Introduction
Last week, we commenced our discourse on this vexed issue regarding the season of empty and vainglorious promises made by politicians (I call them politricksians). Most of these promises are neither kept nor accomplished. Today, we shall further x-ray and conclude our discourse the deceptive nature of the average politician. Please, read on.
The rented hallelujah crowd (continues)
I will banish hunger and annul (pardon me, IBB), the consumption of ordinary home-made yams, maize, garri, akpu, fufu, amala, elubo, eba, fura da nono, miyan kuka, edikangikong, ofe nsala, nkwobi, atsun, tuwon shinkafa, tuwon zaafi, ewedu and all such unhealthy local foods. “Stomach infrastructure” or “democracy of the stomach” will be my first and primary concern when you elect me into office. I will grow apples, avocados, spinach, berry, watermelon, papaya, guava, oranges, bananas, coconut and apricot in your bedrooms, verandas and sitting rooms. I will refine the oil in the Niger Delta, stop gas flaring and exploit the vast mineral resources that abound across Nigeria. I will pay all your children’s school fees, including WAEC, NECO and UTME fees. I will sponsor them to university level, even postgraduate studies.
My reign will ensure that your breakfast shall comprise of toasted bread, sausage, spring rolls, bacon, vegetables and prawns in batter. Your lunch will be fried pigeon, pork ribs, shrimps in chili sauce and mashed potatoes, while your dinner will be Singapore noodles, crabs, boneless sweet and sour duck, lobsters in black bean sauce and asparagus, and broccoli with mixed vegetable.”
What can the average Nigerian politricksian not do? Nothing! Nigeria befuddles me.
Only in Nigeria
It is only in Nigeria that a politricksian will be elected on the platform of a political party, stay put and enjoy the party’s protection and reputation for seven years, quietly or tumultuously decamp to an opposition political party in the eighth year, and suddenly realize that his original political party was satanic, luciferous, leprous, odious, backward, useless and, indeed, consists of political lepers and greedy thieves of our commonwealth. Only in Nigeria! He will tell us he has returned “home,” and his fellow thieving politricksians will gladly welcome him with pomp and pageantry.
It is only in Nigeria that a governor will cajole and coax a crowd of people drawn from all nooks and crannies of all the local governments of his state, just for the purpose of “commissioning” a five-kilometer road project whose touted padded cost is actually more than 500% of the actual cost. The money used in organizing the attendant, “commissioning ceremony” is nearly as much as the project cost itself. Only in Nigeria! The poor, cheated and hoodwinked plebians will sing their hearts out, tattoo their bodies with uli and ume, and dance atilogwu, mpokiti, igioge, igbokobia, igieleghe and even egbabonalimhi dance. Only in Nigeria! They relish in the Stockholm Syndrome by empathising and falling in love with their tormentors and slave drivers. Stalin’s state of the chicken whose feathers he publicly plucked, while the croaking bleeding chicken still wobbled back to eat particles of grain from his hand, is apposite here. The politricksian will hire and arm thugs to win elections. As soon as he is sworn in, he discards with the unwanted dregs of the society, who is despised, derided and ignored. He only sees his “oga” in long convoys of tinted-glass cars. Frustrated, he takes to the forest and transforms into a kidnapper, bandit, Boko Haram, murderer and Internet scammer.
It is only in Nigeria you will hear the President and governors “vow” to build roads, provide shelter and education, give water and medicare to citizens, as if they were ever elected for a different purpose. Only in Nigeria! It is only in Nigeria that a community will welcome their son or daughter with open arms where he or she can show and demonstrate overt evidence of vulgar opulence and primitive acquisition. Indeed, the more the “son of the soil” or “daughter of the soil” stole from the national till, the more he/she is venerated and idolised. The sudden wealth must luminate in sprawling mansions, in all parts of the world, private jets, fleets of countless cars, vast acres of holiday resort and snaky escort-heralded convoys of tinted vehicles. Only in Nigeria!
Woe betide the poor retiree who comes back empty-handed in the name of prudence, patriotism, honesty and probity while in service. He/she will be shunned, avoided, derided, scorned, mocked and spat at for being a fool while in service. Only in Nigeria!
It is only in Nigeria that elders will pour libation and pray for their children thus: “May God and our ancestors increase your wealth (money), but not your work. May you find or stumble on money that is not owned by any one.”
Gracious God! Holy Moses! Only in Nigeria!
It is only in Nigeria that certified criminals who have ripped us off from our commonwealth will be rewarded and have their necks garlanded with medals, honourary doctorate degrees and national honours. They will be awarded high-sounding chieftaincy titles, all of them ending with one (1). There is no number two or three. That is a taboo. It is Ogbini 1, Ogbaleghe 1, Okpughukpughu 1, Onwa 1, MajeKobaje 1, Yerimah 1, etc. Such criminal elements will be accorded prominent seats and mats in the front pews and spaces of our churches and mosques, scrambling for spaces with our liturgical and clerical officials such as canons and imams. Only in Nigeria! It is only in Nigeria that small-level officials of government will easily pocket billions of naira and amass tens of houses and then smile home thereafter after a judicial slap on their wrist. Only in Nigeria!
