THIS article is one that has been challenging in being put together. The reason(s) for this will be clearly inferred from the text. In summary, this difficulty stemmed from careful consideration of the strategies adopted by noisemakers and willing slaves that do not sensibly and objectively view issues before opining silly condemnation of other people’s opinion based on wrong or warped premise, in support of their shallow-rooted thoughts and preferred politician(s). It also has to do with those roguishly interested in unobjective application of other peoples’ views in criticising their current enemies in politics. Of course, you should be getting it; we are talking about the ‘fear’ of dirty politics. This type of politics is a difficult terrain to traverse but we will continue to share our opinion, objectively, to the best of our ability. What are we trying to say here? It has to do with the current federal government’s probe of financial offences alleged to have been committed by individuals who worked with the immediate past federal government administration whose tenure expired on 29th May, 2023; the current one, from the same political “party”, took over power on that day. On the surface, this action by the current central government in Nigeria may be commendable as long as it leads to recovery, and reliable prevention of “re-looting”, of stolen public wealth.
Nonetheless, our experience, over the years, has helped, and is still helping, us in not being vulnerable to being easily carried away by past and present governmental vindictiveness and propaganda. As Nigerians ask, colloquially, in Pidgin: “Na today”? We answer: “No be today, e don tey.” Unfortunately indeed, nothing should be unexpected in Nigeria, a country that has been turned into a huge joke! It is no more a place where government is trusted and taken seriously by the governed! There are continuous disconnecting policies between the former and latter. This widening gulf between the two groups is not accidental; it is deliberately designed and sustained! Public offices are more like private business. Government has long been personalised in Nigeria; so, it is easy to carry out political vendetta by holders of political power. This is a reason why politicians are ready to ‘kill’ to get to power! To be sincere, this is not unique to any group of people in power, at least, since 1999. It is a collective tragedy. Instead of building organically-backed strong institutions, Africans, (Nigerians, specifically), have been building [wicked and useless] strongmen whose interest(s) is/are anchored, only, on “self-first and self-alone” ideology! We have just rephrased and used part of the words from Barack Obama – the 44th United States of America’s president. As we earlier-hinted, different federal and state governments, since 1999, have engaged in several probes and investigations of alleged financial recklessness concerning those in previous governments. However, nothing significant has been achieved from those fruitless endeavours. For the discerning, it was, and still is, clear that the fruitlessness of those endeavours was predetermined.
The insincerity behind the probes by past governments and uselessness of their (probes’) outcomes to the generality of Nigerians are the challenges some of us have with the current probes we alluded to above. After all, Nigerian politicians belong to the same class. To some of us, these probes are simple extension of mere political campaigns and viable means by which political vendetta(s) is/are carried out by those in power. We will not mention names of those being probed so as to not sound as one doing a hatchet job. Certainly, nothing good for the public will come out of these investigations except the usual media trial that dies off with time. Nevertheless, in order to also not sound like “opposition” politicians, we will give the government the benefit of the doubt that the needful and rightful will be done this time around. Regrettably (perhaps, it is too early in the day), we have not seen any difference in the way the current central and state governments conduct their ‘businesses’ when compared with what has been happening before now. As we always say, the prevalent style of governance in Nigeria is not unique to an individual or group; it is part of “[an] ambushing, entrapping, oppressive, repressive, exclusive, discriminatory and fraudulent anti-democratic shaky superstructure erected since [before] the 15th January, 1966.”
Nigeria’s governance system has been battered continuously and left porous for decades by occupants of various public offices. The country’s resources are seen as that to be plundered. Nigeria is now far worse in performance than 1947 when the correct description of being “a mere geographical expression” was given to it by Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo (1909-1987). Nigeria has regressed and is still regressing. This is what the current crop of political ‘leaders’ are luxuriating in. They are aware that many Nigerians, owing to various types of poverty, are prone to collective amnesia; they easily forget yesterday once they are given ‘current issues’ to argue among themselves while serious damage is being done, underground, to their collective patrimony. This has been their strategy. We always marvel seeing Nigerians eulogising the same people that have inflicted massive poverty on them. This, they do, while fighting themselves! They have been successfully divided, using primordial factors, to continuously achieve the age-long agenda of the same oppressive political overlords. These overlords, in the different camps, are friends (they are not enemies in the real sense) only that they must struggle to get to power while those eulogising them are their stock-in-trade. It is that simple for a sensible person. In order to not go too far from our point, what we are saying, here, is that recent Nigerian political history has taught us to not expect anything beneficial to the “common man” from politically-motivated probes and investigations by those in power, concerning financial malfeasance, against their perceived enemies.
This is simply because they are all the same people that always come in contact with shared interests. Consequently, what is/are deliberately planted in the traditional and social media by those in power is/are not the true state of thing(s). Apart from this, (even if true) they were planted to serve as distraction to the people who have time to waste. We have seen all these before. They are like old wine in seemingly new bottles. For us, our opinion will only change when those probes and investigations lead to successful prosecutions and convictions in courts of competent jurisdiction. For now, we consider discussing them as a time-wasting distraction. We definitely want this country to work, for us all, but we are not interested in being engaged in inanities and lies. As we maintained in another intervention, the current central government, like its predecessors, has started on an inglorious note of “promise and fail”. So, why should it be believed and trusted? Those in power at the local, state and federal levels should be told, loud and clear, that Nigerians are hungry. Anyway, we will be watching the proceedings. Nigerians, too, should wake up and ask vital questions for majority’s good! We are wishing Nigerians a productive 2024CE.
- Erakhrumen teaches at the Department of Forest Resources and Wildlife Management, University of Benin.
