Watching President Bola Tinubu speak at an event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, I couldn’t help but recall a great book by the Grammy-winning comedian turned US senator Al Franken – “Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them”. The blurb on the back of the book said readers should join Franken “as he trashes the untruthful, mauls the mendacious and bitch-slaps the bullshitters”.
The fact that Franken could switch careers from comedian to senator lived up to the old killer quote from comedian Will Rogers: “Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke”. It’s indeed changing times in Nigeria and no one in their right mind would take Tinubu, of the unknown real name, unknown state of origin, unknown date of birth, unknown academic background, shady past and so on, as anything more than a bad joke.
He was at it again in Riyadh, recycling previously discredited lies about his work with accounting firm Deloitte.
Is this a joke or what?
Nigeria’s perception of corruption is a thing of the past
~ Bola Tinubu
What a bold deceit 😂 pic.twitter.com/sLWkqy0q0k
— Uche (@otuo_ogbajie) November 12, 2023
It is one thing to claim boldly that Nigeria’s perception for corruption was gone – as declared by one of the biggest looters of public funds in the country and a man rescued from serious charges of identity fraud and certificate forgery by a compromised Supreme Court. But it must be down to diplomatic niceties that there wasn’t an uproar from the audience of Saudis as Tinubu claimed perceptions of Nigeria were changing. But apparently emboldened by the Supreme Court decision to ratify his fraudulent electoral victory and fictitious academic qualifications, Tinubu must imagine that he is now unstoppable.
He then spoke about his imaginary time at Deloitte. When he previously made those claims, they were challenged by investigative journalist David Hundeyin, who subpoenaed Deloitte.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu has claimed that he made $1.8 million from salaries and bonuses while working a consultancy job at Deloitte USA.
So we subpoenaed Deloitte USA to provide evidence of Tinubu's employment and staff payment records, and this is what came back… pic.twitter.com/DgRwsrh1Nr
— David Hundeyin (@DavidHundeyin) November 14, 2022
What came back from the company was a denial of all knowledge of Tinubu ever working for them.
Any rational person would have stopped retelling that lie. But not a lying liar like Tinubu the truth-twister. It appears nothing will stop Tinubu telling and retelling lies about anything from his past to the present state of Nigeria, its economy and its future under the band of brigands headed by the president. Franken said in his book that the liars have the “willingness to lie and distort” and “they fight with lies”. But “we have to fight them with the truth….we’ve got to be willing to throw their lies in their face”.
Tinubu’s audience in Riyadh didn’t do that. But his lies shouldn’t go unchallenged elsewhere, particularly in Nigeria.
