TheCable

Each time I hear, “in 2019, we are not going back to Egypt,” I cringe and wince. The question is; what’s the difference between the PDP and APC? Absolutely nothing! They are all in power for what they can get, not what they can give. Show me one politician—who is in power because of the common man. Not even PMB and PYO! Every paid politician is greedy, selfish and vision-less.

How about the “not too young to run” generation? They are a bunch of jokers, who are also looking for—political-power for personal aggrandizement. Or why were they unable to network to send those plundering Nigeria to their varied villages? They all want to make a name for themselves. They all want to enrich themselves as those ahead of them. They are not selfless. They only know “quotes” about nation-building; they really do not know what it takes to unseat an establishment, birthing a true and enduring change in a nation. A singular political party cannot send PMB back to “Daura,” because it was not one political party that sent GEJ back to “Otuoke.” Those in the older generation know better than those in the younger generation—who claim to know more than everyone in Nigeria.

Does APC look like a political party that can take you to your desired destination as a people? About 75% of those who were in the PDP is now in the APC. The APC has been governing Lagos State for a longer period of time than the PDP governed the whole nation, but what has become of Lagos State? Lagos State is still a modernized jungle and ghetto. Compare the resources of Lagos State with the development that is on ground, you’d know that Lagos State is still in ‘Mesopotamia,’ not even ‘Egypt,’ let alone ‘promised land.’

We need to school most Nigerians when it comes to politics in our clime. Nigerians are like a round leather-ball. Nigerians are the ones being played by paid-politicians. In Nigeria, politicians see politics as a game, not a nation-building venture. Take for instance, Jimi Agbaje and Bola Tinubu would pretend to be fighting and because you are politically naïve, you’d fight everyone in Nigeria because of either BAT or JK, but when they meet ‘in the dark,’ drinking and eating pepper-soup together, they’d discuss your foolishness, laughing hysterically.

Politicians in Nigeria are working together. When it comes to contracts and money, do they fight? Those who are not working together, fighting themselves—are the poor ones. And because they hate, working together, they are going to be poor for a very long time. There is no politician who thinks about the true welfare of the poor, but they are amazed that the poor ones are fighting and dying because of them.

This is where I am coming in this piece: there is an age long tradition that every Administration has sustained and maintained since 1999. From the Administration of OBJ to the current one, the fad has remained the same. When foreign organizations applaud them, they would run to the market with it, using it to score cheap political points, but when they are chided and reproved by credible organizations, they would take them to the cleaners, saying that they do not know anything about the progress we have made and are making in Nigeria.

I remember when OBJ was in power and FFK was his spokesman like Reuben Abati and Doyin Okupe spoke for GEJ, and Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu are speaking for PMB. FFK was always taking everyone to the cleaners. I recall when the Administration of Olusegun Obasanjo wanted to honor late Chinua Achebe and he rejected it, stating that Nigeria was not working. On the same day, FFK reeled out some empty statistics, saying that the old man left Nigeria long ago. Today, those challenges that the literary icon, late Chinua Achebe brought up are still with us.

When the sub-regional ECOWAS court ordered that Dasuki should be released on bail, the current Administration blatantly refused to obey that court and other courts of competent jurisdiction, saying that it would continue to place the nation’s security and national interest above the rule of law. Who determines the mentioned national security and interest? And how do we differentiate between the national interest and government interest?

This is what it means: once we place an individual above the rule of law; then he or she can pick anyone, locking him or her up, saying that it is being done in the national interest. We are gradually returning to the dark days of when military folks were in power, with the rule of law under their feet. But when PMB refused to assent to the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2018, recently passed by the National Assembly, the current Administration pitched its tent with the ECOWAS protocol on Democracy and Good Governance. Is this not laughable? When it pays those in power, they flow with you, but when it does not pay them, they take you to the cleaners. It’s the same old tradition, so it is safe to say that our present is not different from our past!