If Nigeria were to be a country where commonsense means anything to her over 160 million population, especially the ruling elite, kick-starting any form of political campaign or rally ahead of the 2015 general election at this critical moment would be the last thing on anyone’s mind. But this is Nigeria, where serious issues are downplayed to accommodate less important ones. It is indeed sickening, or laughably absurd for a drowning man to clutch onto a heavy metal and hope not to get drowned! We are just very good at doing things the wrong way and still expect positive outcomes.
But, why are we the way we are? Can’t we just come to terms with the obvious fact that we are progressing in error and we have become laughing stock even in the very eyes of less endowed nations? We are daily approaching Golgotha. Trust us, especially our leaders, to continue to live in perpetual denial that all is well with Nigeria. I consider it shameful and laughable that a country of Nigeria’s size and pedigree now runs to Cameroun and Chad to secure her borders! That Nigeria is presently on her knees isn’t a debatable issue. Ours is a touching story of a war veteran whose strides at the battle front is presently threatened by pockets of skirmishes and he remains helpless. We are presently at the mercy of Boko Haram’s increasing onslaught and our leaders’ screaming incompetence. An average Nigerian lives in fear, lacks access to basic needs of life. To worsen matter, the nation’s abundant material resources is tapped, processed and shared by our glutinous leaders and their cronies. Nothing is said about the poor masses. They only remember them during elections.
Now, to the ongoing madness across major towns and cities in the country. It is the annoying story of how some individuals are trying hard to sell a cheap dummy to us ahead of the 2015 general election. The body behind this badly packaged campaign arrangement is the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN). It claims it is doing the bidding of Nigerians by collecting signatures of those who desire that President Goodluck Jonathan seeks re-election in the forthcoming 2015 presidential election. You really do not need the services of a political strategist to realize the fact that President Jonathan’s men and women are behind TAN’s activities. Those behind TAN are faces we are very much familiar with, even though they keep denying ever having anything to do with the group. These same individuals were part and parcel of those who worked assiduously for President’s Jonathan election way back in 2011.
I wonder why we should daily be viewing 2015 election campaign ads at a time the whereabouts of over 200 schoolgirls remain unknown, having been seized from their hostels by Boko Harma more than four months ago. It is however disturbing that, apart from the #BringBackOurGirls and a few other voices, most Nigerians have since moved on as though these girls in captivity were never part of us as a nation. This is how terrible things have become in this part of the world. We are always in a hurry to forget things that should ordinarily remain permanent in our hearts.
We are infamously known as people who act before they put on their thinking caps. While a horse pulls a cart in serious climes, the reserve is however the case in this corner of the world. Imagine a nation grappling with excruciating and monstrous insurgency spending heavily on pre election campaigns through money-gulping rallies and media ads. TAN and its activities are a sad reminder of what we all witnessed when the dark goggled General Sani Abacha nursed the evil idea of transmuting from a military head of state to a civilian president. The story of how one Daniel Kanu launched his One Million Man March code-named, Youth Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA) is still very fresh in our memory. Kanu and his team of opportunists formed part of those recruited to drum support for Abacha’s plot to remain in power for life. The rest, as they say, is history.
Sadly, since we are bad students of history, we have since obliterated that part of our recent past from our minds and information warehouse. We have since moved on, as usual, pretending as though all is well. Like the YEAA campaigners, these TAN fellows are spending heavy sums of money to ‘impress it on Mr President to seek re-election’. This is the dummy they are brandishing about. The whole thing is a grand deception, an unintelligent attempt to divert attention from burning national issues. Regrettably, Mr President, the very man these fellows are spending heavily on, keeps recording spectacular lows in all areas of our national life. He appears ill-informed and not abreast of happenings within and around his office as president. Who is financing TAN’s activities is another germane question. We demand urgent answer to this question. How come the group’s activities are centred around President Jonathan alone? We had better watch this disturbing trend before it consumes us and all that we hold so dear to ourselves. A word is enough for the wise. God bless Nigeria.
Yunusa wrote from Imane, Kogi state
