As Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo mustered a pious parallel to Nigeria’s cult worship of deviltry and vile. But despite his affectation of innate rebellion against the hateful and vile, Nigeria drowns in the flood of his expendable truths.
Hate speech is terrorism, according to Osinbajo. Thus while his boss, President Muhammadu Buhari, enjoyed medical tourism abroad, and ‘poor’ Nigerians cowed from a vicious health system, the hatred and savage antics of separatists from the north and southeast, Osinbajo ignited the dying embers of his government’s resolve, into a fierce fire.
As Acting President, Osinbajo spat fire in measured cadence. Perhaps he meant to scald, among other ills, Biafran separatist and hatemonger, Nnamdi Kanu and his kindred spirits in the northern Arewa youth group.
Perhaps not. But when Osinbajo declared that those found to be promoting hate speech would be treated as terrorists, discerning folk at home and abroad, rejoiced that it was only a matter of time before Nigeria’s merchants of odium and grief, scalded in then Acting President, Osinbajo’s anti-hate speech inferno.
But for all his bluster, his fire is tame; like the random politician’s, it will scald no one, burn no one, except human integers beneath the nation’s sociopolitical hierarchies.
“The Federal Government has today drawn the line on hate speech. Hate speech is a species of terrorism. Terrorism as it is defined popularly is the unlawful use of violence or intimidation against individuals or groups especially for political ends,” ýsaid Osinbajo, at a National Economic Council (NEC) retreat on national security at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa.
To an assemblage of state governors, ministers and other stakeholders, said: “As I have said, we’ve drawn a line against hate speech, it will not be tolerated, it will be taken as an act of terrorism and all of the consequences will follow it.”
Sadly, Osinbajo’s pronouncement, like Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade, reverberates like a rat’s sigh under the claws of a wild cat. The anti-terrorism law, like the All Progressives Congress’s ‘Change’ mantra, resonates as the triumph of noise over bite; the elevation of will from juvenile fantasy to eternal hysterics. It’s the paroxysm of mind over matter, often likable to the wishful thoughts of a cripple at the sight of a newly broken stallion.
Osinbajo said that the intimidation of a population by words is an act of terrorism, that the APC administration intends to curtail. He noted that the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011 (as amended), defined terrorism as an act which is deliberately done with malice which may seriously harm or damage a country or seriously intimidate a population.
Such pronouncement could be considered noble and perhaps valiant, in saner clime and under more promising considerations. But this is Nigeria, a nation where politicians pay lip service to ‘change.’
Like his principal, Osinbajo lives oblivious to the miseries and deaths of Nigeria’s hopeless, impoverished, vulnerable divide. Indigent husbands and wives, the young and elderly, toddlers and newborns, die excruciatingly by affliction of hate governance and abhorrent leadership epitomised by the incumbent ruling class.
Many more are falling off or getting bumped off the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s wagon of ‘Change’ via deathly roads, unemployment, terrorism and poverty. Sadly, Osinbajo, Buhari and their feeble opposition in the PDP, live oblivious to these tragic realities.
Both men, despite their overhyped “body language” which allegedly abhors corruption, have developed a knack for platitudinous chant and sound bites; Buhari vowed to wipe out corruption and Osinbajo vowed as Acting President, to treat hate speech as terrorism.
Yet they conveniently ignore the inconvenient truths and symbolism that insinuates duplicity in their will. Both men are unable to weed out corrupt elements in their cabinet. Their administration lacks ingenuity, ethical and intellectual capacity to resolve the country’s electricity, security, unemployment and energy conundrum.
Even if they reclaim power in 2019, Osinbajo, his boss, Buhari and cabinet, won’t resolve the nation’s electricity, security and unemployment woes.
This is attributable to lack of will, inventiveness, moral certitude and proficiency of their administration. Thus the rot persists on their watch: Nigeria’s road transport network is in the worst state ever and there are no concrete plans to establish a functional and dependable rail system, road, air and sea transportation among others.
It remains extremely impossible for children of ‘political nobodies’ and commoners to access quality education, loans and self-empowerment provisions touted by Osinbajo and his boss, as part of their grand plot to combat unemployment.
Persistent ritual killings, by Badoo gang and company, still persists across the country and Nigeria pulses dangerously with hospital corridors of death. General hospitals and other primary care health centres (PHCs) are poorly staffed and underfunded. Little wonder Buhari had to embark on medical tourism abroad, in flagrant contradiction of the APC’s mantra of ‘change.’
The APC leadership is unable to prosecute public officers perceived to be corrupt and answerable to scandalous charges, according to the EFCC.
While Osinbajo mustered his anti-hate speech philosophy, was he unaware of hateful governance perpetrated by the APC and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leadership across the country?
Ogun State still looms like a gothic platitude of pain and death from its transit townships but the “Gateway State” remains Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s bower of bliss. There, in his stately Eden, he lives immune and insensate to the ravages of ill-will and pent-up fury tearing the natives apart from inside out.
Amosun has a blast inside the Government House at Oke Mosan everyday simply because he does not have to stir and retire to bed wondering if he would die along the deadly stretch of Lagos-Abeokuta highway, particularly at the spots where innocent children, mothers, fathers – dependants and breadwinners – die like stray fowls, accidentally or by installments, in his severely cratered, administrative landmine.
It’s the same rot across 36 States of the federation. And this writer’s summation is amply substantiated by prominent chieftain of Osinbajo’s APC, Senator Dino Melaye, whose controversial recall was ‘unsurprisingly’ stalled in more controversial circumstances.
“Unfortunately, we the leaders, myself inclusive, have failed this nation and have failed the younger generation, myself inclusive.
“The reason why we are where we are today is because there is a disconnect between leadership and followership. Once there is no trust between the followership and the leadership, it will definitely have a negative concomitant effect on the economy, and every other facet of our national life.
‘’What we should fix is democracy; Democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people.
“What we have is greediocracy; government of the greedy by the greedy, for the greedy. ‘We the leaders want to win elections at all cost, so we spend money to win elections.
“The followership also is greedy, they accept money to vote. So, head or tail, there is a need for attitudinal change and this is affecting everything,” admitted Melaye.
It would be lovely and humane of Nigeria’s Vice President, Osinbajo, and his boss, President Buhari, to also treat hate governance as an act of terrorism, making sure that “all of the consequences will follow it.”
