Category: Yomi Odunuga

Unfolding events across the nation point to just one crying truth about us: we are a country that perpetually strives to progress at the same pace with which we regress in error. Some skeptics even say it’s sometimes one step forward, two steps backwards. If only we could hold ourselves to the mirror, we would come to grips with the deep rot that has brought us to this sorry mess. Our outward pontifications notwithstanding, the Nigerian nation suffers gravely from the malady of self-centered interest at the expense of the common good. The time-tested principles of morality hardly play any significant role in our quotidian living even when we pretend to be one indivisible entity. Collectively, we inflict damning injuries on the wellbeing of a nation gasping for breath since 1960. We deceive ourselves if we think all is well with a country that relishes taking a step forward amid countless movements in endless circles. Our post-independence pretence has merely left us trapped in this maze of movement without motion.

Come to think of it, one would have thought that, after many years of experimentation, we would have gone past the era in which the highest legislative body in the land would shamelessly engage in self-gratification in the guise of making laws for the good governance of its hapless citizens. It is, indeed, a tragic commentary that the so-called Nigerian elite has not only perfected the art of rapaciously raping the national till in endless circles, it has also ceaselessly inflicted a seeming benevolent violence on its peoples. How on earth can the Dr. Bukola Saraki-led Senate surreptitiously amend the Code of Conduct and Tribunal Act at a time when Saraki is facing trial on charges bothering on failure to declare assets as enshrined in the laws? The mere fact that this Senate aims to snatch the powers of the President to appoint the leadership of the CCB by transferring the controlling powers to the National Assembly is not only petty but shameless. It is the kind of subtle violence that pervades our system and which has only diminished us as a country. And this is the same National Assembly that has hardly passed any bill that touches on the general wellbeing of the people in the last 17 months. In actual fact, these lawmakers have spent more time on recess that one wonders where they derive the courage to claim the humongous paychecks they get compensated with monthly!

By the way, what exactly was the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, driving at when he rubbished insinuations that the amendment of the CCB Act has everything to do with Saraki’s ongoing trial before the CCT? Now, that’s laughable. Ndume said he found it ‘insulting” that anyone would assume that our distinguished senators would sheepishly succumb to the bidding of Saraki when it should be clear to any right-thinking person that “laws are not made in retrospect.” What’s that? Hollow gibberish. If he must know, this particular amendment not only belittles whatever is left of the integrity of the Senate, it also denigrates the personality of the characters that made themselves available to be used to abuse the fine and delicate principles of lawmaking. Of all the tomfoolery that has taken place in our over 17 years of democratic governance, the speed with which the two chambers rushed through this bill takes the prize for errant legislative impunity. It was an ill-timed vengeance that would neither fly with the Nigerian people nor its main target, the executive

Ndume’s argument that the aim was to make the CCB more effective and that the Saraki allusion was a secondary matter fly in the face of common logic. It was very convenient for him to throw in a depressing white lie that the urgency given the controversial amendment was in line with his vow that all bills that emanated from the House “must not be allowed to suffer setback” but must be concurred with by the Senate. Oh, what a defence! So, how many of such bills that emanated from the lower chamber has the Senate concurred with in the 8th National Assembly? Do those bills receive the speed of light with which the CCB Act was passed? Figuratively, I’m yet to understand the message Ndume was trying send when he said the Senate couldn’t have passed the law because of an individual since “the Senate President is Saraki, but Saraki is not the Senators’ president.” Ha! What figure of speech is that? Now, you see how these folks torment our psyche and inflict the basest of violence even on the simplest of tenses?

I really don’t know if violence has become some sort of catharsis in our society. Just the other day in Oyo State, some pupils reportedly went on the rampage in three secondary schools. By the time they were through venting a perceived anger over the decision of the state’s education ministry to put merit before a questionable strategy called ‘automatic promotion’; properties worth millions of naira had gone down in ruins. School buildings were torched; libraries were razed; staff rooms were mobbed, and reading materials including records of academic performances were burnt into ashes. For daring to fail those who wanted an automatic ticket to the next class while their colleagues burnt the midnight lamps, all hell was let loose. And you ask: when did things turn this tragically awry for us as a nation?

Well, the signs have always been there but we ignored them as we always did many things. Spread across different parts of the states are specially designated outlets called ‘miracle centres’ where pupils patronise with the aim of securing fantastic School Leaving certificates with which they get easy passage into the universities. The sad reality is that there exist many private secondary schools whose proprietors insist on a zero-failure ratio even if certain pupils do not have the capacity to digest any academic rigour. In the main, the schools’ authorities end up paying mercenary teachers to infiltrate examinations halls and practically dish answers to the students. Have you wondered why, in spite of the abysmal standards of our education system, some schools regularly record excellent, almost impeccable results year in, year out?

