By ABDULWAHAB TAJUDEEN
I don’t want to imagine what Nigeria Twitter timeline and trend chart would look like had it been this administration did not sanction the micro-messaging app for abetting the excess of Nigerians against their government. There would have been parades of wealth and valour, of love and hatred and of calling the attention of our crème de la crème to how bad they are steering this nation. I imagined one Mr Nigeria (@naija_419) analysing how much this government has expended on security while we still live in fear. How much they budgeted for education yearly, and still, we cannot boast of qualitative education. How shameful our health sector is and the rate we lose our best doctors to pilgrimage of no return. How bad we treat our civil servants in this part of the world. How preposterous it is that we all scramble to ‘japa’ at the slightest opportunity.
I can sense Mr Nigeria giving up on this country, believing that the labour of our past heroes will soon suffer a deadly blow. He believes Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gunpowder while our leaders are not taking to their responsibilities. Mr Nigeria is tired like every Nigerian that has experienced one ill luck or another courtesy of this country. He is about drawing conclusions about this great nation and its drivers, but I would like to call his attention to Kano.
Dear Mr Nigeria, if truly your love for this nation provoked you to adopt her name, it is a must you journey to Kano, a city in the Northwest of the country and an acclaimed centre of commerce, which is the new abode of our leaders, courtesy of the holy solemnisation between President Buhari’s son and Emir of Bichi’s daughter.
They are there, Mr Nigeria, and there and now I will advise you to approach them with their scorecards. Show them how much Nigerians are in the shackles of unemployment, insecurity, poor infrastructures, poor healthcare facilities and blows of indecisive persons waiting for every turn of four years to smile for the camera and roll out posters seeking elective positions without the proper knowledge of governance. Tell them Nigerians are taking notes of the new dimension the country is going and they are ready to be decisive come 2023.
Remind them, Mr Nigeria, of what Euripides said in Orestes that “when one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.” Nigerians are relating quickly to those wise words. We’ve all come to terms that the last leadership recruitment exercise was a mob action, and we are not ready to give a renewal licence to the bosses and their mobsters to further mess with our lives.
As our spokesperson Mr Nigeria, I will implore you to warn them that we see 2023 as a crucial time in righting the wrong bedevilling this country and that we are doing that with every bit of blood in us, taking Abraham Lincoln’s words for it when he said, “elections belong to the people. It is their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
No doubt, Nigerians are suffering from the mistakes of the last elections. Painful and disastrous that insecurity and inflation are what we are getting in return for our votes, but remind them again, Mr Nigeria, that 2023 is near than thought.
So, before they all ‘comot’ Kano and spread across the country to continue with their bad politicking, remind them once again about the state of health, education and infrastructures and remind them lastly that 2023 is near, and they will all hear it without any options to ‘look away.’
*Tajudeen is the Press Secretary, Gobir Organisation Foundation, Ilorin.
