Category: Olatunji Ololade

Like hairy swine in squeals of slaughter, we punctuate this month too, as our month of joy. We mistake death-cries for shrieks of pleasure. Perhaps it’s because we do not know how to differentiate one death-cry from the other; we do not understand how to tell apart, squeals of death from squeals of laughter.

Tell me, what grief do our hearts distill, into joy? Our dreams shan’t remain unfulfilled, we believe…after the month of February, 2015. If we could pluck out the dark from our land of dusk and thus make every night a resplendent morn of bliss and joy, will Goodluck Jonathan lead us to the greatness we seek or something like it?

Let this be the moment we get to understand that the degeneracy we swore to exhaust shall live with us, still. Let this be the moment we acknowledge that Goodluck Jonathan couldn’t change our stars even if he bled his heart out. Today, every gesture he makes is akin to singing malicious sonnets to tame a savage race; every effort he makes is akin to hoarding tiny beads of sweat against the dry essential of tomorrow.

As the pines drip devoid of motion so do our impassioned dreams drift and flounder – because we have perfected our knack for savagery and plunder. We are still as heinous as we were this morning, yesterday and the day before yesterday. How could our plight be different from what it was?

As you read, everything continues to go wrong with our motherland because every day, we forsake the good that ought to matter. As you read, we are still in that hour when the neurotic clock-tick amplifies our poetry of inhumanity, savagery of style, variable truths, half-truths and eccentricities that sheds like tears from a plenitude of tragedies time stores.

As you read, we are still the hoodlums causing chaos at random, according to the whims of devious godfathers. We are still the bankers pilfering the life-savings of poor and struggling compatriots after we deny them the benefits of patronizing us. We are still the bank chiefs stripping Peter to pay Paul and robbing the downtrodden to feed our wantonness and greed.

We are still the police officers mounting road blocks at random to fleece hardworking compatriots of the little they manage to scrounge, everyday. We are still wives to the thieving governor, and councillor, gigolo to the rogue bank chief.

We are still the internet scammers and advanced fee fraudsters giving Nigeria the worst of names, at home and abroad. We are still parents to the internet fraudster, kidnapper, armed robber and political thug.

We are still the armed robbers and burglars thwarting our will to strive honourably and prosper, for our vanities. We are still the high-society big boys and drama queens desperate for groove and splendour in the midst of too much rancour and squalor.

Our philosophy of altruism still permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting man. It permits no view of compatriots save as sacrificial animals and profiteers on sacrifice. It permits no view of compatriots save as victims and parasites…still.

Our concept of equity still permits no concept of a benevolent existence among men. Our definition of Rule of Law still permits no perception of justice thus the ugliness, cynicism and wantonness in which we spend our lives and burn out, the lives of others.

Our people are still destitute and the majority of us that aren’t are haunted by the fear that they may become so at any moment. Our wage-earners still nurse the constant fear of unemployment; salaried employees worry that their employers may soon go bankrupt or deem it necessary, as usual, to cut down their staff.

Every Nigerian still faces a hard struggle to survive. And after making great sacrifices for the education of our sons and daughters, we still find that there exist no openings for the kinds of skills they are supposed to have acquired.

Our graduates are still slugging it out behind the counters of convenience stores overseas. They are still cleaning the anuses of aged Brits and Americans. At home, they engage in armed robbery, kidnapping, hooliganism and advanced fee fraud.

And in the midst of such arrant perversion, we remain the activists exploiting the pains of the trodden to perpetuate our grand scheme of greed and plunder. We are still the clerics selling salvation to monsters we adorn with power, unquestioningly. We are still the prophets of doom and eternal damnation.

We are still the critics capable of nothing but unsubstantiated claims and clamour. We are still the ones who see nothing good in anything. We are still the electorate that thinks no good of any candidate and yet would cast our votes for the worst of a bad bunch.

We are still the worthless part of the equilibrium that balances our national equation to the calculation of scoundrels parading our corridors of power. We are yet to answer as men even as the climes call for such men that would tame the animal pack we have assigned such humane task as leadership and governance.

We are still the journalists pandering to the whims of predators we have learnt to endure on our power plinths. We are still the practitioners who sold out, the watchdog who became lapdogs and then, dung-dogs.

And even I who write this epitomize the grandest of all evils, your “high and mighty columnist,” “alarmist” and “intellectual terrorist,” still.

We still condemn and criticize, offering nothing practicable to replace everything we condemn and criticize. The knowledge we flaunt still makes our lives no better. Our anecdotes and intellectual protestations still aren’t worth a random fart.

We are still in the era of the black sheep, the epoch of the boy-child, struggling through desertion, lies, vainglories and shame. We are still training our wards to become contradictions of the patriot-leaders we may never have.

We are still in the age of the girl-child adrift from our dreams of equality, ladyship and rewarding motherhood. The icon is still a human sound-bite and our pantheons are overcrowded with all manners of creatures we ennoble as heroes.

The moment continually steals by us while we rant and yield to impotent bluster. We are still stuck on doing the same things, the same ways, over and over again and expecting different results. We still hasten daylight in order to ornament it with a dark pall.

Our talk used to be of freedom. Yesterday, we thought we had found freedom in Ebele, Mr. Nice Guy. Today, we know better; we know Ebele baba is as degenerate as the rest of us. Let this be the moment we acknowledge that no ‘humble’ leader could make our lives better. Let this be the moment we understand that no practicable policy or people-centred governance could improve our plight until we expunge our souls of the evil within.

We could change if we want to. Or we could stick to this beaten path that rewards and ruins us. Come 2015; shall we unseat the boy who had no shoes and thus hoodwinks us to steal our shoes even as he robs Nigeria silly?

