When you hire court jesters as spokespersons

Femi Adesina who is President Muhammadu Buhari's Special Adviser on Media and Publicity; and Garba Shehu who is the Senior Special Assistant to the President onMedia and Publicity, were tweeting again.

It's never a good thing when they both tweet on the same day or when they tweet within hours of the other.

Double trouble.

"Spoke with PMB (President Muhammadu Buhari) a short while ago", Adesina announced through his handle @FemAdesina. "Glad to hear his voice. Told me he was resting, but no cause for worry. Said I should greet my family".

Was that detail about greeting his family, really necessary?

Adesina could have stopped there and the world would know some peace. He had made his point.

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He should have dropped his gadget and gone for a swim or something, or have beer with the lads to celebrate his moment in the sun.

Except that he had one more tweet up his sleeves.

"Thanks for holding out against mischief makers, PMB tells me during a phone call today. Said he would call again soon. Gave him best wishes".

Mischief makers?

What in the world was that?

Adesina followed up his Twitter posts with a lengthier version of his phone conversation with his boss:

"At exactly 2.43 p.m today, Saturday, February 25, 2017, my phone rang. Who was at the other end? personal assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari.

"Hold on for Mr President," Tunde said.

And in a matter of seconds, the very familiar voice came:

"Femi, how are you?" (He calls me Adesina most times, but today, he opted for Femi).

I screamed :"Mr President, I have missed you. How are you sir?"

He first laughed. That familiar laugh. Then he said: "I am still resting. Thank you for holding out against mischief makers."

I said it was my duty, the very least I could do, adding how happy I was to speak with him.....

It was a defining moment for me....

Of his own volition, President Buhari spoke with me. It made my day. Even if he hadn't done so, he would have remained my President, my leader, and my man. Any day.

It's perfectly okay to want to humanise a President who is perceived as aloof and cold in most quarters.

But this wasn't it.

"My leader and my man any day".

He was gushing, cowering and fawning all at once.

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Femi Adesina, who once managed one of Nigeria's largest circulating newspapers, was giddy with excitement like a kid who had just been handed candies, because he had just received a phone call from a President he speaks for.

I was embarrassed for Adesina and all that he represents.

But my day was just about to get worse.

Moments later, Shehu got hold of his smartphone and joined in on the act.

Someone probably whispered that he should validate Adesina's announcement.

He couldn't wait; couldn't let the moment slip past.

"I had an SMS from him thereafter because I missed my call!", said Shehu through his Twitter handle, @GarShehu. "I humbly join them to say thank you, Baba Buhari!!

"We are together with other Nigerians of all faiths, in praying for his safe return".

He missed his phone call and we all had to share in his agony.

It was Saturday torture from the Villa.

At this point, I had decided that my day couldn't get any worse.

So, I stalked the Twitter pages of Tolu Ogunlesi and Bashir Ahmad--the President's social media aides--for more gushing, fawning, praise-singing and shameless sycophancy.

I desperately wanted to see live images of Ogunlesi cart wheeling or somersaulting because President Buhari had just rung his cell phone number.

Both gentlemen haven't joined their "senior colleagues" in revealing how over the moon they are because the President dialled their numbers.

Probably because Ogunlesi and Ahmad haven't been called yet?

Probably because it isn't their turn yet?

Maybe next Saturday? Or the next? Or midweek?

We have to wait a little more?

We'll wait.

Meanwhile, who is the President calling next?

Oh, we have just been told that he "has placed a telephone call from London to the over the death of his mother, which occurred on Saturday."

Welcome, then, to the federal republic of phone calls and the ululations, wild jubilations that follow those phone calls.

When presidential aides are having orgasms over phone calls, we should be very worried.

Between them, Adesina and Shehu have tormented the online public and their army of social media followers with tons of hare-brained posts and gaffes after another.

The posts arrive in quick successions and torrents these days because President Buhari has been missing in action.

"Some folks would rather be lied to. But they won't get it from this spokesman. An eternal commitment to the truth, no matter what. God rules", Adesina once tweeted, when doubts surrounding the President's state of health, intensified.

"Some people have been lied to so much, they now find it hard to accept the truth. Truth is incontrovertible, even if some don't believe", he added.

"We are not the first to say that Nigeria has grown to the second position in rice production worldwide", Shehu once declared, while doubling down on a lie he should be apologising for.

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Aside the occasional, run-of-the-mill press statements, the President's media aides say the darndest things, rile the public they should be communicating to/with, make their boss look worse than he already is, tag opposition voices "wailing wailers" (that was actually Adesina's coinage) and aggravate already suffering Nigerians with their diatribe.

For these guys, tact is an alien commodity.

They show zero empathy and understanding with respect to the plight of suffering Nigerians and aren't available to provide details regarding government actions when you need them to.

For these lot, communication is a one way street.

If Reuben Abati lowered the government spokesperson bar, these guys have since buried same.

Would a spokesperson who cares about his principal disclose that the President has commended him for holding out against mischief makers?

Who are these mischief makers by the way? Millions of Nigerians whose only sin is that they just want to hear their President speak and be assured that he is indeed 'hale and hearty?'

I'm running out of space to dwell on the ills of Lai Mohammed, that fabled minister of information and culture.

In the end, it's probably safe to say that the President's spokespersons are a reflection of the man who hired them in the first instance.

It's a sad and gut-wrenching conclusion to reach.