If Audu Ogbeh, a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was a soldier, he would have been a fantastic, if notorious, coup-maker. And fake messiah. Nothing else explains the coup-maker delusion of the minister as a trending video. https://youtu.be/-yfuby6O2hk.
His manners are those of coup-makers who think because they command guns or hold offices they can make morality sound like economics. Point is, morality and economics are separate subjects and need not be confounded. Anyway, records reveal it is the ignorance of the armed man or man in office that has ruined Nigeria more than anything else, Ogbeh style.
All the rap that Ogbeh was whining about, of importing toothpicks or pizza from London, are meaningless. It may sound well as morality tales, but they have no basis in economics.
Anyway, lest we forget, Ogbeh himself cannot be entirely sinless. For nearly all his adult life, Ogbeh has been a government pikin. And to be government pikin in Nigeria is to live in unconscionable, if not criminal, luxury. Added to this criminality of unearned luxury is that Nigerian public officers like Ogbeh visit citizens with fruitless dividends.
In the end, the businessman who earns his kobo by his sweat and ingenuity, but orders his pizza from London, is a more bankable economic agent than Ogbeh. And also a more patriotic national than Minister Ogbeh. An Ogbeh, despite being a geriatric, doggedly insists on remaining a government pikin.
Since Ogbeh is moralising, is he by any imagination cruising in Innoson Motors marque? How many Japanese-made jeeps are in his service and in his garages? How many of the Ogbeh children and charges are having made-in-Nigeria education? Considering the poor performance of Nigeria’s economy, should ministers like Ogbeh not be riding in Keke Marwa? Why does it cost us ten of heavens to maintain ill-performing ministers like Ogbeh on earth?
Perhaps as it is said, Ogbeh has a degree in languages. It is thus safe to assume he did be familiar with this “universal quote” of Jonathan Swift: “And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
The question then is, what has Ogbeh contributed in his life beyond being a salaried politician who moralises with uninformed certainty? Ogbeh ronu.
Finally, Minister Ogbeh, Nigeria’s wahala is government, represented by people like you. Nigeria’s wahala is not the connoisseurs of good foods, made in Lekki or London. All else is humour. Ahiazuwa.