Now that we are done fiddling with change, we are dying to articulate dissent like the emptiness that approximates silence; again. Like leadership we loathe, the language of our dreams and dissension has never been fathomed by us. Perhaps it’s because we allow our sentences and imports to trail off in confusion. Perhaps it’s because we swallow grief to express impotent will every time we ought to show discretion and character.

But we have our inclinations too – wantonness, incoherence, shallowness and that fledgling impassivity that masks essentially, our recklessness and vile. Thoreau would call it a knack for folly. Russell would simply identify it as the manifestation of imprudence and lack of tact.

I would call it suicide. For only the suicidal would entrust such sensitive things as the birthing of a “promising dawn” to professional undertakers. We are still the little, little people with neither principles nor strength of character. That is why we bestow our mandates unto all manners of candidates – in a manner characteristic of ones who have been programmed to self-destruct.

Forget our apologies for Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari and so on, it does not matter who we root for; it’s the reasoning that excites our politics that should appall us. It wasn’t too long ago that we brandished our untiring love for President Goodluck Jonathan at the last elections. Many claimed to love him just because his name is Goodluck. Others took a liking to him because he is purportedly “humble to a fault.”

Then there were those who would die to see him retain his seat just because he hails from the South-South. They believe it’s the turn of the South-South to plunder our national purse. But the song has since changed. Now we are beginning to see that it is not enough for Jonathan to answer the name: ‘Goodluck.’ We have begun to see that it takes more than Mr. President’s touted humility and inclination to “respect elders” and call “those who are older than him Sir or Ma!” even though “he is President,” to salvage our State. Let me not dwell on President Jonathan as there isn’t much to say of his candidature and administration. Any attempt to do so would be tantamount to squeezing the palm kernel seed for crude oil.

And there is Buhari. Remember Buhari? It wasn’t too long ago that we labeled him an “extremist” and “terrorist,” among other things; just because he is a Muslim. Some claimed he was set to implement a northern agenda to Islamize Nigeria. And not a few people recalled perceived excesses and shortcomings of his regime – to this lot, it hardly mattered that the former military dictator recorded some commendable feats during his regime.

Then he picked Tunde Bakare, controversial and self-styled cleric, as his running mate and suddenly, the rising wave of dissent against his candidacy quieted to a drone. Vintage Buhari. The Spartan general knew just how to shut his detractors up. Now the much dreaded “fundamentalist” has become the favourite of not a few Nigerians.

It isn’t just that Buhari had to pick Bakare that should shame us but that he had to play the religious card in order to sway the opinions of even his most virulent critics in his favour, provides food for thought. We have chosen to ignore the fact that Buhari, given his greater appeal, stature and promise, could have done better in choosing a running mate. But the elder statesman had to be pragmatic thus he fed us a generous dose of our own poison to gain our trust.

This emphasizes our lack of depth and dependable political philosophy. I do not blame Buhari. The tireless contender had to survive. It doesn’t matter that his choice of running mate, Bakare, resounded all manners of permutation neither does it matter that his action projected our personal politic as desperate and shorn of wisdom. The Spartan general is actually not as inflexible as we thought him to be and we aren’t as wise as we think we are. If we were, we wouldn’t be taken by such politic at all.

And there was Ribadu; the candidate whose bid excited the worst of unexplainable bitterness and ill-will in various circles – basically because he did a poor job of connecting with people he sought to govern. Not a few people claimed “Obasanjo’s attack dog” was no saint. Many argued that he was hardly Nigeria’s equivalent the awaited Messiah. It is understandable that the ruling class and highest echelons of the civil service and the corporate business sector would rather perish than see Ribadu mount Nigeria’s most coveted seat; for it wasn’t too long ago that he became the brute in their recurring nightmares.

It is even more understandable that a considerable percentage of the nation’s youths – particularly internet and advance fee fraudsters among others – would give their last breath to thwart the presidential ambition of Nuhu Ribadu. But that a great percentage of Nigeria’s youth would profess an abiding dislike for Nuhu Ribadu because of numerous reasons they are yet to pin-point, is actually very distressing.

Some argued that he contested knowing he was incapable of victory. They claimed he only sought to register his eligibility in order to appear as a worthy candidate for the presidency come 2015. Then there were those that believed Ribadu deserved scorn simply because it is fashionable to do so. Looking back now, they were probably justified in their contempt for “Obasanjo’s attack dog;” many are yet to come to terms with Ribadu’s shameful cartwheel to join the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in desperate bid to actualise his dream of governing Adamawa.

Indeed, every other Nigerian is always supporting and scorning a candidate because it is fashionable to do so. A great many of us are switching loyalties, candidates and political platforms as socioeconomics and political expediencies demand. Some have done so because their favourite columnists suggested it.

The most pathetic amongst us however, are loving and hating one candidate above the other, simply because it is fashionable to do so. Yet for all the thoughtlessness we foster, we could be forgiven for whatever political anomaly we further; even as you read, none of our contenders for the presidential seat come 2015, has been able to justify his claim to our mandate and seat of power.

It is just one of many such ironies that their emergence has failed to imbue us with much needed conviction and trust we ought to repose in our preferred contender to power. The connection is what we need. Among other benefits, it accords us a peep into the soul of each contender in order to trust him or not. It also means familiarity and wounds and scars. It could make it difficult to look upon them and see them as the future.

But wherever it exists, it makes it easier to forgive the worst they have being in order to hope on the best they could become. We have few months to the 2015 general elections. Within the period, we could seek out a worthy candidate, “A man of the people, who is truly for the people in a sane way” if you like. But still, we rally round the usual candidates, the usual perversions and dire sentimentalities. Come 2015, if we usher in more calamitous leadership than we have now, you and I will be deserving of blame.