Why is Christmas not in the air?

It is two days to Christmas but nothing suggests that the festivities are here! If you say Christmas is for Christians alone, then, in one week, 2018 will roll away and 2019 will be here. Again, nothing suggests that we are getting ready for New Year.

In years past, the atmosphere would have been charged by now. Preparations for Christmas and New Year would have been at feverish pitch. Shopping for new dresses and shoes; stocking the kitchen with foodstuffs, especially rice, and tying down chickens that the children would take the joy to feed for the slaughter in a few days’ time would have kept everyone busy. Not to forget about drinks – assorted drinks – depending on the finances of the family. It could be soft drinks, juice drinks or wine. Bangas, biscos, ‘Father Christmas’ attires and mementos and such other attires of the season should have been commonplace by now; hampers of all sizes and shapes, too.

Tell me, how many have you received – or given out? It is not as if the season stole in on anyone or that we were caught unawares by it. We saw it coming; we wished and hoped we would be ready for it but, unfortunately, it still caught us pants down. It is the signs of the times that festive periods now come and go without the festivities.

It is said that money says no one should make any plans when he is not around. If you could not figure out all the statistics that say Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world, now you should begin to understand it. Poverty has spread to encompass even those who were not poor in the past; meaning that many of those who were comfortable in the past are now poor. Those whom you would expect to bail you out of difficult situations in the past are now themselves in need of bail-out. So don’t blame that uncle or aunt of yours who used to be comfortable if he or she tells you now “sorry, times are hard” In many countries of the world, the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. The middle class has virtually collapsed; most members of this once vibrant class are now struggling to survive. If the tide is not stemmed, then, other people’s experience admonishes us to expect cataclysmic consequences.

The tell-tale signs are upon us already. The cries of anguish of the oppressed are getting louder and more strident by the day. There are reports of more bad news in this country today than good news. Just check our newspapers and the social media. Boko Haram waxes stronger, the claims of government to the contrary notwithstanding. The insurgents invade barracks and kill soldiers at will. Government plays the ostrich and hides behind one finger like the grasshopper. It covers the truth and dispenses falsehood. It leaves the substance and chases shadows. Fulani herdsmen continue their murderous raids not only in the Middle Belt but also across the country. Kidnappers, ritual killers, and sundry other criminals are laws unto themselves in the southern parts of the country. The government is helpless and the citizens are resigned to their fate. It is either we are asked to pray or ineffectual leaders ask us for more time and patience. Every indication is that this is a nation at war!

Strike, strike, strike everywhere! University lectures are on strike. University academic calendar yet to recover from the distortions of the past due, in the main, to unending strikes, will be further bastardised. Polytechnic lecturers have joined the fray. Judging by the way government always ignores this class of teachers; it is difficult to say whether or when they will have government’s ears. National Assembly workers are on strike. We managed to escape a crippling strike in the oil sector, which would have been the icing on the cake for the citizens’ suffering this festive period. Apart from ineffective leadership, another reason for the hiccups is that the country is not making enough money to take care of its wants. Yes, this is a country that insists on satisfying its wants and not its needs. It is a country that imports virtually everything but which exports absolutely nothing. To make matters worse is that we are also a debtor-nation. In the last four years we have chalked up debts as if indebtedness is a virtue. The saying: He who goes a-borrowing always goes a-sorrowing is lost on Nigeria. The saddest aspect is that we have nothing concrete to show for the huge debts we have contracted for this and future generations. And not only at the federal level but also in nearly all the 36 states of the federation is the country steeped in indebtedness – and corruption. 1999 – 2015 were years of the locusts; 2015 up till now are those of the vultures. Head or tail, we lose.

• Chinese researchers develop material to repair spinal injury

Who will deliver this country and its long-suffering populace? Unfortunately, it does not appear as if help is on the horizon. General Elections are due in a few months but the consensus appears to be that it is a choice between six and half-a-dozen. Everyone accepts Buhari has failed the nation but no one is sure if lackadaisical PDP/Atiku Abubakar is really an option. Yet, there is no credible Third Force in the offing. It is strange to many why PDP/Atiku are not making hay with the internal crisis whacking APC whereas APC made bountiful harvest this time last election circle of five PDP governors. There are no less than five APC governors who are disgruntled but it is difficult to see what irresistible bait PDP is throwing their way. Okorocha (Imo), Amosun (Ogun), Akeredolu (Ondo), Yari (Zamfara) and Ambode (Lagos) are governors APC has badly treated and who are smarting. PDP’s campaign needs more traction if it is to uproot the incumbent. Lack of action on the political turf has added to the people’s empty pockets to make the season drab and dreary. Nevertheless, this is wishing my readers merry Christmas and happy New Year. When there is life…

That show of shame at NASS…

Last Wednesday when President Muhammadu Buhari stormed the National Assembly to lay the 2019 Appropriation Bill or budget, as it is better known, he got more than he had bargained for. He was booed. He was heckled. Before his arrival and after he had managed to wobble and fumble through his presentation, all hell was let loose and he had to be smuggled out of the floor of the House of Representatives venue of the presentation. The event ended impromptu and in commotion such that even the presiding officers, the Senate President and Speaker of the House, could not make their own speeches. Distinguished senators and Honourable members engaged in shouting matches; traded insults, and shoved one another. The president was not without some support, though, as his own people put up a brave performance, trying not to be out-performed by their opponents. The losers, however, was our democracy. The event of last Thursday shows that our democracy is yet to mature. Our politicians continue to behave as if they have learnt nothing from our past unsavoury experience. Once he was allowed to come, the law makers should have accorded Buhari some dignity, even if it is understandable why many of them boiled with indignation. Buhari’s budgets have had the dubious distinction of containing lies and half-truths; rather than ameliorate, they have, year-in, year-out, worsened our condition. Budgets in Nigeria are generally low on performance; Buhari’s have beaten all previous records. That is why there is very little left of the grand goodwill that brought him to power in 2015. The man and his party, APC, have frittered it all. Buhari’s incompetence baffles many, surpassing even that of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. His nepotism is, without doubt, unrivalled. For me, his greatest undoing is his doublespeak on corruption and integrity with his disdain for the rule of law serving as icing on the cake. Buhari has failed this country. That must have been the message the NASS members tried to serve him last Thursday but they went about it the wrong way. Did Buhari get the message? If he did, he will pack his things and go home while he still can get some ovation; if not, he will hang in there until he gets, perhaps, the Robert Mugabe or Yahya Jammeh treatment.

And does Alex Badeh deserve his death?

That former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshall Alex Badeh, deserves his death is one of the propositions being advanced on social media and even in the National Assembly by some of our distinguished legislators since news of Badeh’s gruesome murder broke last Tuesday. Such people are saying “serves him right”! And their argument is that Badeh  was one of those alleged to have converted funds meant for arming our soldiers into personal use. Very well! May everyone equally guilty of converting our common patrimony to personal use suffer similar fate! Amen! Sensible and “patriotic” as such argument may seem, however, it has a lot of pit holes. One: Badeh was still on trial and yet to be pronounced guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction. So he was deemed innocent until pronounced otherwise. Two: We have not been told that he was assassinated on account of the alleged embezzlement of arms funds. Three: Rumours have it he was silenced so he would not reveal information on the complicity of some highly-placed persons with Boko Haram. Yet, others say his killing is part of a calculated and orchestrated silencing and ethnic cleansing of anti-hegemonic forces in the North. Hero or villain: It is too early to say on which side Badeh would eventually end up. What a funny country!