Should we just pay off our leaders?

Nigerians have always been on a kind of tethers. The country is a well designed conundrum by God-knows-who not just to hold the ordinary citizens down, but to also confuse or perplex them whenever they try to ask questions about their life. Never has the drum of the country been at this frightening crescendo since the end of the Biafran war. The performance indicators to our security and economy are horrific. The signs are ominous; the country is not smiling and the masses are daily cringing under the weight of their utter helplessness.

Nigerians are, however, still finding various means to nourish their sanity. Remaining sane in the height of our country’s situation is one huge achievement. Many of us resort to finding hearty humour in our mire. Humour appears to be the only way through which we can navigate the bleak days of the Buhari administration. Then, we move again, with certain hope that one day, e go better.

While we serenade in our Nigeria, many are creating humour in large scale and in very quick succession to pass the days left in this dispensation. We hope that election will hold in 2023. We are also believing that then, we would elect someone (although I still don’t know where he or she would come from) far better than whom we have now. The person would turn things around and land us in instant Eldorado! We hope something happens. We don’t make things happen. We wait for others to make things happen or to prod us; afterwards we begin to point fingers in every direction – religion, ethnicity, language, education, etc. By the way, I learnt the phrase ‘make things happen’ during the administration of De Sam Mbakwe in Imo State. His catchphrase was “Mbakwe makes things happen.” Who makes things happen nowadays? What happens?

In 2018, a group of people decided to look beyond the 2015 – 2019, and 2019 – 2023 window of our national life. They said we had been trapped. They were confident that there were more troubles ahead for Nigeria. They didn’t specify and I didn’t quite understand, but I still felt like a rat. I was trapped! I later saw a hilarious post on the social media about my dear country on the social media which spoke to the gloomy picture I had seen. Someone wrote that on the queue for God’s judgement, he would ensure that he carries a Nigerian flag as an insignia that he had already been through hell. From the patriotic prism, it was not funny but it was such a profound message that speaks to what we are going through; and a call for God’s leniency.

After 2015 – 2018, we voted in 2019. We are rolling with it now… thinking in Yoruba. We were promised “Next Level” (of what in particular self?). We were cajoled with ‘Tradermoni’ and so on. 2023 is upon us, and our lightheartedness has not abated. However, as we paddle on, I hope that we would learn from “An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes” as contended by Cato the Elder.

Since we have resorted to witty anecdotes as reaction to our bumbling Nigeria under Buhari, I think we should call in Mallam Garba Shehu and Mr. Femi Adesina. They are the President Buhari that we see and hear, since our president has been speaking to us only through them and through a gamut of photography. Both men have recently been all riled up and very combative. They are angry that Nigerians are not happy with their principal and are saying so. They do not like the ways we have been telling the Buhari administration’s story. Both men have been warning us and stinging the ears of all of us olodos that we do not know what we are saying because we do not know what they are saying. Our relationship with Shehu and Adesina is similar to that of Marcus Porcius Cato and Julius Caesar. However, the point is what Cato noted that: “We cannot control the evil tongue of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them.” The only thing about this contention is that in Nigeria, we cannot disregard the men “chopping life” in government because our inequality is so high. And they cannot disregard us!

Buhari whom Mallam Shehu and Pastor Adesina speak for is, ordinarily, our employee, and “okwuru a-naghi a ká onye kuru ya” (okro plant does not grow beyond the person who planted it). He came to us “begging to apply” to serve us as president. In agreeing with him, we opened our mouths against Goodluck Jonathan and shut our eyes to Buhari’s many told and untold shortcomings. He used the same Twitter handle which comments section he has now locked, to tell us many things we could do right when he takes the mantle. On 6 January, 2015, at 9:09, @MBuhari tweeted: “How can 219 girls be missing in our country, and our leader appears incapable of action? #ThingsMustChange.” Professor Yemi Osinbajo @ProfOsinbajo rubbed his back with a tweet at 14:35 on 08 February, 2015: “If the president says I’ve lost the capacity to guarantee the security of lives and property, it’s certainly an impeachable offence.” – PYO”

Fast track to 5 April, 2021 President Buhari, with the same tweeter handle @MBuhari, said among other things, “I appeal for the release of the students of Greenfield University and all other citizens held in captivity. We will leave no stone unturned in ensuring that Nigerians live in a country where everyone can move where and when they want without the fear of kidnap overs and bandits.” Gimba Kakada @gimbakakada was aghast when he reacted to the president’s thread: “Appeal? You have Army, Navy, Air Force, Police, Civil Defence, DSS and many other resources at your disposal, dear sir. You don’t appeal: you ACT. You’re C-in-C, not some motivational speaker.”

What Kakada is saying is that oba kì í da àbàá, àse ni oba á pa (the king does not make suggestions, he decrees) The students of Federal College of Forestry and Mechanisation, Afaka, in Kaduna State spent 55 days in the captivity of terrorists. The students of Greenfield University in the same Kaduna are already 17 days in captivity, and our president is still appealing to the terrorists and making promises to Nigerians.

Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu have asked us not to blame the president. Rather, we should pray for him and support him, even while we scream ineptitude. Even Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Jagaban Borgu has weighed in and asked that we stop our agitations and support the president. He said we should ignore the numerous heartrending news reports and events that have characterized our polity in the past few years since he and others re-introduced Buhari to us as “a born-again democrat” and pray for our country. “No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency” says American statesman, Theodore Roosevelt.

Tinubu, the face of APC was reported to have said the agitations for separation must stop and warned that “if we say Nigeria should separate, people should remember what war caused in Sudan and Iraq.” A headline said: “If Nigeria ‹separates›, I have nowhere to go – Tinubu.” A response to the headline by “choco_milo” @Amalabaibe asked: “Lol what happened to hellfire?”

Many other suggestions that angered the Adesina and Shehu abound. They don›t want to hear us say the president should resign. They also don›t like to hear us call on the National Assembly to impeach him. Don›t even advise Buhari to act or take serious steps against insecurity. Those are sacrilegious suggestions. Ex-NPA boss, Hadiza Bala Usman; Salisu Tanko Yakassai popularly known as Dawisu; Reverend Father Camillus Ejike Mbaka and groups being sponsored to upstage our nice government know it now. Those things are too much to say. Now this: “Somebody is suggesting we should calculate Buhari’s salary and pay him off. I concur. Even Jose Mourinho, a coach that has achieved a lot ends up being paid off.” How many people agree with this arrangement? “Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.” – Cato the Elder.

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