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It has become clearer why President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been unable to help hungry and suffering Nigerians.
It is not that he has not been hearing the people’s cries or that he has not been reading about the alleged hunger and suffering in the land. He has!
He simply refused to believe the allegations or to do anything about them because his close advisers and trusted aides have advised His Excellency to ignore the cries because they have not seen the hunger and suffering the people are complaining about.
The aides and associates have also told Tinubu that his government has done extremely well; that, in fact, Nigerians are feeding fat under Tinubu’s regime and that the cries and claims of hunger are simply sponsored by Tinubu’s political opponents and his haters.
Presidential spokesman, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, is one of the close and trusted aides that have so advised Mr. President.
In his own case, after confirming from his personal kitchen that there is abundance of food to eat and drink, he went the extra mile to ask his ‘personal workers’ if they are suffering hunger under his administration?
From the answers he got from this tedious investigation, Onanuga learnt that Nigerians are actually feeding fat these days and that only Tinubu haters are claiming to be hungry and to be suffering under Asiwaju’s tenure.
Onanuga, an honoured member of the Pen Profession, therefore, told Arise Television, in a live programme: “I’m a Nigerian. I have people working for me privately. I don’t see the level of hunger people are talking about because I see them, and I keep asking them questions: how are things, how are they adjusting, what are the problems?”
From his honest comments during this revealing interview, one can deduce that even if Tinubu haters, critics and other Nigerians claim to be suffering hunger today, Onanuga, the Media Adviser to Mr. President, is not hungry at all. For him and his dependants, who feed from his well stocked kitchen, life is good, and there is plenty to eat and be satisfied!
Being a good investigative journalist, Onanuga decided not to rely only on what obtains in his private kitchen.
He made the sacrifice of leaving his powerful office in Abuja to interrogate Nigerians who work for him privately, so as to get the true picture of the level of hunger and suffering in the country.
From his conclusions, it seems obvious that his “private workers,” like him, are also not hungry at all. For them also, there is plenty of food to eat and be satisfied.
So, Mr Onanuga came to the conclusion that there is no hunger and suffering in Nigeria today; that only Tinubu haters still make claims of hunger and suffering.
These findings, he dutifully communicated to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
If my instinct has not failed me, I can conclude that Onanuga is not the only top aide or associate of President Tinubu who has been made so comfortable that even all the people working for him privately are also feeding very well and so do not see anything that suggests hunger or suffering in Nigeria of today.
This has remained the modus operandi of government in Nigeria, a system that has made politics so attractive in the country. Public office has been so packaged in Nigeria that top officials quickly forget and no longer see the sufferings in the streets.
This is one of the root causes of the sharp disagreement in Nigeria – the disagreement that has sustained poverty, hunger, extreme inequality and suffering of the masses over the years.
It is the fact that top government officials in Nigeria are over provided for, so much that they actually live in a world of extreme comfort, different from the Nigeria of the masses, where hunger and suffering persists whether or not the price of crude oil rises or falls at the international market.
So, when poor Nigerians cry in the streets that they do not have food to eat, overfed top government officials cannot understand where such claim is coming from because the waste baskets in their compounds are filled everyday from leftovers and even their security dogs are well fed and taken care of.
As we can recollect, Bayo Onanuga is not the first top government official that failed to see the hunger Nigerians complained about and to say so in the public.
We have not forgotten the infamous and insensitive remarks made by Alhaji Umaru Dikko, the powerful Minister of Transportation during President Shehu Shagari Second Republic.
At a time Nigerians complained bitterly of hunger and suffering, Umaru Dikko said the claims were wrong because, according to him, Nigerians were “not yet feeding from the dustbins.”
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Like Onanuga, Umaru Dikko made that remark when he was serving as a well provided for and powerful government official.
Just like what has been happening since Onanuga made his remarks, angry common citizens called Umaru Dikko unprintable and ugly names and stopped there.
Today, I posit that the idea of merely calling such insensitive public officials names and stopping there, constitute grave mistake on the part of the suffering and hungry citizens of Nigeria. They should go further to demand that no official, elected or appointed, would ever deride their sufferings that way and still remain in office. Anything contrary to this is a grave mistake that helps to perpetuate public ridicule of common Nigerians.
That grave mistake is being repeated today. Onanuga is being served with insults and open condemnation for failing to see the hunger and suffering threatening to annihilate millions of Nigerians.
Like Umaru Dikko, Onanuga, through his supporters, direct beneficiaries and other remote dependants have also been fighting back in defence. Very soon, the matter will die and be buried the Nigerian way.
This is how we, common Nigerians, have continually failed to defend our wellbeing.
We fail to undertake the simple task of understanding why Nigerian top government officials almost always fail to see the sufferings of we common people, notwithstanding that the said top officials have close relatives who are also in the streets and in remote villages with us.
After his sumptuous breakfast, lunch and dinner, the top officials fail to understand and to agree with us that any Nigerian is hungry, neglected and suffering. His belief is strengthened by the fact that some of us, who happen to be close relatives and friends of the officials and who now enjoy crumbs from their golden tables, prefer to play the role of accomplices to give false impressions that all is well with Nigerians.
The point I am making is that the disparity in the experiences of common Nigerians and that of the top government officials and their cronies is at the very root of our disagreements as a people. While top officials are overfed and over provided for, common citizens suffer unaided and some commoners whose relatives or friends get appointed into high offices easily betray the truth in order to enjoy the crumbs.
Also, even when government allegedly budget and release funds to give aid to commoners and to cushion the effects of hardship, such funds simply evaporate into the fat pockets of humanitarian ministry or agencies’ top officials and to that of their associates.
The result is that fattened government officials continue to live in a world totally different from that of the real Nigerian society. Their perception of Nigerian reality also consistently differ.
To end this, Nigerians must rise up to properly checkmate the governments and it’s officials.
In a democracy, if it is the people that actually engage the officials to govern them, then, the officials should not be allowed to continue to trample upon the people and to continue to ridicule the people’s bitter conditions.
This is another way of saying that given Onanuga’s continuation of the display of this disparity in perception between government officials and common Nigerians, decades after Dikko’s era, we must come to the realisation that it is no longer enough to merely condemn such insensitivity.
There is the need to go further to unearth the root cause or causes of such wide disparity and to insist on bridging the gap.
This, it seems to me, is the first step to take.
While I do not intend to comment on the wisdom of depending on the responses of the people that work for him privately to assess Tinubu’s government, it is unfortunate to note that a highly respected media personality like Onanuga would so callously dismiss the cry of hunger by almost 200 million Nigerians with such ridiculous, almost silly comparisons of how his personal workers would assess the government in his presence.
Does Onanuga expect suffering Nigerians to tell in plain language that considering his current privileged position, his “private workers” are also privileged all through the period he retains his plum seat in Aso Rock and may be thereafter?
Also, does the Presidential Spokesman expect to be told in black and white that in line with most Nigerian cultures, especially Yoruba Culture, it would be wrong to expect his “private workers” to tell him to his face that the government he is serving as a top aide, and from which he is feeding fat, has, through it’s inactions or wrong actions condemned them to untold hardship and hunger?
I think Onanuga is certainly not that dumb. If he wanted to conduct a proper investigation, the type that helped built his image as a journalist of repute, he knows what to do and the right people to seek their views.
What beats my imagination is why he chose to make fun of suffering Nigerians the way he did.
• Samuel Hezekiah Egburonu Esq, lawyer, veteran journalist and literary scholar, is a current affairs analyst.
