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Nigerians continue to wallow in poverty as life continues to be nightmarish. In the present day Nigeria, the news is always scaring. Jobs are steadily lost on daily basis. Bread is not within the reach of an average Nigerian household anymore.
Tooth paste, bathing soap, cream and petroleum jelly are now luxuries exclusive only to those who can afford them. This isn’t an exaggeration. The more you relate with people around you the more you interface with the grotesque reality that people go through just to get few morsels into their bellies.
Things are tough. Yet the major headache of our President is how to reinstate democracy in Niger Republic and get a handshake from some certain foreign powers who matter most to him. Let’s thank God that the lawmakers flatly rejected that wicked and thoughtless request to plunge our country into war.
If that request had been granted, it would have been political hara-kiri, if not political “bulablue.” Without war, we are already in “bulaba”, what if in war?
Happenings in Niger—and Nigeria’s attempt to poke her nose therein—has diverted the attention of many suffering masses away from the promised palliative that may take eternity to arrive. Committees upon committees have been “working” day and night on palliative. When shall the dying masses get this palliative? The “good” news is that our president has created jobs for those who are qualified. I believe he will create more. When the president was asked about his staff size and the number of his ministers which outnumbers any known ministerial list in Nigerian history, his response gives common Nigerians a sense of hopelessness in addition to the prevailing hopelessness.
According to the NLC president Joe Ajaero, Tinubu argued that hiring numerous Senior Advisers and other aids should be viewed from the angle of job creation! Little wonder that many “jobless” former governors and ex ministers were giving ministerial appointments to reduce the rate of unemployment and joblessness. Now that the president’s industry has produced forty eight ministers and many aides, who will get the next job offer in President Tinubu’s industry? If this is the President’s idea of job creation, it means jobless Nigerians should be patient till the end of his tenure.
In my article last week, I advised Nigerian lawmakers that law-making is a serious job and that it should be given the seriousness it deserves. Nigerians are not to be ridiculed in the name of law-making. But while poor Nigerians await the Senate President to tender apology for that verbal mishap which popularized “let the poor breathe”, poor Nigerians are made to know that they do not really matter. As if to say; “die if you will die, it is our turn to chop,” Senator Akpabio again irked the masses who are literally crying and dying of hunger. Addressing his colleagues who will be embarking on their recess during the plenary on Tuesday, the Senate President said “In order to enable all of us to enjoy our holidays, a token has been sent to our various accounts by the Clerk of the National Assembly.
In yet another episode of skit which the National Assembly is now infamous for, the Senate President immediately withdrew his statement when he was told he was on live television. Here him: “I withdraw that statement. In order to allow you to enjoy your holiday, the Senate President has sent prayers to your mailboxes to assist you to go on a safe journey and return.” We should pity ourselves as a country that these are those we elected to lead us. To say the thought of the masses is the least thing in their thought is still an understatement. Well, there are good ones among them.
Many complained about the ministerial nominees which just completed their take-a-bow-and-go ritual. It was said that, except for the very few, they are the people of yesterday who midwifed the delivery of the present hardship that continues to suck our blood. This is true. Honestly I don’t expect a better ministerial list. With this current leadership, it is all about politics, continuation, and power. It is not about governance.
The ministerial list is said to be a compensation list. So, what is it supposed to be? That was why I burst into laughter, though a melancholic one, when the news first broke out that Nigeria is set to wage war against Niger to install democracy. Do you give what you don’t have? What has Nigeria got right to think it can set another country aright? Are we not afraid of the looming doom that those that are currently ruling us are the worst and the most controversial among us?
The President is struggling to legitimatize his presidency. Yet he surrounds himself with those whose dirty records are not hidden from the public. He fought tooth and nail to have a Senate President that has serious negative public perception due to the litany of corruption cases hovering over him. As if to tell the public that nothing good should be expected, the President again fought tooth and nail to make sure that integrity is completely buried and out of the lexicon of his presidency. How? Of all politicians, he made the man whose dollarized and odourised “Agbada’s”/“Babbar Riga’s” pocket refuses to stop stinking. Who did this to APC?
In an article titled “Steal! Loot! Mercilessly Milk Nigeria! You will be Relevant in its Politics” which I wrote a year ago, I argued that “In present-day Nigeria, one needs to have stinking records of corruption to be relevant in its politics. The current chairman of the All People’s Congress (APC), Abdullahi Adamu, is yet to clear himself of the charges of stealing public funds estimated at N15 billion. This, perhaps, qualified him for the position. Many of those who were considered looters and enemies of the country under the previous People’s Democratic Party’s government are the major drivers in the present regime. Hasn’t it been said that when you join the ruling party all your sins are forgiven? The previous and the current government are only different in name.”
With the man with dollarized pocket as the new APC chairman (another Abdullahi), has anything changed? Perhaps for worse. This same man, ex Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, explained that people accused one Maryam Shetty whose name was dropped from the ministerial list for lack of integrity and experience. If Shetty lacks integrity, is there any video evidence against her that she lined or stuffed her pocket (I mean to say her bra) with dollars in any public office? Like the respected ThisDay Columnist, Olusegun Adeniyi, rightly observed in his column titled “A Vote for Maryam Shetty”: “If the negative things that have been written and said about the former Kano governor in the past four years really matter to those who dropped Shetty, Ganduje would not be in the position he now occupies.” But the reality is that he is in the position today because he has the required dirty credentials.
Do your credentials pass the corruption worthiness test? If yes, expect the next job in our president’s industry. With this caliber of people around the President, his success shall be a miraculous miracle; not just a miracle. If the President wants to succeed, he should fight tooth and nail to surround himself with better people.
Finally, the Prophet SAW said in an authentic hadith reported by Abu Daud; “If Allah wills to do good to a ruler, He appoints for him a truthful adviser, who will remind him if he forgets and help him if he remembers. And if Allah wills otherwise for him, He appoints for him a bad adviser who will not remind him if he forgets, nor will help him if he remembers.” May this golden hadith inspire the President to do the needful.
Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com
