Ask Dr Abati, What Does Dame Patience Do For A Living? By Usama Dandare

     Those who write too much English and confused readers with big big grammars says: “There is beauty in truth, even if it's painful. Those who lie, twist life so that it looks tasty to the lazy, brilliant to the ignorant, and powerful to the weak. But lies only strengthen our defects. They don't teach anything, help anything, fix anything or cure anything. Nor do they develop one's character, one's mind, one's heart or one's soul.”
― José N. Harris

          For me, i don't write or speak with much vocabularies as my intention was to reach out to the poor Nigerian masses who can't stand the taste of reading with much grammars due to their government's failure in providing them good and standard education.

           I always said if i was President Gudluck Ebele Jonathan, i'll had appointed Mr Labaran Maku as my media spokeman whom was born a natural liar instead of appointing Reuben Abati who transformed into a liar overnight without following due processes and didn't pass through the basic steps and stages in lying. The purpose of lying was to escape punishment, or work, or responsibility, and they were used for profit. Most liars are tripped up either because they forget what they have told or because the lie is suddenly faced with an incontrovertible truth. But Mr Abati always forget his lies, and he developed the most effective method of lying. He stayed close enough to the lies so that one could never be sure. He knew two other methods also -- either to tell his lies as truth or to tell a truth as a lie. If one is accused of a lie and it turns out to be the truth, there is a backlog that will last a long time and protect a number of truths. Do we really need a study on why people lie? They lie because it's easy, and cowards are good at "easy." Telling the truth takes moxie, and Abati lack it.

         The author of "the hypocrisy of the men of yesterday" and the presidential assistant on media to president Gudluck Jonathan was never a professional liar, he quickly forgot all he said and all the criticisms he made toward Gudluck Jonathan, his wife and his government soon after his appointment into the corrupt government he once called them. When a person vomited and lick back his vomit, he's said to be a liar on a public point of view but for me, he's simply a coward because only cowards lie to protect themselves, to shield their egos from the raw pain of truth. Mr Abati was few years back standing against the present government for what he called disagreeable conduct from his Madam at the top and daring President Jonathan to note he don't have any powers over Gov. Ameachi or any governor in Nigeria. The then press freedom fighter who's now the attack dog of former powerless Jonathan backs at any sly of talk, calling respected elder and our heros all sort of names and tend to protect Patience Jonathan's interest who he once said has no any official role in the government. Whenever any truth was told to his then poor conduct leaders, Mr Abati attacks back immediately and got furiously at whom ever may have told his Oga at the top any truth, no wonder hypocrites get offended by the truth.
         Abati, who now looks to be in a contest as to whom will emerge the best liar between the other media aids to Mr President since only lies impresses their Oga at the top but to me, Abati never knew how to lie because clever liars give details, but the cleverest don't, Abati is such a unclever liar. Let me take you back when Mr Abati was a freedom fighter, i quotes some of his words against his present God and Goddess in an article he wrote few years back before he lost the long spoon that he should use to eat with the devil and got a job in Aso Rock. Abati said and i quote: "Democracy is readily associated with freedom: the freedom to be free in many respects and increasingly in Nigeria, many of our compatriots, particularly persons in positions of privilege and authority confuse this with the right to be disagreeable. The truth is that democracy is about rights and responsibilities, a democratic dispensation therefore cannot be a licence for disagreeable conduct as a norm; just as the possession of power in any form does not guarantee the right to be reckless or to ignore the etiquette required of office holders."

"Anyone in the corridors of power, either by chance or right, or appointment, is expected to behave decorously.
Dame Patience Jonathan, as she is now referred to, our President’s wife, failed the test this week in Okrika, Rivers State." Abati was attacking Mrs Jonathan in favour of Gov. Rotimi Ameachi of rivers state, hear what he said.

 "In Okrika, Dame Patience behaved so impatiently and spoke to Governor Amaechi as if he is on the staff of the Presidency. It may not be her fault though. Amaechi caused it all by bringing himself to such level by undertaking to debrief Dame Patience about his administration’s programmes and activities in the misguided hope of getting cheap political endorsement. He should have asked his wife to attend to her. On the issue of land, Dame Patience should be reminded that the Land Use Act, Section 1 thereof, says the state Governor holds the land in trust for the people. Land matters in the state are beyond the ken of the wife of the President!"
"I know the problems of my people so I know what I am talking…” The Governor tried to explain his administration’s policy and the larger public interest. The Dame reportedly cut him short: “But what I am telling you is that you always say you must demolish; that word must you use is not good. It is by pleading. You appeal to the owners of the compound because they will not go into exile. Land is a serious issue.” Wao! “that word must..is not good.” We must all commit that to memory as we re-learn Practical English according to Patience Jonathan! [Abati even mocked the First Lady's spoken English.]"

