of the Blind, he, the one-eyed king has the reservoir of the right to expression as others who seek to avail themselves of this right are “unscrupulous, useful idiots” who “spew utter hogwash”. The academics are “educated people, professors, reasoning like zombies” and he would not give the citizenry the right to reason because he could not take it for granted that they have learnt any lessons from their travails”.
“Who did this to Shaka? Between 2003 and 2007, Shaka Momodu was an indigent, humble correspondent of THISDAY newspapers at the Governor’s Office in Alausa, Ikeja. He covered Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the Lagos State Governor serving his second term and witnessed the radical politics and governance of the maverick politician, financial strategist and astute logistician as he tried to redress the injustice suffered by Lagos State by creating 37 additional local governments. He was on the front row as Lagos State reformed the revenue collection system, setting up the Lagos Internal Revenue Service and computerizing the tax stations to provide real time feedback to the central office. He witnessed legal struggles that won for Lagos State the control of the production of number plate and all lands under the bridges built by the Federal Government. He reported for THISDAY newspapers the decision of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu administration to pay the fees for the final year examinations of all students in public secondary schools and the evolution of the tutor-generals/permanent secretaries to improve the administration of education”.
“Momodu was among the correspondents who reported the numerous awards won by the Tinubu administration at the internationally acclaimed city awards and penned articles that fairly reported the exceptional achievements of the administration. Just cutting his teeth in the journalism profession then, there was no hint of a misguided crusader in the young man who was excited by the advertising placements passed through him to several newspapers by the Zenon oil marketing company to supplement his salary by taking commissions. This transactional relationship with news sources, though corrupt by journalism standards, had become the famous tactic of all public relations gurus to encourage the newshounds to look the other way”.
Rahman reminded Momodu that there is pipe borne water in some parts of Lagos State “Such a goof makes one wonder what Momodu picked up as a former Alausa correspondent between 2003 and 2007. How could he forget so soon that Lagos State has three major waterworks and 48 mini-waterworks that collectively generate 210 million gallons of water daily through 180 -kilometre transmission mains and 2.215 kilometres of distribution mains. If he had a modicum of responsibility to inform his readers accurately, couldn’t he google Lagos water corporation to learn what he did not know or remember what he forgot? He would have discovered that Apapa, which hosts THISDAY, is one of the three locations with high water supply. Others are Ikoyi and Ikeja”.
“Momodu, the one-eyed king also goofs on investment in Lagos in his bid to run down the city in which he has taken refuge from his backwater village and that also transformed him from a rookie beat pounding journalist to editor, by expressing his wish for investment to decline as fact. This reckless misinformation is at total variance from the information issued by the Nigeria Investment Promotion Council which declared that in the third quarter of 2021, Lagos State received 81 percent of total investment inflow into Nigeria valued at $7.29 billion”
It would be recalled that Mr. Rahman joined THISDAY in 2004 as Deputy Editor of the Sunday title, during which he pioneered the political arm of the paper called CICERO.
He later became the Deputy Editor of the daily newspaper and then the Editor of the Saturday and Sunday titles.
