Gibbers

Madam Tinubu will prefer Japa Nigerians doing drugs, illicit biz

BETWEEN February 24 and March 24, 17 Nigerians prematurely lost their lives, trying to live. On February 24, in Lagos, seven residents, including a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) were crushed to death, trying to assauge the hunger and general economic adversity heaped on the country by the policies of the Bola Tinubu administration. They were not involved in any illegality. They weren’t even seeking a handout from government which has multiplied the misery of the citizenry since May 29, 2023. They were on queue to buy subsidized seized rice, being auctioned by Nigerian Customs. They lost their lives trying to save it.

On Friday, April 22, two students of Nasarawa State University met similar fate. They died in a stampede arising from subsidized rice provided by the state governor.

Two days after, a supposed philanthropic gesture in Bauchi State, turned very crimson. Same stampede, same untimely death, over food, to assauge hunger.

After the Nasarawa extra-judicial killing–which is what hoodlums coming into the institution arena and creating a consuming bedlam is–I had to plead with my own, everywhere, especially in higher institutions of learning and rural Nigeria, to stay off any kind of palliative gathering, no matter how jumbo and mouth-watering the package.

I’m not being superstitious but it’s beginning to look like blood-drinking demons have taken over the semi-freebies sessions across the country, and as ace comedian Ayo Ogunsina a.k.a Papalolo of Awada Group fame, would say, it is better to ku sile than kusi titi (it’s better to die at home, than in public space).

Yes, there is hunger in the land, but there is always a bright spot to gloom. Though I’m saying this to whitening the gross darkness enveloping Nigeria, yet the health benefits of not eating all the time, especially the three square meal the colonising world foisted on us, are numerous, according to certified science. Like wildfire, the nutritional concept of intermittent fasting is spreading. Online, is on fire for it. Too many YouTube videos are praising its collective benefits, in reversing grievous diseases. Experts are advising allowing the body to use internal fuel, before dumping more sugar on it. Now many, taking the advice, are doing once-daily or twice-daily meals, filling the rest of the day, with fruits and vegetables, not because of inability to afford obviously-expensive food items, but for better bodily system, considering that fruits and veggies aren’t also cheap.

But there are still people who struggle to eat the once-daily meal. On Wednesday, two women were moaning the drastic drop in patronage, despite being into the edible trade. One remarked that the drop in sales is definitely due to the three fastings running simultaneously. I was close to asking if the traditional worshippers were fasting alongside Christians and Muslims, when the partner helped decoding the third fasting as the hunger ravaging the land, arising from President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies. I couldn’t laugh, because existential threats arent laughing matters.

Which is why it is a surprise that the President’s wife, Pastor Oluremi, would not be sensitive enough, in defending her husband’s administration. How can disparaging citizens fleeing the hell-hole her husband has made Nigeria in the name of economic rebirth and its supposed early pangs, be a mother’s way, of empathizing?

How is shaming legitimate aspiration for labour migration be the way the mother of the nation, would comfort her “children”?

Why would you choose to shame your “children” who have gone to a new land, to seek better opportunities, without bringing shame to you as a mother? How?

What level of raw emotions would make someone oblivious of the four fingers she is pointing to herself? Has the First Lady quickly forgotten who she is married to and the story of himself he has told, regardless of the glaring inconsistencies in explaining his cloudy past and how he came into humongous wealth by just being an accountant at Mobil?

Yoruba will say “omo osan lo nje kan ko ponpo bo iya e” (orange tree always receives attacks of sticks because of its fruits).

The President was in the US for greener pasture as a young person. He confirmed he did odd jobs to survive, before some benevolent spirits showed up, to crack his kernels. But the fortune-changing moment didn’t come without some handicaps, leading to drug issues and money forfeiture to escape prosecution. That US escapade came back to haunt him, running for president and what was dug from his past, was enough to morally and legally disqualified him even in a banana republic, from being the number one citizen. But Nigeria isn’t a banana republic, it is a republic banana. There are those adept at eating it, without choking on its warts.

Now that Pastor Remi has forced us to count the toes of a man with a gap, in his presence, the simple question to ask her, is, would she prefer her husband’s US past, to be the model for aspiring Nigerians, since she is deriding the Japa practitioners as those who would rather be slaves in foreign land.

I know it can be excruciating having a national calamity as spouse, but she won’t be the first. Muhammadu Buhari was a national tragedy as leader, but Aisha, then First Lady, found a way round it. She aligned with the people. Imagine if Remi had led a national outcry when seven Nigerians were crushed in Lagos. Imagine if she had wailed and mourned endlessly when the lives of those two undergraduates were cut short by the situation created by her husband’s policies.

Imagine standing with the Bauchi 8 when give-away turned to away-forever.

But it is evident that Madam Remi, over the time, of God allowing her husband numerous political victories, had joined others in making a god of him, just like the devotees of his predecessors. She just can’t stand her man unravelling very fast, hence the outburst.

She would just have to learn to be the “mother” of the nation. She has a genuine role model in her Mother-in-Christ.

Lanre Adewole