We do not know the exact date of this historic festival neither are we in the know of its end. This festival of inflation and hunger, unemployment and job cuts, liquidation and crimes, and mental health crisis and despair. There’s something savagely beautiful about celebrating our misery, about refusing to see it as a danger, preferring to call it a mere “word” since it does not threaten the existence of those in the political house – elected politicians and their allies in and out of the corridor of power.
Some thought the decision to celebrate our misery was taken on our behalf by our our foreign-sounding Minister of Finance, Ms. Kemi Adeosun. It’s a fact that she called the decline in our Gross Domestic Product by -2.06 per cent a mere word, and it’s also a fact that she has not told us why a decline in one sector – which contributed only 15% of the GDP, according to her professional colleagues – has resulted in a recession.
This is somewhat strange for an administration that claims to have been diversifying, contradicting reports that our non-oil exports have dropped by 43%.
Adeosun’s denial of our threatening reality is a familiar trend amongst our governing elite. Reacting to the ranking of Nigeria as one of the five poorest countries in the world by the World Bank, the President Goodluck Jonathan said, “Nigeria is not a poor country. Nigerians are the most travelled people. There is no country you go that you will not see Nigerians.” And then, “I visited Kenya recently on a state visit and there was a programme for Nigerian and Kenyan business men to interact and the number of private jets that landed in Nairobi that day was a subject of discussion in Kenyan media for over a week.”
This disheartening yardstick of measuring poverty was actually our President’s. So it didn’t come as a surprise reading the similarly elitist delusion of Mr. Bayo Onanuga, a journalist whose class suicide as a firebrand critic of elitism and military brutality to a former senatorial candidate and now head of the government-owned News Agency of Nigeria. He pandered to Jonathan’s thinking, that the luxurious lifestyles of beneficiaries of the nation’s most corrupt class represent the realities of a blacksmith in Potiskum, a roadside Yam seller in Ogbomosho and a Vulcaniser in Onitsha.
To Mr. Onanuga, a text message from his London-bound daughter – “Daddy, my flight is filled up o” – was a confirmation of his belief that reports of economic hardship in Nigeria were untrue, exaggerated. His denial of the threatened existence of citizens who may go to bed tonight without any means is a style of engagement also adopted by other government appointees, all understandably immune to hunger.
On various social media platforms, other outspoken political appointees have been publishing statistics that not repel our reality but attempt to create an imaginary paradise for Nigerians. Even the President’s media managers seem to believe their bogus statistics and grandstanding on Twitter will redeem the growing inflation and hunger nationwide. But it’s even their style of communicating these alternate realities that, confrontational and combative, that may multiply the army of displeased citizens. It’s unfortunate that our friends who used to be critical of the government suddenly are now quick to say to say, “You guys are too critical” on finally jumping the ship.
The trappings of a political powers have eaten deep into the conscience of our former civic allies who have become even worse than the establishment they once antagonised. Instead of delivering on their roles of advising their principals, they mislead them, giving them illusions of good performance and misleading public perception.
The politicians are not doing us a favour. They are there to serve as our servants, which is why their service is renewable at intervals. They are not patching roads and rehabilitating structures with their personal resources. It’s what they are elected and overly pampered to do.
Praising a government, to me, means recognising moments it fulfils electoral promises. But making what an elected politician does with our taxes look like a humanitarian service is sycophancy. I assess the government critically because, as unaligned citizens, the elected politicians are meant to be our employees.
What’s happening in Nigeria today is, when a critic points to a snake the politicians were given power to hire able hands to kill, he’s asked to tell the government how to kill it. And this, unfortunately, is the mentality of the “Ran ka ya dade” brigade stationed to defend our politicians. The critic highlights shortcomings to get the government’s think-tank ticking. You can’t be in possession of a fire extinguisher and ask the man who alerts you to fire, to quench it for you!
If a leader expects more from critics after being shown a flaw in his idea, he’s either incompetent or his lieutenants are due for the sack. The similarity between a critic and a politician is, both have ideas. The difference is what matters. Only one has access to the Treasury.
But since we are being asked to celebrate this severe economic downturn, let me kindly wish Nigerians who frequent Aso Villa a happy recession. May God save us from us!
