The hunger protest has further brought to the fore our hitherto hidden fault lines and our penchant to politicize any issue under the sun and rationalize every action using deceit, propaganda and falsehood. The government’s initial mood before the protest as portrayed by one of its spokespersons who used ethnicity as one of the basic principles of state policy to malign and threaten people from other ethnic groups in some parts of the country, was combative and divisive. Later, the government softened its stand and urged the people to protest peacefully in some restricted areas. The unwarranted diatribe and inflammatory comments from some aides of the President are unbecoming and not good for the administration.
The Nigerian situation reminds me of the story of the tortoise and the elephant as portrayed in Mike Ejeagha’s old but reigning music now, known very much for its refrain or chorus; Gwo gwo gwo ngwo, which mimics the sound of elephant legs as he walks. In Igbo fables and mythologies, the tortoise features prominently as a shrewd, intelligent and cunning being. As a trickster, he can even be regarded as the most intelligent character in Igbo folklores and myths. In this particular story of two good friends, the tortoise and elephant under reference, the tortoise used deceit to bring the elephant as part of the bargain to marry the beautiful daughter of their Eze or King called Adaeze.
The drama of that encounter informed Mike Ejeagha’s recreation of the tale in his reigning music popularized by skit maker and popular comedian, Brain Jotter. The title of the beautiful track is ‘Ka Esi Le Onye Isi Oche (How the chairman of the occasion was tricked). According to the folklore, the beautiful daughter of the King wants his would-be suitor to gift them the elephant. Thus she rejected many suitors because they could not give them the elephant.
When tortoise heard all these, he went to his friend, the elephant, and tricked him that the Eze wants him to be the chairman of the occasion at his forthcoming Ofala ceremony. The tortoise went back to the Eze to inform the monarch of his intention to marry his daughter. When Eze reminds the tortoise of the gift of the elephant, he told the Eze not to worry. After waiting for the tortoise on the d-day without seeing him, elephant went to tortoise to remind him that it is time to go to Ofala ceremony without knowing that his friend will use him as a dowry. The tortoise told elephant to tie a rope on his neck and use it to carry him in his back since he cannot walk as fast as the elephant. The elephant stupidly agreed and as they reached the venue, the tortoise came down and carried the rope and the elephant and told the Eze that he has brought the elephant. The moral of the fable is for one to be mindful of the friend he keeps, some are good and some are bad. Some can even sell their best friend as the tortoise did in this story.
In a way, the Nigerian story can be likened to the gwo gwo gwo ngwo story of Mike Ejeagha where tortoise triumphed through deceit and falsehood as opposed to truth telling. The tortoise is never a big animal, he is also not clever and he is not even beautiful. But he has used his intelligence and shrewdness to triumph in the animal kingdom. Our story as a nation has been shaped by deceit and absence of the leadership telling the citizens the truth about what is going on in the country at any given time.
It is not only obvious at the centre, it is even worse at the subnational level, where mostly mediocre hold sway. Leadership is dead at the third tier of government, which the Tinubu administration is striving to revive. The hunger protest, which was badly handled by some security agencies in some states which was instigated by mass hunger and probably other extraneous factors, should not have escalated if those in government are telling the people the truth, if the aides and ministers in government are telling their principal the truth of the situation and not necessarily what will please his ears.
The hunger protest map has shown more than any other thing that we are still a highly fragile and divided country. Our professed unity and one indivisible country is just another tortoise deceit. At best it is cosmetic and delusional. With the recent inflammatory altercations from certain parts of the country, it is becoming doubtful that we are all interested in forging ahead as one united and indivisible country. Ethnic profiling and threats are not ingredients that will cement our unity. If Nigerian unity is based purely on the monthly sharing of the national cake, oil money, through federal allocation in Abuja, it is surely bound to collapse. No nation endures with laziness, ethnic profiling, threats, envy and some blatant ethnic supremacy theories.
The fragility of this entity called Nigeria is worrisome. It does not give hope for a bright future. The hate and divisiveness in this country cannot make us one big, strong and united country. Although our nascent political arrangement is not yet perfect, some characters are busy adding fuel to a raging fire with their uncouth utterances. If some people still think that this colonial arrangement is not good, the best thing for all is to answer their surname and forget this unwarranted threats of ‘go to your village and leave my Lagos’ and other combustible and incendiary comments in the social media and even mainstream media.
People go to moonlight plays to see one another. It is not because there is no moonlight in their compound. It is only a fellow who never tasted other people’s mothers’ soup that boasts that his mother is the best cook in the world. If we are still interested in forging ahead as one united country, it is time to begin the restructuring of this great country based on truth and the reality of our history, geography and existence. Good enough, nature is prodigal with Nigeria that it gave every part enough resources to sustain itself. Every region and in fact every state has enough resources to cater for its citizens. Every region can indeed be on its own without the occasional threats of go to your village, which is heightened at every election cycle in Lagos. The politicization of the people and the environment will ruin the country.
The hunger protest is triggered mainly by mass hunger and increasing poverty and misery among Nigerians. That Nigerians are facing hunger is the failure of governance at all tiers. Considering our enormous human and material resources, Nigerians should not have a pact with poverty and food insecurity. We are where we are now because of years of bad governance, unconscionable corruption and visionless leadership. If the leadership has failed at the centre, it has deteriorated at the state and local government levels.
What we have in the states is a growing culture of mediocrity and squandering of our common patrimony. Our governors have become so powerful and dictatorial that governance has died in the states. That is why there is insecurity everywhere and mass murder of ordinary people. The opposition has died at the sub-national level hence we have leaders without ears. The citizens are deprived of the so-called dividends of democracy because the governors manage the resources of the states the way they like with pliant and corrupt civil service, subservient aides and rubber stamp legislature.
Whether we like it or not, the governors wittingly or unwittingly contributed so much the present hunger pangs in the country by their aloofness, bad and visionless governance. Although the President did not sufficiently address the demands of the protesters in his national broadcast on Sunday, it should be noted that some of the protesters went overboard in some states by engaging in mindless looting and arson. Some of their demands are even spurious. Those flying Russian flags and making strange demands cannot be said to be protesting for hunger. They should be arrested and prosecuted.
Nigeria and Nigerians should have a productive dialogue over our political future. There is still room to redeem our fragile country and make it strong like other nations we usually cite as good examples of working democracies. However, we cannot do that with tortoise deceit and cunning. We cannot do that with ethnic profiling, threats and incendiary comments. The purveyors of ethnic hate and violence should be arrested and prosecuted. The 1999 Constitution allows Nigerians to reside in any part of the country. Nobody or group has the right to threaten another person or group to leave a part of the country.
Those making the threats are breaching the provisions of the country and also threatening the existence of the country. Apart from asking for the dismembering of the country, they are questioning our unity and oneness. They are interrogating and disputing our sovereignty. The irony of these threats is that most of those making them live outside their region. One Nigeria must be based on truth, justice and fairness to all citizens. It should not be based on falsehood, deceit and propaganda. Let Tinubu recalibrate his cabinet and weed out those performing below par. And they are many. The cabinet as presently constituted cannot take Nigeria to his renewed hope.