It is only in Nigeria that Boko Haram and bandits will abduct our innocent daughters from Chibok, Dapchi, Kankara, Jangebi, Kaduna and Kagara. Rather than unite as a nation and fight a common enemy, as the Americans did on 11th of September, 2001, when her national pride and symbol of strength, the New York twin towers, was levelled to ground zero, Nigerians will engage in lamentation and rightly blame the non-performing President and governor of the receiving state. We abuse and denigrate the military that is busy fighting the “civil” war, men and women of honour and valour, who left their loved families and the comfort of their homes, to fight in the damp, cold forests and hot deserts, to ensure our collective security. Nigerian politricksians turn the entire issue into a political game of musical chairs and Baba Sala’s Alawada Kerikeri histrionics and theatricals. Only in Nigeria! It is only in Nigeria that elected officials of government will use the first of a four-year term to study their governance or legislative structure and organogram, including making appointments, use the second year to work for the people who elected them, and use the remaining two years politicking and amassing vulgar primitive wealth towards another round of a four-yearly electioneering ritual. Nigerian politricksians enjoy politicking without governance. Only in Nigeria can this state of absurdity take place.
Nigeria has become one huge joke. She has been so dehumanized in such a way as to generate one form of absurdity or another on a daily basis. Nigeria has since become a sickening contraption of one scandal per day.
There’s no democracy in Nigeria
Indeed, Nigeria, especially under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, does not practise democracy at all. Rather, it practises electionacracy, judocracy, executocracy and legislatocracy. I will explain these terms, which I have personally coined from my personal lexical dictionary. That was what informed the aliases of “Ozek Baba”, “Mobile Dictionary” and “Mobile Library” that my late legendary mentor, the iconic Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, SAM, GCON, fondly called me while working with him, up to becoming his deputy head of chambers in 1985.
Electionacracy
“ELECTIONACRACY ” is a system of government where elections are held as a ritual at intervals of four years in Nigeria, with the emergent elected or selected leaders, rather than giving the electors democracy dividends, merely stabilize themselves in power, commence primitive acquisition of wealth and forget the electorate that elected the leaders in the first place. They then begin another round of campaigns after pretending to work for two years. They are already looking forward to the next election when the electorate has not benefited from any democracy dividends from their first term.
Judocracy
“JUDOCRACY” is a genre of government practised only in Nigeria, where Presidents, governors, legislators and LG chairmen are thrown up as having “won” in an election. Their victory is immediately challenged. They get enmeshed in these legal calisthenics for the next two to three years of their corruption-ridden governance. Then, suddenly, they are conceived, incubated and delivered in the hallowed chambers and precincts of our law courts, rather than through the ballot box. The will of the people is thereby subsumed in the decision and judgment of courts of law, the non-representatives of the people.
Executocracy
“EXECUTOCRACY,” as practised in Nigeria, is an aberrant form of government, far removed from democracy, where the executive arm of government acts in torrerem of other arms of government. The executive continually browbeats, intimidates, harasses, marginalizes and subjugates the legislature and the judiciary. It is usually headed by a maximalist, autocratic, absolute and dictatorial head who views himself as Louis XIV of France. Louis XIV was so intoxicated with the effect of liquor-inebriating power that, in 1655, he proudly stood in front of parliament and declared “L’etat C’ est moi” (I am the state). He said this to indicate his complete hold on power to the exclusion of all other lesser mortals.
Legislotacracy
“LEGISLATOCRACY” is another peculiar genre of democracy as practised only in Nigeria. It is a fundamentally flawed legislative system, where there is a collection of overbloated and virtually jobless 360 members of the House of Representatives and 109 senators, all of whom are not unsurprisingly permitted by the 1999 Constitution to sit for only six months out of 12 months in a calendar year of 12 months. This enables them to seamlessly engage in extra-legislative businesses and money-making ventures. These legislators, contrary to the clear provisions of the 1999 Constitution, legislate on EVERYTHING except making laws “for the peace, order and good government of the federation.”
The lawmakers carry out oversight functions under sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution, not in furtherance of any public interest or any common good, but in pursuit of their private pockets after extorting money (during budget presentations) from ministers, MDA’s and other government establishments, both at the federal, state and LGA level.
Under legislatocracy, Mr. President’s requests are sacrosanct and written on Hamurabi tablet of inviolability. So, like the agama lizard, the lawmakers can only nod their heads “yes, yes, yes”, to all presidential requests, however anti-people. Legislatocracy ensures free padding of budgets to accommodate their insatiable baccanalina propensity to consume and indulge in primitive acquisition of vulgar wealth in a rentier economy.
Legislatocracy also ensures that, rather than make laws, legislators fight over constituency projects. When given hundreds of millions to execute these projects, they end up digging a few boreholes, repairing village culverts, buying motorcycles, hairdryers, grinding machines and wheel barrows for their hapless, clapping peasants and thugs that were used during the last elections. Nigeria’s peculiar legislatocratic system ensures that the lawmakers receive the highest pay among lawmakers across the globe, including older, tested and more established democracies of the world.
Only in Nigeria! It is so sad, so debasing, so heart-rending and so idiotic.
Nigeria, we hail thee!
(Concluded)
Sounds and bites
Morgan Freeman once said:
“Self-control is strength. Calmness is mastery. You have to get to a point where your mood doesn’t shift based on the insignificant actions of someone else. Don’t allow others to control the directions of your life. Don’t allow your emotions to overpower your intelligence.”
Thought for the week
“The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.”
(Adlai Stevenson I)