Fools still die

THE thrust of the masterpiece, Fools Die, by the late Italian-American writer, Mario Puzo, is that life is too precious, beautiful and fleeting to fritter on chasing shadows or wasted through carelessness. Puzo posits that those who make the best out of life are those who value it and are wise enough to do all they can to extend their sojourn on earth for as long as they can. But that truth appeared lost on some political pawns in Kogi State who decided to play Russian roulette with their lives last week in defence of politicians’ interests only to come out as losers.

Despite belonging to the same All Progressives Congress (APC), both Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State and Senator Dino Melaye have no love lost between them. The two hold each other in disdain and are always on the lookout for opportunities to injure each other’s interests. When the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) accused the governor of double registration, people loyal to Melaye made the most noise about it, threatening to sue the governor with a view to making him lose his seat. As soon as the din receded a bit, politicians loyal to the governor launched a campaign to get Melaye recalled from the Senate. They put the machinery in motion to make their aspiration a reality by listing 18 offences against the lawmaker and collecting signatures of his constituents who wanted his seat declared vacant.

To prove his popularity among his constituents, the Senator organised a rally in front of the Kogi State Polytechnic last Monday with a motley of the institution’s students in attendance. Midway into the rally, there were sporadic gunshots which left at least one of the students dead and several others injured. Through his indiscretion, gullibility and overzealousness, the student who died has thrown his relations into mourning. His parents’ hope is dashed and they will carry for the rest of their lives the pain of their son dying unnecessarily in a battle that was not his own. The parents will nurse, for as long as they breathe, the pain of the young man not living long enough to fulfill his potential; the name he could have made, the children he could have had, the succor he could have provided for them in their old age had he not been felled by the bullets last Monday. For the injured, the reality will now dawn on them that those for whom they were willing to get their skulls cracked do not even spare them a flying thought.

It is said that man is a political animal. So, it is expected that people will always have their biases for political parties and politicians. While I have no problems with anyone defending their political positions, I feel profound pains when I see the hoi polloi put their lives on the line for politicians under the illusion that by so doing they win their confidence. But nothing can be farther from the truth. The unveiled reality, which unfortunately has been ignored by the masses, is that most Nigerian politicians do not care a hoot about the people. To the mass of our politicians, the masses are mere statistics, useful only in the actualisation of their selfish ambition. To most politicians, the masses are nothing but cannon-fodders, expendable in the pursuit of politicians’ interests.

Most politicians remember the electorate when they have need of them. They come out to mobilise the people during voter registration; they woo them with rice, fufu, gari, Ankara and naira during elections and abandon them thereafter until the next elections.

When there is an appointment to be made, the politicians limit such to their ilk. It is not uncommon to see a governor appoint his wife as the chair of State Agency for the Control of HIV/AIDS (SACA), his brother as chief of staff, his cousin as senior special assistant, his concubine as special adviser and offspring of his godfathers as commissioners. The appointer and the appointees regale in their new found status and stature. Meanwhile, the masses, who braved the sun and dared the rain to put them in offices, are left in the cold to grapple with run down schools, ill-equipped hospitals, dilapidated roads, poverty, deprivation and squalor.

There has been a gale of defections in the country in recent times. Which of the politicians took the followers into consideration before making such move? How many of those who lost limbs and eyes in their defence of PDP bigwigs in the South-East were consulted before the big shots dumped PDP for APC? How many of the legislators who defected to the ruling party held any town hall meeting with their constituents before quitting the party on whose platform they got elected?

The bottom line is that a politician is only goaded by interest, and it is not the people’s or public’s interest; it is his personal interest. Every action of most politicians, no matter how seemingly altruistic, is motivated by personal interests. So, only fools follow a politician with their two eyes shut. Those who do so, more often than not, die unsung.

Wasted is the life risked for a politician.