Bayo Omoboriowo
By
Prince Charles Dickson
Ronald Reagan once said, “Government is like a baby, an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other end.” And I add a big head that thinks it knows it all and then treat us all like the anus that brings nothing but…forgetting that a closed anus is recipe for disaster.
Our President, Mr. Buhari is back, I am happy, I am excited, I am overjoyed, I am ecstatic, words cannot explain how I feel; however follow me in the next few paragraphs and you will see why.
Some three years ago, I had cause to write on “Photocracy”–as a style of government in which people who should be leading and governing are engaged in all manner of phototricks, some say ‘photo-shopped’, like Tinubu in that Democratic Convention in United States, Dan Baba Suntai of Taraba and we know the rest, Chime too and some three wise men. (Meanwhile we have forgotten both men).
In ‘photocracy’, it is not restricted to governance by photographs, it includes by telephone calls, by cabal, by cabinet and governance from anywhere. You can add leadership by total disappearance too or by lies, like our one time Dame…
In the Nigerian-styled way of doing things, photocracy is also a situation when you see pictures of tarred roads, hospitals, sports complex, schools and more on the pages of newspapers, online media, and on TV stations, yet nothing of such exists.
In photocracy, our leaders see beautiful photos of those places they visit abroad, yet their blurred memory cannot replicate such. (If only our President who acknowledged that…”I have received, I think the best of treatment l could receive”, will make sure that ordinary Nigerians can get the same treatment).
I recall 2009 it was the ‘photocratic’ year with its drama. It was the year of the cabal, those who ruled from Saudi, the Turai era, the enough is enough rallies, and early morning of the Save Nigeria Group.
Then, late Yar’Adua was gone for over two months before BBC came with that 59 seconds drama, with love from Jeddah.
In fact a friend swore then it was the work of a master ventriloquist. I recall then in the light of the problems besieging the nation, the president that BBC spoke to, left all the important issues facing the nation, he was silent on ‘Muttalab’, left the saga behind his budget signing and was addressing a ‘no-longer Super Eagles’ wishing them luck and sadly they lost.
It was in the middle of protests to force him to hand over power to his deputy, and his voice surfaced in far away United Kingdom telling Super Eagles to go ahead.
We forget so soon, learn slowly…then we were told by the then reigning Mr. Fix It (Aondoakaa) that the man can govern from anywhere, Liebaran Maku said the same of Jonathan…while the likes of Femi Adesina, Lie Mohammed and Shehu Garba did not do any better with their scripts.
An entire National Assembly, Ministers, Governors, kitchen and toilet cabinets and no one then could tell Nigerians the truth…in fact 99.99% of that group did not even know the truth, so how do you give what you do not have?
Reason continues to clash with interest and we are tied with the rope of those that do not believe in the constitution, those whose rule of law is greed, primitive accumulation of wealth and reckless display of such, a group that has elevated madness to a habit and stupidity a culture.
On numerous occasions I have stated that government people have the fundamental human right to be sick, they are human, but the fact remains that their health cannot be placed above the wellbeing of hundreds of thousands and millions in cases.
Let me be naive, who is and why are we afraid to do the right thing, why are we always looking for other countries’ approval, and acceptance, why are we a timid people, why are we never doing the right thing?
What in this whole episode called Nigeria is political correctness? Every issue that is raised in respect to moving our nation forward is narrowed down to North-South, Christian-Muslim, however when our leaders steal, it has no coloration. My take is that the leaders of the country are only united in looting the state treasury. And then we fight across our naive idiosyncrasies while they watch us.
It’s our failure at home that has made U.S, Europe, parts of Asia and Africa so relevant to us. We have to send our children there because the universities at home have failed. We have to look for jobs there because there are none at home. Some people even feel inferior to them and will rather live abroad at all costs- in their minds, by doing so, they’ve become superior human beings. All photo-tricks.
So all the photo-tricks of Mr. Buhari are hale and hearty by Saraki, Dogara, the calls by the caller can be summarized in the following paragraph…
“I have rested as much as humanly possible. I have received; I think the best of treatment l could receive. I couldn’t recall being so sick since I was a young man, including in the military with its ups and downs. I found out that technology is going so fast that if you have a lot of confidence, you better keep it because you need it. Blood transfusions, going to the laboratories and so on and so forth but I am very pleased that we, when I say we, I mean the government and the people all over are trying to keep in touch with technology.
“I couldn’t recall when last I had blood transfusion. I couldn’t recall, honestly, I can say in my 70 years. I couldn’t remember this drug that Nigerians take so much; very common I think one of our terrible things is self-drug administration. We have to trust our doctors more. In the place I visited, they only take drugs when it is absolutely necessary. They don’t just swallow everything.”
Some speechwriter did not draft the above, it was a man who was being human, who was saying “I nearly died, but I am grateful for the life I have…he acknowledged what his aides were afraid to acknowledge.
Now you see why I said earlier Mr. Buhari’s return has left a taste of honey in my tongue…maybe just maybe those around him can tell a little truth, maybe Nigeria can be riddled with a few truthful men and the future may be worth looking forward to—Only time will tell.
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