The irony is that these days, parents, those who claim to have struggled to make it in life, are at the forefront of hiring mercenaries or sending their children to these wonderful results incubating factories! What happened to hard work and commitment to one’s studies? While we reserve the right to blame the spoilt brats of those three schools in Oyo for the silly madness they unleashed on the community, we need to reexamine the kind of educational system we run in this country. We forget easily that a nation is as good as the kinds of ethical value it instills in the future generation. It is not an accident of history that we now have all manners of dubious characters laying a stranglehold on different sectors of our national life. The thuggish mentality that pervades the land is a direct product of the failed system we cuddle with relish. When adolescents employ the crudest form of violence to demand automatic promotion after a woeful performance, we can only wonder what these ones would do if they succeed in fighting their way to holding key positions in the executive, legislature or even the judiciary. Or are we also going to deny seeing remnants of this national malaise rearing their ugly heads in our polity presently?

Another form of violence that should concern us a people is the emotional violence and avoidable trauma that thousands of Internally Displaced Persons are made to experience daily at the various camps. Before the Human Rights Watch came out with its shocking report about the dehumanising treatment of these persons by those saddled with the responsibility of taking care of them, we have always suspected that some of the so-called humanitarian bodies could be short-changing these vulnerable Nigerians displaced by the deadly activities of the Boko Haram insurgents. What we did not know is that some otherwise responsive and respectable persons were actually in competition with the insurgents in perpetuating the most despicable violence on their fellow human beings. Or how else does one describe a situation where an officer of the law raped a 17-year-old in the IDP camp and threatened to silence her if she ever told anyone he was responsible for her pregnancy? Who were the demented camp leaders, policemen and soldiers that sexually abused the 43 women and girls captured in the HRW report? What picture do we paint of our humanity when it was “reported that 66 percent of 400 displaced people in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states” were sexually abused, drugged and violently raped by camp officials? What manner of caregivers would deny the IDPs essential items like food, drugs and clothing materials just to satisfy a libidinous craving bothering on carnal rascality? Where lies our humanity, where?

The way things are today, it is not impossible that most Nigerians might not see anything condemnable in all the examples. Some would even argue that the exigencies of the times compel the smart ones among us to achieve their goal by whatever means possible in a Hobbesian setting.  Unfortunately, they fail to realise that these bits and pieces nurture the depravities that clip our wings to the rudder of underdevelopment. Like someone asked, don’t we all need a brain reset and an ethical reorientation if this country must work for the good of all?

Former President Goodluck Jonathan is a man who hankers, with tepid anxiety, over how history would judge him. He knows the signs appear not to be in his favour despite the accolades he received for voluntarily accepting a humiliating defeat. Perhaps, enamored by our inelastic capacity for mischief, the zoologist is doing everything within his power to fast track the future in the present. Lest we forget, Jonathan was, until May 29, 2015, the man in control of the levers of governance here for more than five years. And so, we assume he must be conversant with all that transpired under his watch in those better-forgotten days when stealing or helping yourself to the public till was never equated to corruption. It is equally safe for us to assume that Jonathan, the dangerously calculating dove who refused to be a lion in office, must have meticulously gathered enough evidence to support his claim, in recent times, that he dedicated all his years in public stewardship to empower future generation. Having invested such rare personal sacrifice into making Nigeria what it was when he was kicked out through the ballot, it should not be surprising that the Otuoke-born politician is frenetically angling to set the record straight before we hang him in the sun to dry.

So, what were the issues? Bursting with righteous rage during his lecture on Youth Entrepreneurship at the Oxford University, England, the former President wouldn’t just buy into the crap being peddled by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration that, under his eagle-eyed leadership, his embattled former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, would ‘steal’ a whopping $2.2 billion cash appropriated for the procurement of arms to fight insurgency in the North-East. Dismissing the claim with childish indignation, Jonathan, in response to a question, fired a riposte: “They said the National Security Adviser (Sambo Dasuki) stole $2.2billion. I don’t believe somebody can just steal $2.2 billion. We bought warships, we bought aircraft, we bought lots of weapons for the army and so on and so forth and you are still saying $ 2.2 billion. So, where did we get the money to buy all those things? Yes, there were some issues. Yes, there are still corruption issues but some of it was overblown. I’d say exaggerated and they give a very bad impression about our nation. You cannot say the national security adviser stole $2.2billion. It is not just possible.”