"If it is in the place of the President’s wife to teach a state Governor how to run his state, it is definitely not in her place to veto a state policy (the reason the governor used the word “must”), not even her husband [Pres Goodluck Jonathan] has such powers." I wish Mrs Jonathan can read this article, Dame Patience will have impatiently landed on Abati roughly.
He (Abati) continued:
"A state Governor is a duly elected official; and in a Federal system, he is not answerable to the President, and nowhere is the president granted the powers of a Headmaster over state governors." I wish Mr Abati can now boldly tell President Jonathan the truth and proved to him the constitutional rights Mr Ameachi has not to be answerable to him, so that Gov. Ameachi may be free from the current presidential attack.
Abati said:
" Under the Jonathan presidency, Dame Patience Jonathan even got a special allocation in the original budget for the 2010 Golden jubilee anniversary whereas she has no official, financial reporting responsibilities! The international standard is that spouses in these circumstances must not only appear but be seen to be above board like Caesar’s wife. They must not misbehave like Marie Antoinette." The same Abati is now abusing people who didn't supports the allocation of N4bn to build a mission house for the 1st lady. Mrs Jonathan should not misbehave like Marie Antoinette and let go the mission house for peace.
Abati of before continued:
"he Jonathans must be told that Nigeria does not have a co-Presidency. We have only one president and his name is Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. And by the way, what does Dame Patience Jonathan do for a living?" I think Abati, who's now an insider is the right person to answer this question. What does Dame Patience Jonathan do for a living?
He continued,
"When she misbehaves as she did in Okrika, she creates the impression that her husband [Jonahan] is not in control of his own home". This the greatest insult i've ever had towards the man who was constitutionally allowed to answer only three "Amen" in any prayer session, a president who can't control the affairs in his own home. But i agree with Abati to some extend, what proves President Jonathan's weakness toward his wife was how she forced him to take up Ameachi's matter as if it earlier involved him.
Abati concluded:
"The new First Lady likes to travel, party, and talk outside the script. People are beginning to learn to read her lips in order to understand her husband. Dame Patience must not push her Goodluck."

        Can't imagine how a President who don't have control over his house can offer me any appointment to work under him, i think no reasonable man can work under a man that is control by his wife and if he does, he will surely be receiving insults from his oga's madam. This is exactly what is happening to Reuben Abati presently. What made me to believe Abati was not a liar but a fool was when he took to the media addressing Gov. Ameachi of Rivers state a traitor for falling out of favour with Mr & Mrs Jonathan for the same purpose he(Abati) condemned Mr Jonathan and his family. This qualified Reuben Abati as an insult to any family, a national embarrassment to any nation and a man of lost values. Abati who wrote an article (the hypocrisy of the men of yesterday) some months back referred to our elders like Olushegun Obasanjo and Wale Soyinka as fools and hypocrites based on their advices to his God (Gudluck Jonathan), has undoubtedly proven to be the father of all hypocrites who can suddenly change from a saint to devil overnight and can work against the wish of God to satisfy his bosses to keep the steady flow of our nation's wealth into his accounts.

According to David Foster Wallace: “Some people, from what I've seen, boo, when they lie, they become very still and centered and their gaze very concentrated and intense. They try to dominate the person they lie to. The person to whom they're lying. Another type becomes fluttery and insubstantial and punctuates his lie with little self-deprecating motions and sounds, as if credulity were the same as pity. Some bury the lie in so many digressions and asides that they like try to slip the lie in there through all the extraneous data like a tiny bug through a windowscreen ... Then there are what I might call your Kamikaze-style liars. These'll tell you a surreal and fundamentally incredible lie, and then pretend a crisis of conscience and retract the original lie, and then offer you the like they really want you to buy instead, so the real lie'll appear a some kind of concession, a settlement with through. That type's mercifully easy to see through ... Or then the type who sort of overelaborates on the lie, buttresses it with rococo formations of detail and amendment, and that's how you can always tell ... So Now I've established a subtype of the over-elaborator type. This is the liar who used to be an over-elaborator and but has somehow snapped to the fact that rococo elaborations give him away every time, so he changes and now lies tersely, sparely, seeming somehow bored, like what he's saying is too obviously true to waste time on.” What type of a liar can you name Mr Reuben Abati? I think he's an over-elaborator liar. Reuben Abati must push his Goodluck.