Former media aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan and public analyst, Reno Omokri, said Super Eagles footballer Ademola Lookman did for his country, Nigeria, what popular Nigerian music star Davido and United Kingdom Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch could not do.
Omokri disclosed this in a statement through his X account on Tuesday after Lookman was crowned the CAF Footballer of the Year for the past year.
DAILY POST reports that Lookman delivered a powerful appreciation speech.
https://dailypost.ng/2024/12/17/caf-awards-2024-i-failed-in-front-of
The Atalanta striker stunned the world when he spoke Yoruba in his concluding remarks.
Reacting, Omokri said that rather than behaving like Davido and Badenoch, who mocked Nigeria on the global stage with their comments, Lookman used the opportunity to speak positively about the Nigeria project.
“Recently, the singer David Adeleke was given a global stage to do whatever he wanted and deliver any message.
“Sadly, Mr. Adeleke used the opportunity to speak in an American accent. Not only that, he used that American accent to talk down on Nigeria and tell the world not to invest in Nigeria because, as he put it, Nigeria’s ‘economy is in shambles.’
“Coincidentally, a month after his faux pas, Kemi Badenoch, probably inspired by Davido, used her British accent to talk down Nigeria, calling us ‘a very poor country’ where the police rob citizens.
“And just when we thought it was all bad news, God gave us a breath of fresh air in the youthful Ademola Lookman, who used the global podium granted to him by his winning the 2024 African Footballer of the Year award to promote and project Nigeria and the Lukumi Yoruba language to the world,” he said.
Recall that Davido came under fire after he described Nigeria’s economy as being in shambles.
More recently, Badenoch received backlash when she described Nigeria as “a very poor country” where the police rob citizens.
Ademola Lookman did what Davido, Kemi Badenoch can’t do – Omokri