Opaque country, tasteless government

THE government of the day is tasteless and it is running like either a “feetless or headless chicken.” And so far, most things have been done in such opaque manner that Nigerians are simply confused by the confusion of the government. However, it could be smile-inducing that the second arm of government, the Legislature seems to be gearing up to something, events that are set to take some of the news away from the lingering hunger in the land. They want to ask Nyesom Wike and the FCT Police Commissioner questions on the security situation in the country’s capital.

Perhaps, the senators might unravel why we don’t have public CCTV in any part of the country. It would be a great eye-opener if a town or a state capital in the country can say ‘no we have a functional CCTV system’ in 2024. In 2015, when Buhari through his body language was still reigning in our heads, some revelations were made about a CCTV contract in Abuja. That contract was said to have allegedly been awarded and paid for by the previous government of Goodluck Jonathan. The news made waves back then and names were called. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was all over the town and was dragging people up and down. In the end, not one person was brought to book until Buhari ate up eight years of our national life. Today, the Senate is calling out the FCT Minister and the FCT Police Commissioner on the sustained kidnapping and sundry crimes in the FCT. The Senate looks like it’s getting delirious because a senior aide of one of them, Ned Nwoko, was kidnapped and murdered. At least, it is expected that now that the Senate is running kiti-kata because of this, Nigerians might get to hear what really happened to the FCT CCTV project. The masses might also get to benefit from whatever way forward Godswill Akpabio and his Senate would propose in this period of debilitating, intractable insecurity.

“Feetless and headless chicken” came from a dialogue in King Julien, a TV series. All Hail King Julien is popular among those who love cartoons. I am one of them and King Julien – as we have shortened the animation series to in my household – is one of them. It’s the same with Penguins of Madagascar. While animation isn’t so much the thing for me, I admit that I’ve so much been sucked in by All Hail King Julien because of many factors, chief of which is the main character, King Julien himself. The accent of King Julien, his colourful, eccentric and excitable personality are among the things I love about his character. He also possesses effervescent wit and, sometimes below par wisdom. A March 2020 review of the series says “King Julien loves parties, is quite full of himself and insists that everyone has a lot of fun. During the movies, King Julien grows into a good king, making himself loved by always protecting his people.”

Consider the dialogue below from Penguins of Madagascar:

Skipper: “Failure is not an option”

King Julien: “That’s just fine by me because I do not intend to fail. I vow to do the opposite of fail”

Marlene: “You mean succeed?”

King Julian: “No, I will not suck seed… No one will be sucking seed!”

The one below came from All Hail King Julien. The idea of today’s musings was triggered by the confusion in King Julien’s answers and reactions to a situation. He characteristically threw the team into his usual whirl when he deliberately chose his words:

King Julian: “You can’t run like a feetless chicken”

Mort: “Headless chicken Your Majesty!”

King Julian: “No! How is a chicken supposed to run around without a head!?”

Mort: “How is it to run around without feet?”

King Julian: “I’m not the chicken Mort, why are you asking me all these questions?”

Madagascar is largely comic and you’ll know it from the outset. But the matter on hand is not. Nigerians are not revelling in the comical approach of the government to some of the issues bothering them. The government is just throwing money at problems with a tenacious pursuit of the ringworm rather than the leprosy. It would be a big miracle if many Nigerians would remember what the Tinubu government has in the Renewed Hope Agenda considering the cacophony which his government has become. The politicians and their front men are wont to tell Nigerians that the administration of Tinubu is not exclusive in the dishing of hardship. However you only tell the blind that there is no oil in the soup, you do not need to tell him that the soup has no salt.

Many Nigerians are still wondering why the Abuja CCTV project turned out to be a white elephant. It’s shocking to think that the government would embark on a project and, like diffusion, the project would just disappear from people’s faces, without trace. Then, like a roused mother hen whose child was stolen by a hungry kite, the EFCC and the government made noise, ran around noisily and then, went back to their life. An answer to this consternation should also be found in the opaque country we are running. Why would people be saddled with the responsibility of installing CCTV in a place as important to the nation as Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory and such people make a mess of the job and nothing happens? Why would we keep mute when the people we sent on an errand have neither delivered nor have they given account of their job? Why is transparency such a rare commodity in Nigeria?

The same public-sector opacity has left Nigerians with no information on what really happened in the rice stampede of Lagos. Nigerians barely have anything as information to grasp on the deadly rice stampede in Lagos. That condemnable and shameful incident at the Nigeria Customs facility in Lagos drives one’s thoughts back in time to the early to mid 1980s when Muhammadu Buhari was in the saddle as the military head of state of Nigeria. During that khaki era, the poor masses were made to covet rice, milk, flour, sugar, canned food and so on. When an announcement was made for their sale our sisters, brothers or even parents would go to the designated places to buy these items. It was always a queue for “essential commodities”. And those struggling for these “essential commodities” were bruised from the indiscriminate whipping by soldiers deployed to “maintain law and order” and supervise the sale of the ‘essential commodities’.

But that was 1984. In 2024 – 40 whole years after the beatings received for rice and co – Nigerians are still in the throes of this same mutating leadership. And they are blaming the hapless poor fighting for survival!

Dying in a stampede from a scramble for food is the nadir for Nigeria in 2024. It’s contextually far worse in its degree of unreasonableness than the condemnable deaths, also in a stampede, that occurred during a recruitment process at the Nigeria Immigration Service.

Sometimes, the pain of wondering why nearly everything Nigerian is easily mired in grand confusion could be piercing. Could it be a deliberate ploy to perpetuate the grip of the owners of the country? Perhaps, it is a ploy to keep the citizens in servitude so as to have the ‘ways and means’ to keep satisfying the owners of the land. Otherwise, why is it so difficult to grow and develop to a level where one can walk into a government office and get things done? Why is it so much of a cumbersome process to seek and obtain ordinary government information? Why shouldn’t Nigerians speak up when they are agitated without being labelled?