Frontline comedian, I Go Dye has taken a swipe on the country’s democracy and political leaders, saying the political process has created more monsters in leadership positions.
In a lengthy statement released on his Instagram page during the week and tagged “Congratulations to a nation that has pretended to herself that all is well, the comedian said the country’s 20 years’ democratic rule has brought about gross disunity, hardship and insecurity among its citizenry, noting that the gap of poverty between the rich and the poor had continued to grow.
I Go Dye, who has been known for his fierce criticisms of the country’s penchant for wastages by the political class, did not spare words this time again as he bemoaned the current democratic setting, describing it as a clear departure from the norms which protects the will of the people and their freedom to be heard and represented.
The humour merchant decried the poverty level in Nigeria and wondered why ex-presidents, governors and legislators continued to take home packages that “our elder statesmen never received after labouring for 35 years, while they are frustrated with several screenings every day for their pensions entitlements. One of such embarrassing process is ongoing now across the country.”
He recalled a disturbing scene he witnessed at one of the screening centres in Imaguero College in Benin City, where old people are kept in lines, many of them brought from their sick beds, denied medical attention just to be captured, after travelling from Ondo, Delta and the remote parts of their settlements to Edo State just to undergo screening.
My question to the Federal Government and our legislators is, if this is how they suffer to get their packages for just eight or four years service as elected officials. The freedom of democracy has created monsters in our lives, breeding demons in the midst of a religious society that has no value for human lives; no conscience to care for our neighbours.
“Today, public institutions are left for the poorest to bear, based on the ills of unproductive governments in the last 20 years of this faceless and expensive journey called democracy. Till date, no law has been created to reduce the unemployment rate, neither has the life expectancy improved; people are running out of this country just to walk away from this freedom that is embodied in chains.
“I weep because today, we are on another journey to handover to a new group and co existing one’s that will become billionaires in just four year and no law will be passed to care for the old, the young or the generation to come. I say congratulations to a nation that has pretended to herself that all is well, a mean N30,000 national minimum wage is still being discussed and yet, they will receive one million times better just to say the eyes have it in the floor of the House, Democracy was designed to be a gift,but the lust in us have turned this privilege to become the most expensive way of leadership,” he added.
and then