At the beginning of such a piece as this, one must of necessity say that in consonance with Coulomb’s Law, I do love certain people in the APC: I love Amosun, contrary to popular trends; I love Fashola, the man deserves to be in Aso Rock; and I like Buhari, despite his diametric past. Yes, even the sage, the Bestower of the Order of Nebu, has come out to say Buhari cannot possibly be better.
What confuses me therefore is the extent to which we are willing to deceive ourselves… In our desperation for change, we have completely forgotten how we got to where we are today, how far our persistent clamour for change has brought us, how easily we get shortchanged in our desperation for change: palpable, impalpable; change at all cost… And I shall remind us:
We got here by preferring Yar’adua, as it would seem, to the alternatives of 2007, even Buhari. It is of course arguable that Yar’adua was the façade, that the true intention was to install Jonathan. But because we are so myopic as a people, so pro-change, however fake the change might be, we swallowed hook, line, and sinker: anything to be rid of Obj and his monarchial third-term agendum; and here we are…
We have again entered our change-at-all-cost mode: Jona must go, however this cost. Of course, a lot of people have, in retrospect, preferred Obj to Jona, making one to wonder who the hero really is! In our frenzy, we have knighted Buhari, he must be the Way. They no longer matter, the human rights violation allegations yet against him. Oh, we are in democracy now: like he knows that! My people have a saying, èéfín n’ìwà; character is like smoke, it cannot be hidden for long: once a soldier, always a soldier; the barrack never leaves the soldier, cf. Obj vs Odi community.
We have learnt to associate with deprivation, deprived as we have found ourselves: We vote in the man that spends the better part of his restful years in jail, and we hate him while he is there; then we vote in the man that spent his childhood shoeless, only to find that clues are in childhood shoes, and we hate him for not having (had) them; and we are again set to vote in the man that cannot afford a N27m Presidential nomination form despite a lifetime of tangible salaries and pensions…
Abaa! Which way Nigeria?
Back in 2007, Yar’adua was the preferred choice, or so it seemed, even above Buhari. (What really has changed? APC’s strategists? propaganda? politics? or loot? I’d say ‘loot’ if you asked me; but then, you would neither ask nor believe me!) We chose him, ended up with Jona, and generally believe that Obj was better– in retrospect. And here are we with another Trojan horse. How come no one is asking questions?
What happens IF, not when, what happened happens?: we again end up with another PhD holder, a non-politician, struggling to float in the murky waters of Nigerian politics, while we wish, there and then, that we’d contented ourselves with the one that still managed to keep Nigeria one, and with six-year experience under his belt.
And what is worse? We realise that we’d only voted Buhari because we hated PDP, and not really Jona. We realise that Buhari was only fielded because of his popularity, as a poster boy a figurehead, which itself is the result of his redacted past, the ugly contents of which he has shown no remorse for, even in a democracy. We realise, as the Supreme Court believes, that we voted in APC, not Buhari! cf. Amaechi vs Omehia.
Yes, the same power-hungry APC that regards the rule of law so much, they wanted to have both Speaker and Minority Leader– mutually exclusive endowments in a sane democracy. The same APC that will set up a parallel government when they lose in 2015. The APC that will not denounce BH with all sincerities. Yes, the very same APC! Why was there so much tussle over Buhari’s Vice? Because they knew…
The question therefore is, Do you trust APC to take care of Buhari? to listen to him? to really be uncorrupt, and anti-corruption, even as PDP may (no longer) rule NASS, and Jagaban is an expert at making skewed deals with Jona? Do you even think Buhari, as de facto party leader can control the APC more than Jona can control the PDP? Do you trust APC to maintain Buhari’s policies in his absence? Do you trust the APC to be the next PDP? Do you really believe that the Jagaban, in the position of an Obj, or a Jona, will have the constraints of the Obj– or the Jona?
Can we trust the APC, at all?
My surgeon taught me: A good surgeon knows how to operate, a better surgeon knows when to operate, the best surgeon knows when NOT to operate. ‘Masterly inactivity’ remains an established practice in Medicine. So that as slow as Jonathan is, as clueless as he seems, as patient as we see, he has preserved our rights to freedom of speech and expression and religion, inspite of the Okupe’s and Abati’s of this world.
I can come here and write as I like, call him Clueless, and so, and still sleep peacefully at night. In fact, in all my days of critiquing the man, I haven’t had as much name-calling as I have had since Buhari became a deity, and APC, a necessity. So much for Progressives! The next step of course will be the gagging of the media, and the shutting down of hostile comments; which will be defended, as always, as necessary evils: the elimination of distractors, and the blinding of criticisms. If you doubt me, just wait and see…
I have been reminded that I did not experience Buhari’s reign of terror. Well, yes. Alas, history cannot be rewritten, and whatever one does today does become history in the morrow. More importantly, it is my absence from that time that gives me clarity of mind and purpose to point out these things, for I do not suffer from Stockholm Syndrome like they do who survived Buhari, and have forced themselves to yield to the Buhari reincarnation.
No, no Stockholm syndrome for me.
I understand that an incorruptible leader in a party (read: company, congregation, group, organisation) of corruption is not a deterrent to corruption, cf. Tai and Peoples Bank, Awolowo and Gowon’s Ministry of Finance, Ribadu and EFCC… I understand that we must not sleep in the same direction, that the coward often speak the mind of the brave, that truth has being a commodity long before I was born… But I also understand that the accused deserves a defence, and have always found meself on the less-trending side of the divide, cf. JOHESU vs NMA, even now that it is impossible to be relevant and not go with the crowd; my only hope is that when they come for me, there may still be Nigerians like moi…
Anyway, I expect a barrage of vitriols for this exposition, even as we hate (to be told) the truth. Sheybi na Naija we dey?: suffering and smiling, never seeing beyond the now despite recurrent warnings of impending doom. We always want change without caution, yet caution, in all its unpleasantness, is the safety valve of change; so that we find ourselves right where we are: yet clamouring for change, despite fifty years of same. Why? Because we never listen to the dissenting voice: Where are the Awolowo’s and Tai’s and Onabanjo’s of this world? Please ask Buhari, he knows everything…
And, by the way, Jagaban for Senate President… If you catch my drift.
‘Ó-kù!’ nì’bón n ró…
