Friend, I speak in parables.
A man was living in denial. He shot himself on the foot, he was bleeding to death, and he was reducing in weight, size and shape. But he would not admit he made a mistake. He was too proud to accept his error, too straight to be bent, too blinded by hero-worship, too full of sentiments to relax and realise he took a very wrong step backwards.
The cock crowed and a man’s senses were restored to its default settings.
I did not make the wrong choices, they did, and it was binding on all of us. I warned, I cried, I pleaded but they felt it was not enough. They shut their ears to the voice of reasoning. Our morality cannot be directly influenced by our ancestors because they did not live in such crowded circumstances as we. In fact I had said my ancestor should not be brought back to come lead me. But nobody listened. And now darkness looms. Thick darkness and uncertainty paints the times ahead.
The cock crowed, we cried but they stopped us. They called us wailing wailers. They forbad us from crying.
At first it was silence. Absolute silence. The entire governing system of Nigeria was completely quiet. We strained our necks, we stretched, just to peep into Aso Rock and read meanings into Baba’s body language. Nothing was going on. Nigerians waited and waited just to at least get an idea of where they were leading us to. Nothing. Just nothing. It took an awful long time and when we started raising eyebrows, they switched to shifting of blames. Goodluck Jonathan became responsible for all of Nigeria’s problems since the world was created. In El-rufai’s words, ‘…Nigeria has been irredeemably damaged’. At this point I thought they would resign from their respective offices and let all of us give up on the Nigerian Project, after all, Nigeria has been IRREDEEMABLY damaged they said..
Nigerians became tired of the blame game and they moved to excuse giving. The oil price is going down, this one has happened and the other one has refused to happen. At this point we were growing impatient. We would not accept the excuses either and they started telling blatant lies. They lied to our faces and spat on our fore heads. They told the kind of lies that meant they took us completely for granted. We meant nothing to them. Can I ever forget when lying minister came out of the blue and said ‘Nigeria has started reaping the fruits of Buhari’s foreign trips?’. Till date I am still wondering what he meant.
The lies were not working too and in a desperate move, they attempted severing the connection between government and the people. They wanted to pass a social media bill that meant we would no longer be able to talk freely. Of course this approach too did not work and finally they did what I had been expecting all this while. What a typical lazy, unserious and clueless but proud person would do when found guilty- and that is to suddenly grow cold and nonchalant. They were in power and what would anybody do about that?
And now if I place demand on the government to perform I am seen as an enemy. In fact I just read now, a statement credited to Chris Ngige, ‘those complaining that things are hard in the country are members of PDP.’
Is it a crime to ask questions about my future? Are you not aware that very soon these very old folks will all die and bow out of the scene? Do you want them to mortgage my future? Do you want them to leave a messed up Nigeria behind? Can’t I ask these questions? I do not understand what is going on, nobody is coming out to say anything, and should I keep quiet? Are you an enemy of the Nigeria of my dreams?
This administration has taken wrong decision after wrong decision and it is clear they only know how to play party politics but have no idea whatsoever about governance. One after the other, several ministries are becoming dormant or just fizzling out of relevance. Whatever happened to our ministry of finance? In fact who is the minister of finance? What about ministry foreign affairs? And how about that of youth? The list is a long one.
I cannot change Nigeria alone. Neither can you. Our individual activities are too little to cause any significant effect. It is as we come together, pull down the walls that separate us, and agree to work together with an orientation that is tilted towards progress that we will begin to journey forward. But it cannot happen if you keep seeing me as an enemy. Neither will it happen if you continue to dwell in pride and refuse to accept that something went wrong somewhere along the way. If it is in the choice of leaders, you erred badly in the last elections. You must accept that simple fact.
We erred very badly. I have realised that. If you haven’t, I am ready to wait for you. From now till 2019 this current government will not do much, nothing serious will happen because we erred in our choice of leaders.
Don’t start an argument now. I said from now till 2019, and I am ready to wait that long for you to realise your faults. But I have a question. If the cock crows in 2019, will you weep bitterly?
By David Yunana
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