You know what? I really don’t know how and when this nation would have a break from the ill luck of having a harvest of clowns bestriding the highest office of the land. Yes, Jonathan is a nice man with an infectious poise. He is what you call a jolly good fellow. Yet, his buffoonery is annoyingly silly. Sometimes, silence is eternally golden. How, for the life of me, could someone who played an active role in the endless repatriation of the billions of dollars looted by the late General Sani Abacha cast a pall of doubts over the investigations that his ‘trusted’ NSA magnanimously diverted a whopping $2.2 billion arms cash to service various political interests ranging from the stupidly sublime to the outrageously mundane? To the best of my knowledge, none of the investigative authorities has dared to accuse Dasuki of unilaterally stealing the lump sum of $2.2 billion. Instead, they say Dasuki is under investigation for superintending over what may turn out to the biggest organised larceny in the history of dashing out monetary freebies in Nigeria. We do not need to remind Jonathan that some of those fingered in the scandal have returned parts of the loot while others have been singing like birds with broken beaks at the offices of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Or were those also stage-managed confessions aimed at tainting the Jonathan regime with a ‘very bad impression?’

Honestly, I feel sorry for this country when I remember that it was this same Jonathan that offhandedly dismissed allegations made by the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi that over $20 billion was creamed off the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in a clinical heist that escaped all the technical and scientific checks put in place to ward off such abuse of privileges.. In defending the then Minister of Petroleum Resources during a live media chat, Jonathan quipped: “How can anyone say such an amount was missing? If that kind of money was missing, the US would know. It is their money!” I almost fainted when I heard that lame defence. Nigerians may be intellectually lazy to follow up on that blunder. That does not in any way mean that they do not know a presidential let down when they see one. By all shades and purpose, Mr. Jonathan’s performance at the Oxford lecture was not only poor but tragic. It was bad Public Relations stunt for a man who desperately needs a makeover following revelations of stultifying graft that was allegedly perpetrated under him.

By a queer stroke of irony, Jonathan made the statements on a day the EFCC chose to interrogate his media minder, the un-putdownable Dr. Reuben Abati and one of the influential ministers in his administration, Senator Bala Mohammed of the Federal Capital Territory. There was no prize for guessing that Abati was queried over a sum N50m traced to his account from the same $2.2bn under Dasuki’s watch. Okay, maybe the NSA was a charitable Father Christmas who, at every whim, dipped his hands into the public till to etch a smile on the faces of his boss’ friends. Do we take it that such an atrocious misdemeanor and flagrant abuse of power, in the good thinking of Jonathan, ought to be put under the sub-head of philanthropy instead of the label of corruption that Buhari and his hatchet men had given it? Is that what this defence of a loyal staff is all about?

And so, Jonathan would like history to judge him strictly based on the huge sacrifices he made to make Nigeria great again. Of course, such sacrifices must necessarily include his magnanimity in relinquishing power after the humiliating defeat at the poll. My question is: what would he have done when it was obvious that the election had been won and lost? Turn the country into a graveyard of blood and sorrow because of a failed ambition? Would that be in tandem with the principles of representative governments which thrusted him into power in the first place?

Yet, the Oxford parley was not all about whining over an alleged corrosive corruption that jeered at us while he was in charge. Jonathan also took time to wow his audience with the giant strides he took while in office. In case we have forgotten, he reminded the audience that, though imperfect, his administration offered Nigeria the best with unprecedented economic growth; Africa’s fastest growing economy in 2015; and the emphasis his administration placed on youth empowerment. And then, the clincher: “Nigerian youths are an inspiration to their leaders. I once said that I was not elected President of Nigeria to spread poverty, I was elected to generate and spread wealth.”

Of course, there were moments to cheer about as regards Jonathan’s claim of empowering the youth. Yet, questions hang over some curious empowerment programmes that focus on certain youths from a part of the country. In the real sense of the word, how many ex-militants benefit from the Presidential Amnesty Programme and how many children of the rich and influential were conscripted into the programme to partake in the foreign training? Or is Jonathan pretending that he did not know that such trainings, which gulped billions of naira, were heavily skewed in favour of his geo-political zone? And when Jonathan deny knowledge of how Dasuki was disbursing funds on his directive, do we take it that he did not know that Dasuki equally spent about N4.7bn from the $2.2bn on youth empowerment? Below are excerpts from a statement Dasuki freely gave before his prolonged detention.

