Nigeria: Animal Farm revisited, by Fidel Alow-Gold Ogar

The great works of George Orwell, real name Eric Blair on “Animal Farm” and “Nineteen four”, must ever remain the best classical works of fiction in the memories of every leader, the led, scholars and those in the literary cycles.
Both works exhaustively talked about leadership question and even finding answers to the probing question underpinning the conundrum.
However those books are acrid work of bitter satires based on pervasive, ingrain-selfish and despotic showmanship of leaders on the horseback and saddles of power and the consequences of their actions and inactions.
In writing those terrible books, Orwell succinctly succeeded in importing the setting and character of his great works from the south of England in wretched Hertforshire of those days to Nigeria, the most populous black nation of the world as the “New Animal Farm”.
Every character depiction attempts to explain in lucid and microscopic details the actors both in animals and humans on the Nigeria political scene in particular and Africa and the world in general; outside what Orwell originally thought about the Russia revolution under Stalin’s dictatorship in Europe.
Based on my bird view’s eyes of the work, the two groups of people in the book, especially Animal Farm, represent the Nigerian society: the upper class and the lower class also classed as the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and or still the haves and the haves-not.
The first class represents the group of the Napoleon, Old Major, Donkeys, Cat, Snowball (the propaganda minister), Pig and Moses, etc, are the very few Nigerian leaders that have access to the loot and treasury of the land.
They are the ones that drain the milk of the cow of the nation unquestioned.
The second group belongs to the old-Benjamin and the Great Boxer of living memory.
This group are only aptly called the “salt of the earth” by any definition and symbolism.
They are the ordinary, suffering people of the Nigerian nation, the flotsams and the jetsams on whose shoulders lie Nigeria’s dream and hope of the present and future generations even though they are now regarded as the scum of the earth.
With the wrist of sociopolitical-economic power from the imperial majesty of the colonial rule in 1960 and the subsequent Christianization of the nation’s name by the girlfriend of Lord Fredrick Luggard in Flora Shaw and the find amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Protectorates in 1914 to a single entity called Nigeria, the story had never been the same again.
To worsen the matter, with disease of acquisitive society which drives people to untamed greed, ungovernable ambition that came with capitalism and democracy, the nation’s citizenry became divided into the two groups of peoples discussed earlier in Orwell’s work as Nigeria remains under the two classes without the middle class after the 1960s.
Beyond mere rhetorics, by October 1, 2018, Nigeria as a nation state would be 58 years with 14 captains (some dead and some still alive) who had and still steer the rocky boat of the nation’s leadership.
But of the 14 playmakers, six of them have been of military background while the remainder precisely, eight from the lot were at a time democratically elected, while still, only two of them from the military clan succeeded in becoming democratically elected president of the nation since 1999 to 2015.
Without doubt, all the leaders analyzed here have out rightly failed to carry the nation and her people to the land of Canaan or the so-called world of Eldorado.
Shockingly, for the better part of the life of the nation, she has been left literally in the middle of the ocean like a rudderless ship heading for complete wreckage and collision course.
Largely, the bane and crux of the matter is corruption, both the leaders and the led in low and high places have been fantastically and extravagantly corrupt.
In our leadership story, the tales of alleged corruption swells to high heavens with odoriferous ether eating, the land with unpretentious hate which the ordinary people are the worst for it.
As a by-product of corruption hunger, grinding poverty, anarchy, fratricidal war, suicide mission, infanticide, gory deaths, kidnappings and many associated social vices have become the order of the day in Nigeria.
The President, Muhammadu Buhari we trusted in May 2015 that came into power as the last bastion of hope has not been able to curb the nagging issue of corruption.
Like the destruction of Animal Farm and the Wind Mill in George Orwell’s work, our leaders in similar fashion have helped to destroy every possible pubic installation, including oil facilities.
Even the quest to diversify the economy has become a tall dream and order for our leaders to attain.
What is left of President Buhari’s pride in leadership was lately destroyed by the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May.
She said during her one UK-Africa partner for trade and investment tour of South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, that Nigeria is home to the poorest people of the world, adding that about 87 million Nigerians live below poverty line.
Also lately, in an annual conference on security, democracy and rule of law in Abuja, Nigeria, a British born Philip Hackch, asset recovery expert, said that Nigeria must stop promoting stolen funds.
Very recently too, a survey conducted by an international organization said that 80 Nigerians have committed suicide between April 2017 and May 2018 of which Nigeria ranks 30th out of 183 nations and 10th in Africa.
What a shame! The latest purported sharing of the Abacha loot to the poor and vulnerable people in the country calls for a lot of questions than answers.
Many Nigerians are yet to understand the indices and indicators used in sharing the loot as it may be devoid of any transparency.
This goes to show the virility, effect burnt-out revolutionary programmes of this administration in the face of death of industries and disease of unemployment eating the land.
The time has come for the leaders to take her citizenry seriously and think outside the box.
Enough is enough.
Ogaralow writes from Abuja

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