TheCable

For the umpteenth time, the major quandary facing Nigeria isn’t corruption and bad leadership. I opine that the major problem facing Nigeria is double standards and two-facedness. I never knew that those who were attacking His Excellency Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, when he was in office, but never in power—were doing so, not because they love Nigeria, but because they too wanted to taste the ice-cream of power. Now, they do have power (that is transient) thrust into their care, but they obviously do not know how to use it—to both protect and make Nigerians prosper.

We have never been this naked and vulnerable as a nation as we currently are under the uninspiring leadership of President Buhari. Nigeria’s weak areas—within the context of insecurity and poverty are so exposed to the whole world. The rate at which people are begging for money and food has really increased. I write, not as a politician who is looking for coins from PMB, but I write as someone, who has accepted responsibility for the country he used to be proud of. And I do not need foreign reports to know that most of our people are poorer today than they were even under the lackluster and anodyne leadership of GEJ.

Also, the rate at which people were killed under GEJ has insanely increased under PMB, though the rate at which people daily attacked GEJ has drastically and nauseatingly reduced under PMB. There is hardly a day that Nigerians are not being sent to the land of the silent ones. The life of a Nigerian is worth almost nothing! Presidents, who respect those they are in power to serve, do cancel trips to foreign countries each time there is a crisis at home, but not our own. Even if hundred (100) Nigerians are killed, our own do not care a hoot. They are not in power to serve, but to be served!

The more we spend money on security, the more insecure our people become. If “SARS” do not shoot our precious-people, terrorists would get the job done. Until one of the children of those in power is shot dead by “SARS”, nothing tangible and meaningful would be done to either reform or remove them. How can those who are being paid to protect our priceless-people be the ones killing them? It is a huge shame on all our political leaders, especially the chief servant of Nigeria.

When OBJ was in power, there was a portion of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway that got many Nigerians killed and for many years, Nigerians complained and cried acrimoniously, but nothing was done about it until a prominent Nigerian died on that road. The following day, the portion of that road was corrected. Those in the corridors of power only care for the prominent ones, not the poor ones, but it is poignant that the poor ones do not like themselves.

GEJ was sent out of power for two major problems: poverty and insecurity. He was punished for not standing up to his leadership responsibility. Today, worse things are happening in our clime, but it is amazing that those who punished GEJ for reigning and not leading are back praising PMB for performing even shoddier than him. The number one enemy of Nigeria is not the devil, it is hypocrisy. Most of both the leaders and led are world-class hypocrites!

Many northern elders and groups daily spoke against GEJ when he was the president of Nigeria, but today, the fad is no longer the same. They spoke against Goodluck, not because of what was happening to their people, but they spoke against him because he was not a northerner in office. Now that a northerner is in office and their people are still being killed and kidnapped, why are they not attacking Buhari as they attacked Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan?

In Nigeria today, it is either you are killed or kidnapped. A day after El-Rufai and his convoy performed drama on Abuja-Kaduna highway; the kidnappers still went to same place to kidnap some more Nigerians, leaving their cars behind. A couple that was kidnapped gave a testimony during a religious gathering for paying the least out of those who were kidnapped some days back. Some hours ago, a man also cried out that his family members should sell his car and withdraw his last 2million naira, so they can put everything together to pay for his ransom, so he does get killed. Nigerians are now helpless in a country they call theirs!

If you are not kidnapped on Kaduna-Abuja highway, Lagos-Ibadan expressway will waste both your time and life. If one does not have an accident on Lagos-Ibadan expressway, the badness of it would consume all your time. A fifty (50) minutes journey now gulps almost a day. Last week, someone left Ibadan at 6pm and got to Lagos at 4am the following day! How can you be productive in a nation as Nigeria?

Some days ago, Babatunde Raji Fashola said that power generation has increased. Before there was an increment in power generation as said by BRF, I was having a few hours in my house, but now, I hardly and barely have two (2) hours in two (2) days! In Nigeria, the better they say they are performing; the worse things truly turn out to be. How can one be productive in a nation that has so much money, but cannot supply constant electric power supply for her citizens to buy? No one is asking for a constant electric power supply for free.

Nigeria is fighting banditry and terrorism in this age as if we are still living in an Agrarian age! Other nations of the earth have moved on in every area of their national life, but we are still very primitive in our thinking in this part of the world, because we have refused to invest in our people, especially those who can think productively. We have so many war Generals—both retired and in active service, but our experience as a nation speaks volume about the quality of our so called war veterans.

Lastly, now that integrity is leading NNPC, its loss in four (4) years still did hit 555.1 billion naira. Integrity exalts, but not in Nigeria. When a leader of integrity is in power, people are supposed to prosper, but reverse is the case here. The more the people suffer, the higher Buhari’s integrity soars as an eagle. If it were GEJ in power, many critics who have found their hypocritical voice, but now that their tin-god is in power, they have lost their voice. Until we overcome hypocrisy, we cannot truly move forward as a nation.