“I am aware in November (I cannot remember the exact date), my office requested the CBN to exchange N10billion from the account of the Office of National Security Adviser domiciled in CBN. The money was exchanged at $47m and some Euros which I cannot remember. The exact amount was delivered at my residence. The money was for delegates that attended the nomination convention for the PDP presidential ticket. The money was paid and sent to Hon. (Waripamowei) Dudafa (SSAP Household) and ADC(C-IC) for distribution on the instruction of the President. Based on the statement of Director of Finance and Administration (Salisu), Ibrahim Wambai, and Yazidu Ibrahim, all the cash (both foreign and local) are usually given to them for official use. I also noted the statement of Sagir Bafarawa whose stated that his company, Dalhatu Investment received the sum of N4,633,000,000 from the account of the Office of the NSA. I authorized the payment. The money was for vehicles, motorcycles for youth empowerment and women sent to Saudi Arabia. I got the proposal from the President. I do not have the proposal; it should be at the office in the Villa.”

With these kinds of approvals, it is not impossible for the former President to have forgotten that, in a desperate attempt to remain in office, the sum of $2.2 billion can only be a drop in the ocean. How many more of such outrageously laughable approvals are yet to be declassified? Or was it not in that same regime a particular lady first claimed that the millions of dollars traced to her accounts variously belonged to her late mum, her savings as a Permanent Secretary in her state and gifts from visitors to Aso Villa? Sometimes, you cannot help but believe Abati’s fabulous fantasy about ghosts, demons, devils and gnomes controlling the thinking faculties of otherwise intelligent leaders in the corridors of power. So much for presidential sacrifice! It’s a pity, really.

Like most concerned parents, I felt a mixture of joy and sadness in equal measure when the news of the released 21 abducted Chibok school girls and a child went viral. In a sense, that should not be surprising. Having written several pieces on the heart-wrenching narrative of these girls on this page, it was a relief that a ray of hope was lit with the release of the 21 that made the list. True, we may not be privy to all that went on behind the scenes including the likely implications of the reported swap of some key leaders of the Boko Haram insurgents which made the release possible. The government’s denial notwithstanding, it is not impossible that some hard currencies may have exchanged hands in a bid to ensure the safe handover of these lucky girls. We would be deceiving ourselves to assume that those who held them for over two years would just allow the girls to walk to freedom without having some sense of victory no matter how feeble. Yet, while they giggle in triumphalism, the rest of us should be compensated by the smiles etched not only on the faces of the parents that had lived in endless anguish in all the days that the girls were in captivity but also in the emotive words that they could offer in teardrops of joy. While the perennial doubters of the abduction saga raise both germane and mundane questions regarding this matter, it is important to restate the fact that the story of the Chibok girls should be elevated from the realm of petty politics. Those who feel the pain know how deep it hurts. Having seen the pictures of the girls on the day they regained freedom, it beggars belief that some persons out there still hold on to the prognosis that they were traded off by their uncaring parents as a political strategy to blackmail former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration as clueless and incompetent. Pity.

But for the fatal damage wrought on our collective sense of humanity, which is at the heart of our national crisis and inexplicable impotence, I doubt if anyone would still be raising dust over the reality of the abduction of over 200 girls in Government Secondary School, Chibok by the Boko Haram insurgents. By the way, why do these people find it convenient to believe the callous massacre of hundreds of students in their dormitories in the same North East by these deadly gang while rubbishing a traumatic abduction saga that was supported with video evidence by the insurgents? Is it just politics or something deeper than hate?

Quite honestly, I do not have a reasonable explanation regarding why the freed girls opted to relive their better-forgotten experiences in Hausa language. However, it does not in any way erode the empathy and riotous rage that boil within. Tried as I could, the images that kept on flashing before me were frightening. The transformation was total. In just two years and some months, these girls have become women. They have aged beyond my wildest imagination. Some had become walking corpses. You could even count the bones as they struggled to make meanings out of their new environment. They were too dazed to understand the implication of the newfound freedom. They alone knew what they had lost. It was evident that these ones have been dehumanized. Each one with spectacular stories that would be told in flashes of horror. They must have seen hell in its practical fearsomeness. Their physical appearance bore tragic testimony of the travails that they went through in that fortress called Sambisa forest. They once died. But by a divine magical stroke of luck, they now have the chance to live again. Lo, they are alive!

