TheCable

The common man has been on lockdown since the birth of Nigeria, not as an effect of a virus, but as an effect of man-made-poverty! He is being impoverished by his ‘leaders’, so he can neither think nor ask logical questions. In fact, he has been made so poor to the extent that he does not believe he has any value again. He receives everything being thrown at him by his ‘leaders’ as the will of God (this is what the common man has been programmed to believe in Nigeria) and as a privilege. The clerics (who work with politicians) will tell him that even roads with potholes should be embraced (with joy) without complaining that God hates those who complain, so instead of standing to protest, non-violently, he is waiting for the Day of Judgment hereafter. He has been bewitched, but he does not know!

I was brought up to ask lucid questions. And I am of the opinion that the greatest legacy that can be handed down to any child is the ability to think logically and ask probing questions. Most Nigerians were raised not to both think and ask questions! No thanks to the tradition of—leaders are always right, and the kind of religion that says it is incorrect to think and ask intelligible-questions from public servants. Most modern-day-Nigerians do not know that it is evil to just gulp everything they are told—hook, line and sinker—without thinking through it and asking logical questions. Also, most Nigerians today do not know that it is evil to accept everything from the corridors of power without holding accountable, those churning it out.

In the 80s during Buhari’s first coming, there was a school feeding program. After a while, our parents began to complain bitterly about the low-quality of meals they were serving us in those days. Baba’s government stopped the program and employed caterers began to bring lunch to our schools and we were paying for it with some coins! I was attending the Army Children School, Iwo Road, Ibadan in those days.

The problem of our parents in those days had nothing to do with feeding us. They were not rich, but they could feed us. But what they were after in those days was a very quality education. And till today, the fad has not changed. Feeding their kids is not the primary problem facing the Nigerian parents. The parents in Nigeria are not unproductive. What they need is an enabling environment to thrive. This is why they rapidly thrive when they relocate to saner climes.

It is a big shame and infamy for the current administration to have come out to say that they are feeding (with 70naira worth of a meal) some of our kids while they are at home on lockdown without publishing some crucial data that will make it possible. Where are the names of those pupils and their parents? Where are they living in Nigeria? Who are the logistics companies employed to take food to them at their varied homes? If those data are not published, I dare say that it is both a charade and smokescreen!

Do those in the corridors of power care for anyone in Nigeria? In our country, it is a drama per day. Do they want to feed some pupils or they want to fill some pockets? Where are the results generated by the meals they have been serving since the duo of Buhari and Osinbajo got to power? Or they have been wasting our scarce resources? Nigerians demand to know!

I wonder those who sat together, designing the 70naira worth of a meal for our children. I make bold to say that they are a bunch of unfeeling folks. Can they feed their own kids with 500naira worth of a meal let alone 70naira worth of a meal? Even their dogs cannot feed on 70naira worth of a meal! When we start by raising our kids as animals, but when they grow up, we would want them to start behaving as human beings. In Nigeria of today, what is the purchasing power of 70naira?

Furthermore, is it because of meals that the ruling-class is sending their children abroad? What the poor man’s children need is not a 70naira meal, what the common man’s children need is quality education. Till this moment, a lot of our children are being taught under trees and on the inside of dilapidated buildings. Also, the poor man prefers quality books being given to his children to a 70naira worth of a meal. What makes a child is not a cheap meal, but what makes a child is the quality of education he has.

Our kids do not need their empty-political-meals! Buy buses that can daily take them to their varied schools and return them back to their various homes, free of charge! Get three (3) units of school uniforms for each of them. Furnish their classrooms with laptops and make their teachers become 21st century compliant. Build good toilets for them and provide drinkable water for them that they can drink while at school. Treat our kids as human begins. When they grow up, Nigeria will benefit tremendously from it. But as long as we enjoy treating them like animals, they will keep growing up loathing out country.

Lastly, it seems the abracadabra and presto-feeding-program is designed to reward some loyal party members. When politicians keep depriving the poor man’s children the quality of life their own children are accessing abroad, and in the days to come, when they become unpatriotic, they would be complaining that Nigerians do not love their country like other nationals, but the truth is; no one reaps something when he sows nothing. On the condition that we do not truly take a good care of them today, we should not expect them to take care of Nigeria tomorrow. It is fraud to expect something from nothing!