So what if it’s not Ngozi?

An audio recording, which went viral on social media last week, was purported to be the speech of our former finance minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The once all-powerful minister, who held two titles in the last administration, was reportedly caught on tape making disparaging remarks against both the government she served and the British people, […]

An audio recording, which went viral on social media last week, was purported to be the speech of our former finance minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The once all-powerful minister, who held two titles in the last administration, was reportedly caught on tape making disparaging remarks against both the government she served and the British people, at an event in England; where President Buhari was supposed to be but which he left in a hurry. 

Many of the people I forwarded the tape to had asked me one question. Was it really Ngozi Iweala or someone who sounded like her? And I had answered that it did sound like her though its hard to believe the words coming out of her mouth. I mean for the lady to begin a speech by saying ‘Assalamu alaikum’ is a notion hard to conceive just three years ago. But that was how the five-minute-long audio exposé started. After the greeting, the speaker wondered why President Buhari left the venue by adding that that was not the solution and that his being there would have been the actual solution (to the problems she would enumerate later). 

I was not at all surprised that people were questioning the authenticity of the tape recording being the voice Dr Okonjo-Iweala, she is the last person anyone would expect to castigate Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP the way it was done in that speech. But I’ve noticed that not one person had said to me that the speech was packed full of lies or deception or the more popular ‘fake news’. 

So if we can’t find the content so hard to believe why does it matter who said it? To me the important thing is to see how we can benefit from the disclosures made and possibly salvage our country while there is still time to stop those hell bent on destroying it. 

One thing is clear, whoever this speaker is, she knew what she was saying, was familiar with the key actors, and even if she ever benefited from the spoils of PDP’s rampaging looting, is now repentant enough to want it returned to Nigeria. 

Another striking reason why listeners cannot believe the speaker to be the former minister was the consistent way she kept calling the President ‘Baba’, an epithet everyone knows is used only by PMB’s devout supporters to refer to him. 

Anyway this Ngozi in London, as the tape intro claims, started her speech by taking us way back in history to the days of the slave trade, and rhetorically asking why we thought that trade succeeded for centuries? She replied that it was only successful because these people (the British) were parasites who fed on the blood of their hosts. In the same vein she asked ‘why is it that everyone who stole money from Nigeria is here in London roaming free and they (the British) are saying that they are supporting us? Directly they pretend to support Baba but indirectly they don’t.’ 

The speaker goes further to say that PMB has pulled a coup against Britain and the rest of the Western world by going to China and signing ‘All the deals with China. They do not want you to do that, don’t be under any illusion that they want you to succeed because if you succeed who will they exploit? This is international politics.’

‘Ngozi’ also alleged that these people do not want Baba to settle down and work so they are creating dangerous distractions like the Fulani herdsmen, whom they are arming and training after seeing that the Boko haram insurgency is waning. She recalled that there were white men in army uniform when Jonathan visited the scene of the Nyanya bombing as president. She wondered what they were doing there after the tragedy when they couldn’t be there to prevent the crime.

Moving on, 

Dr Iweala’s sound-alike also disclosed that all the online propaganda against the Buhari administration was being sponsored by former President Jonathan (who was in London the week before) and his former Petroleum minister Diezani Allison Madueke, in league with her son, who are all roaming freely in London were the ones doing ‘those online things.’ 

Simply put, those corrupt Nigerians who looted and fled and their unscrupulous hosts, the European countries particularly England which gave them asylum and is keeping their loot, do not want Buhari to succeed and are therefore trying hard to sabotage his efforts. They would want him to continue importing things we can make at home. They do not want him to improve electricity because no one will buy their generators and they would continue to create problems in the Niger Delta because that is the only way they can steal our crude oil, in the vessels they keep on the high seas. Additionally, according to the lady speaker, they would want to keep fomenting trouble because they would need to sell their guns and other ammunitions and who will buy them if all is peaceful?

She therefore urged her audience to not let their hearts be burdened, to continue to pray for our dear country and to support Baba until all Nigerians will see this PDP people for what the really are. She added that though not all PDP members are bad, at least 80% of them are, and she meant really bad. But, she still assured her audience that the money they stole will come back, even if not all of it, at least 60% of it might be recovered and that will be enough to keep the country rolling.

She said a lot more, about how PDP landlords in Abuja will lose when the railways work well and people can live in Kaduna and take the train to work in Abuja every morning. And how real dividends of democracy will truly be felt by Nigerians when all the planned railway tracks are all on steam. 

She concluded with ‘So please ladies and gentlemen, let’s continue to pray, support Baba and God bless Nigeria and God bless us all.’ If this sounds too strange to be Dr Okonja Iweala, then look out for her newly released book. In it it’s been said she said a lot against the PDP that could make this audio tape believable.