And that, to me, was the significance of Sunday, October 16 when the girls were given the opportunity to reunite with their biological parents and towns men at the Medical Clinic of the Department of State Security. Some cried. Some laughed. Some went berserk with joy. Some just stood there, stupefied. They all danced. In all, it was joy unstoppable. They could never have imagined that a day like that would come. Not after what their captors said had happened to their girls. Sold out. Married off. Killed following military operations. Randomly abused until they could take it no more. But for that unforgettable reunion, how would we have known that these young girls went a marathon forty days without food. They merely survived on water and crumbs. That was the gripping story that Gloria Dama told the gathering on Sunday. She knew their survival was nothing short of an act of God. She must have seen many die in cold blood. When it comes to killing people, nothing is beyond the capacity of the insurgents. They live by the sword and shedding blood fills them with some sort of sadist, masochistic thrill. Yet, God saw these ones through. Is that the stuff miracles are made of?

Hear her: “I did not know that a day like this will come that we will be dancing and giving thanks to God among people. We were praying to God to touch the lives of Boko Haram to repent and we are calling on all Nigerians to pray and fast for the release of our remaining ones in captivity.”

With just 22 girls regaining their freedom and the government getting set to negotiate the release of another 83 out of the original 217, we can only hope for the best. It is definitely not the best of times for those parents whose children remain in the hands of their captors. All they can cling on to is hope. It is the only thing that has sustained many amid the depressing doubts. When we say Chibok matters, it is because we know an end must be put to the sickening plot. If the Bring Back Our Girls group had relented, it is most probable that the Chibok 21 wouldn’t have happened. Together, it can be a win-win situation if the government would stop throwing its nose in the sky whenever it is called upon to walk its talk on rescuing the girls. Now that some of the girls are back in the arms of their loved ones, would the President Muhammadu Buhari administration deny reaping some political benefits from the feat? Is there anything that can be compared to the electrifying atmosphere of last Sunday where one of the parents excitedly explained how his pregnant daughter was abducted on that fateful night? How soothing was it seeing Mrs. Rilwanu John strapping a long-lost daughter to her back with shouts of ecstasy? Was it ennobling listening to these girls as they kept on praising the government for the resilience shown in negotiating their freedom? And has the Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili-led BBOG not justified their position that a narrative of hopelessness can be turned around if one focuses on the goal instead of the listening to the distracting rants of negative voices? Didn’t the President feel special when he met with the joyous parents on Wednesday in Aso Rock? And was that not a nice feeling even if the BBOG group is new being tactically avoided like a plague? Well, that’s a shame.

When other things give one the jitters about a country on the cusp of failure, stories like that of the Chibok 21 keep the flame of regeneration burning. In a country where the sacrilegious has become the norm, Chibok opens a vista of possibilities. At a time of benumbing happenstances when state chief executives latched on to immunity clause to pervert the course of justice; at a season when the secret service break down walls at the residents of serving judges in the search for incriminating evidence of graft; at a period when the President and his wife portray themselves as clearly not in sync on how best to captain the ship of state and at a time when key government officials are being accused of offering billions of Naira as bribes to buy justice, the release of the Chibok 21 might just be the fillip we all need to keep our humanity on track. Or are there other things to cheer about in times like this? Is it the incredulous bold face being shown by those who should cover their heads in shame for turning the country into one huge bazaar where graft taunts us back with billions of laughter? Or is it not confounding that someone accused of collecting billions of arms funds to run an election that brought him back to office has blamed it all on a determined effort to smear him by all means possible? How, if I may ask, does that justify the shameless act? But then, why do I always forget that this is Nigeria where shame always gets a red carpet treatment?

It’s official. The ruling All Progressives Congress, a political marriage of convenience for strange political bedfellows, has learnt nothing from the tragedy that consumed the Peoples Democratic Party. The rousing success which emblematized its status as the government of the day has become its greatest burden. It is one of the greatest ironies of history that this government, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, is not just winking in the dark but also regaling in epileptic fixations as to what to do with the power craved with maddening gusto. Put bluntly, the APC, in less than two years, is a study in bewilderment. It is sick and in need of a quick fix for it to avoid a likely record as Nigeria’s ruling party with the shortest span or tenure. Some months back, one would have thought this was a party that would pull the country out of the doldrums of retrogression and fast track unrivalled development in all facets of our economy. Not that the signs of a positive outing were not there in the beginning. That was when a lot of hope was placed on Buhari and his lieutenants to drive that process of visible change. That belief couldn’t have come at a better time with Buhari saying the right words at the most inauspicious moment in our history.

