The chronic ailments that pin this country down are only a handful. They include self-deceit, selfishness, and foolishness. Fortunately or unfortunately, none of the lot is natural or extraneous. The nation-destroying vices are man-made: made in Nigeria by Nigerians for self and country!
It is not too hard to deduce that our country is where she has been, man and boy, because of the idiosyncrasies of her people. The situation is worsened by the fact that leadership and followership are as guilty as they are unpatriotic. Or which of the two strata is better: our clueless leaders or we the apathetic population? Nigeria is, has been and, may always be in trouble because those who lead are as bad as, if not worse than, those they lead.
The facts are horrendous and compelling. First, we are a docile people who allow leaders to get away with just about anything. Next, we contrive a system that plays politics even with life. How on earth do Nigerians expect a different result when we keep repeating the same lousy mistakes of old?
For instance, weeks after Dapchi transmogrified into Chibok, we have done absolutely nothing differently to reassure the populace. To this day, no one knows for sure exactly how many of our daughters were carted away. Government’s initial back and forth coupled with parents’ insistence that the number is 105, not 110 drains away the essential element of believability. We need to step up and provide leadership while so-called leaders step down and manage as followers!
Imagine, they bungled something as basic as lawmaking. Our 36 State Houses of Assembly, in their legislative wisdom, want autonomy for themselves but not for Local Governments which need it more. To the goosy honourable members, autonomy cannot also be sauce for the gander-third-tier. The legislature can only stand up for self; not for the weak, the oppressed, nor the helpless.
Disappointed, my mind wanders back to Dapchi. This may not be the best time to raise this, but when would be? Without any intention whatsoever to rub it in, I just need to wonder aloud about what’s going on in the name of education up north. I thought those Chibok and Dapchi girls abducted were in secondary school?
Why then do their mates and they always speak to Anglophone journalists in Hausa? Is there something I am missing, please? Those I have put this question to always tell me some crap about female education in that part of the country. I know too many northern women who can beat their southern counterparts educationally, to believe such fallacy.
Still, my worry persists. Are we witnessing the downside of a strategem by good-for-nothing sexists called men to keep our sisters, daughters and future wives up north permanently subjugated? Is Hausa the pedagogic lingua franca in the north? I am desperate: just what is going on?
Furthermore, I am horrified that we see the deliberate zoolification of this beautiful country as one of those things. Human beings turn into snakes and monkeys and swallow tens of millions of Naira. Yet, we laugh it off because it’s nothing. I mean, what’s 36 million or 70 million Naira in a country where people help themselves to (not steal) billions every day?
We are a huge joke. On the eve of the general elections which should activate that century-elusive change, the electorate is busy focusing on clannishness, partisanship and allied backward mannerisms that brought us to this cul-de-sac in the first place. For crying out loud, an alarming majority of current leaders deserve quit notice not tenure extension. These guys only take this country backwards!
Or, do we enjoy the silly ritual of the same folly every four years? 2019 is the time to show that we don’t, and indeed that we have had enough of self-inflicted hypocrisy, greed, and lunacy. Let’s go out, register and get our voter card so that in February we would use it to render snakes, monkeys, rats, hyenas, wolves, lion kings et al jobless. God bless Nigeria!
Exactly how does the brain of a Nigerian political office holder work?
Why do people we expect so much from give us so little? How does even the most fanatical Buharist explain away the president’s decision to visit Kano for the wedding of Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje’s daughter just weeks after the same man kept away from Benue and Yobe which had suffered untold lives-involving incidents? Do our leaders think we are fools?
We always knew about President Muhammadu Buhari’s propensity to make choices that damn the people but this one is completely over the bar. Try as hard as I have, I can’t seem to wrap my head around this presidential malfeasance. I am happy he attended the young couple’s wedding but I am sad not being able to understand the president’s rationale for ignoring Benue, Yobe and other states which need his presence!
I hope nobody adds salt to injury by offering one of those unmathematical excuses. The only way to heal this hurt faster is the president apologising personally or (since he never would) allowing the matter to die off naturally. Or, better still, Governors Samuel Ortom and Ibrahim Gaidam should be smart enough to set up Muslim weddings at Guma/Logo and Dapchi respectively, and invite the president!
Thou shalt not stop being proactive. Thou shalt not react to opponents hate with hate.
Thou shalt not depart from subtle marketing of thy boss’s achievements. Just as thou shalt not fail to focus on his/her achievable plans and promises.
This is re-election strategy 101.Thank me on May 29, 2019!