Unfortunately, the honeymoon lasted just few months. Things started falling apart not just over the scramble for leadership seats in the National Assembly but the negative vibration also reared its ugly heads with the pettiness that the leading founders of the party treated the matter. Ego took over commonsense and a staccato of selfish voices of ‘reason’ ensured that the APC now swims in its own self-inflicted maladies. Well, it wouldn’t have mattered much if there had been positive signs from the center that the boiling water wouldn’t spill over and rubbish all the scented promises of change that the government vowed to engender. Today, no one is sure whether the President is running the manifesto of his party or a hidden agenda tucked under his Babariga whilst taking his oath of allegiance on May 29, 2015. Out there on the streets, people wonder if this was the change they sacrificed an arm and a leg for. Could it be?

If I may ask, where, in the APC agenda for change, did it promise to sell key viable assets of the country in order to raise money to fund the 2016 budgets or ameliorate the pains of a recession that has gripped us by the neck? Regardless of the denial by the Presidency, any keen political observer about how key government’s firms were sold in the past to lackeys who later stripped the firms of assets before dumping the carcasses, cannot afford to sit idly as government perfects another plan to sell off some of the nation’s assets. No matter what former President Olusegun Obasanjo says, there is no single evidence to continue with this madness of selling off key properties in time of temporary gloom. At least, we do know that none of the major assets sold by Obasanjo to the so-called investors during his tenure can be said to be doing well. With the exception of Nicon-Noga Hilton which was able to survive a shaky start post sale, can Obasanjo give a thumb up for the sales of NICON Insurance or even the Ajaokuta Steel Mill among many others? What has become of these once-thriving even if corrupt-laden national assets after they were handed over to the briefcase businessmen who were merely stooges for the real faces behind the purchase? Why, for crying out loud, must we cut the head to put a final stop to a troubling headache?

It is not enough for the government to tell us that no concrete decision has been taken on the suggestions in some quarters that certain national assets should be sold off to enable the government raise funds. We need a firm reassurance that the Buhari government would not fall victim to this enticing trap. Of course, it offers little assurance when newspapers quoted ‘reliable sources’ in The Presidency as offering strict conditionalities for the sale of these assets. That is balderdash. We know the times are hard and it is increasingly becoming difficult for the government to meet its financial obligations. What this calls for is for the authorities to think outside the box instead of falling ‘mugu’ to the elite’s conspiracy of stripping it of commonsense. If we continue selling our collective inheritance at every sign of recession, the Nigerian nation would be wreathed in poverty in due course. It is inevitable that a time would come when there would be nothing to sell again. A pointer to that was painted by a national daily which portrayed President Buhari bearing a tray, containing viable national assets, on his head. The message was poignantly unmistakable. There goes Mr. President, the hawker, looking for the highest bidder to take possession of them. Call it editorializing if you like but that is not a cool picture of man who came into power with so much expectations and promises of bequeathing a better legacy.

Perhaps, no one captures the angst in the land better than my friend and diehard supporter of the President, Olurotimi Anifowose, who wrote this on his Facebook wall: “When I voted for PMB in 2015 as the President of Nigeria, I did that based on my strong conviction that he was a better candidate among those that contested. I didn’t do so because of any party affiliation since I am not a card-carrying party member. Also, I didn’t do that to mortgage my inalienable right to comment on policies that I may see to be inimical to the wellbeing of our great nation. So, I want to tell you what I didn’t vote for: I didn’t vote for sales of our national assets to fund profligacy that is associated with the political system that we run in Nigeria. I didn’t vote for rhetorical governance that is laced with pontification without corresponding level of seriousness. I didn’t vote for discordant governmental statements from the ministers and officials. I didn’t vote for a campaign against corruption with much air without completeness. So, while you tell me about how we need to support PMB, be guided that our support for his administration would not be diminished when we offer constructive criticism of some of his administration’s policies.”

On Olurotimi’s words do I anchor my next question: Will President Buhari sell our national patrimony to the same hawks that put us in this eternal agony? If indeed the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas company fetched billions of dollars in the last few months, why should any right-thinking government sell it off instead of putting in place a workable mechanism to sustain the growth? Why has a company that lays the golden egg in this era of dwindling oil revenue suddenly become attractive to some select moneybags in our midst with the effective backing of the leadership of the Nigerian Senate, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and some ministers in Buhari’s cabinet who have chosen to speak with both sides of the mouth? Could it be a matter of sheer coincidence that this issue has become a matter of national discourse with the clinical and timed contributions on the need to sell by some self-enlightened interests? How come these same interests have not offered advice on how to buy back the national assets that were earlier sold and are now effectively under intensive care? Like someone asked, if this is about patriotism and the ability to turn moribund firms around, why have these persons not indicated interest in buying into our perennially underperforming rail system, Ajaokuta steel complex, all federal highways in Nigeria or even our moribund refineries? If it is that easy to rekindle hope in some of these national assets that were sold off, one wonders why the respectable Daily Times of Nigeria and NITEL are still groping for survival in our business climate.

For sure, I do not envy the President. The buck, as they say, stops on his table. He is fortunate to have a deep well, swarming with ideas to sift from. How many national assets did the American or British governments have to sell off before swimming their ways out of recession? Thankfully, the same Senate that flew the kite on the imperative of selling these national assets has decided to chew its shame by cautioning the President against any haste in selling the assets. Coming from a Senate that has spent more time on recess than on discussing critical national issues, one can only hope that it would also play its role when the President finally sends the Emergency Economic Stimulus Bill to it for consideration. It is also heartwarming that the Senate, like many other concerned Nigerians, has deemed it fit to warn the President that: “a sensitive issue, like the sale of national assets, should be approached from a commitment to protecting the common patrimony of Nigerians by preventing the assets from falling into the hands of sharks, assets strippers and cannibals while also guarding against the fueling of further inequities in the society and polity.”

All it requires is for the President to dissect this message and ask: who exactly are these sharks, assets strippers and cannibals of our collective patrimony in the era of change? If he does, maybe he would find them among those ogling around him, nestling him to continue making the mistakes that may end up perching him atop the ladder of Nigeria’s greatest mistake in a post-military era. The good thing about all this is that the choice is his to make. So, what would it be, my dear President?

Come to think of it, the speed at which this government of President Muhammadu Buhari has been fiddling with the luck that has sustained it in times past is benumbing. It appears no one, in Aso Rock Villa, remembers that patience is not an infinitely elastic commodity anywhere in the world. When a suffering, yet understanding populace gets pushed to the wall, the natural instinct is not only to fight but fight dirty. When this romance started some months back, no one would have imagined that we would be singing a sorrowful dirge this early on the journey to nationhood.  By the way, who were those yamheads flying the kite of another increase in the price of petroleum products at a time this? And let no one tell me that those testing the waters did it without the support of some heartless fellows in the corridors of power. That would be absolute balderdash. We are no longer strangers to how the cabal in that sector works and this latest treachery is not an exception.

How did it happen that, barely a year and four months into a four-year tenure, the man who wowed us with the populist statement of being “friend to everybody and friend to nobody” canticle has taken a 360-degree turnaround? Could it be the same Buhari who vowed to leave no rock unturned in his search for the abducted Chibok girls during the pre-election period that stone-facedly rebuffed a meeting with members of the BringBackOurGirls group last Tuesday? It is, indeed, laughable, worrisome and sad that some ‘arrangee’ crowd would hastily be packaged as a “pro-Buhari supporters’ group” with the sole aim of barring the Oby Ezekwesili-led peaceful group from meeting or pressurising the President to walk his talk. Even former President Goodluck Jonathan would giggle in stupefaction on hearing this piece of sorry tale! I would have been shocked If the police had not played the usual despicable role of asking for a permit from the protesters. If they did so under Jonathan, why should things be different under a President who had chosen to shove off the ladder through which he climbed, with majestic piety, onto the presidential pedestal? Now, the newly-confirmed Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has found a new project to handle as a bootlicker—the Chibok protesters. He is the new musician in town, singing the enough is enough song. Now, I guffaw.

I am yet to fathom why it is difficult for the President and his men to understand the deep mess in which this country has found itself. Statistics show that more Nigerians have lost jobs in the last one year than in the last 16 years of the much-criticized reign of the Peoples Democratic Party. The unemployment rate grows with geometrical progression – at a speed that should scare genuine leaders and all those who still earn some sort of a living. The silent killer called depression creeps into the lives of many while some are barely trudging on with the hope that this recession would not consume them. Yet while people die of hunger, government is far from convincing itself about the severity of what millions are going through daily. Those who couldn’t stand the heat resort to suicide. The other day in a suburb of Lagos, it was a young man that hung himself with a rope in an uncompleted building simply because he could not pay for a one-room apartment in his ghetto area of Aboru. Then, in Abuja, another young man reportedly committed suicide after an endless wait for the payment of monies owed him by a Federal agency. There abound many unreported cases of fatal deaths due to the harsh economic conditions. We cannot begin to recall the increasing number of tragedies that have befallen some homes including how Nigerians have now resorted to the self-help of stealing food items from homes. It has never been this bad. Families now scavenge for food while many able-bodied men have resorted to begging. The reality is that some persons are already in a recession even before the government accepted that fact.

And then, you ask: what is the Buhari government doing about it? Someone said the other day that this government is needlessly paranoid with the past administration so much so that it has become uninspiringly clueless. Other countries that suffered recession did not sit on their hands and inflict more pains on the citizens. What they did was to inspire confidence and create a sense of community with a bonding that reawakened national pride. Here, what we have is an ebbing patriotism and a disjointed centre riddled with suppressed feelings of mutual suspicion. We have not only politicised this recession, we equally underestimate its potential to wreak the gravest damage on our collective humanity.

When they say there is hunger in the land, some people think it is just the inability to fill our stomachs with food. No, it is deeper than that. And that is where this government is getting it wrong by asking people to go the farms. The hard truth is that farming will never get us out of this self-inflicted famine just like the oil boom has left us in gloom. For as long as we maintain our voracious appetite for consuming things we never manufacture, we will remain in the doldrums. For as long as we have a civil service system that is creatively indolent but stupendously rich, we will forever live this deceit. And for as long as President Buhari believes he still has the unquestioning backing of that vociferous crowd that voted him into power last year, he would continue to take those damning steps that would only lead him to doom. He may not believe it. But the truth is that what he has behind him these days is nothing but a band of hired praise-singers—–the type that tried to confront the Oby Ezekwesili group the other day.

I want to assume that the same crowd could be behind those beating this fresh drum of fuel price increase. If that is the case, then the President’s arch enemies must be living right under his nostrils without him perceiving the putrid odour. In the long history of fuel price increase in this country, not one Nigerian leader, military or civilian, enjoyed the kind of goodwill extended to Buhari when he removed subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit earlier in the year. In the past, the streets would have been lit with the fires of violence. But for Buhari, it appeared he pulled much wool over the eyes of the organised labour and the entire nation. We all took it as a painful pill that we needed to swallow so that this eternally limping country can walk again. Today, that decision still hurts millions of people in countless ways. They just bite their pain in silence, hoping that things would soon get better.

And so, it would be a tragedy of unimaginable proportion if anyone thinks the best way to compensate an already sapped people is to inflict another misery of fuel price increase on them. I just don’t know why they think they can push their luck this far without dire consequences. If this government can, for once, be truthful to itself, it would accept the fact that it has done nothing other than to sing from the songs of lamentation since its inauguration on May 29, 2015. It promised mass recruitment of the unemployed but that remains a project in the making. It speaks of diversification but that train is annoyingly slow. It is in a battle with elements that looted the treasury in the past while fresh, refined looters take over the space. All it has done is to blame its failings on the sleaze of the past as if it lacks the vision to create its own wealth by managing the little it can generate. With falling crude prices in the international market, it beggars belief that the Buhari government has failed to exploit a peaceful means of interfacing with the militants of the Niger Delta in exchange for a steady and safe delivery of the product. What the needless confrontation has caused us is a loss of over one million barrels of crude daily according to the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo. Do we know what that means to this sinking economy? Does anyone know the ripple effect this is having on our fortunes as a people?

Well, in case they don’t know or they have simply refused to see the full picture, here is a glimpse of what we are currently facing as captured in a statement by the Trade Union Congress: “Businesses are shutting down, leading to millions of job losses, which of course have accentuated increased cases of crime and other vices. The economy is already on its knees, and it is our thinking that the priority of government now should be how to salvage the situation through other creative and resourceful avenues, such as: downwardly reviewing the cost of governance, creating friendly business environment and jobs, diversifying the economy, setting up an economic team that would creatively fashion out modalities to navigate the stormy waters of recession. If persons in government feel our pains as it claims to do, then the news that people are already exchanging their children for bags of rice should prick their conscience.”

Thunder may not have struck when this government broke all the rules and lured us to buying PMS at N145 per litre some months back. Nigerians bent backwards then. This time, I just hope the President would decipher the handwriting on the wall and restrain the urge to press the button that may bring the roof crashing down on his head. It is not too late to put a call through to Jonathan and ask him when the shoes started hurting him!