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Place Nigeria and Nigerians side by side, you will see stranded two-in-one on the hostile expressway flagging down for a common saviour.
Take it or drop it, these two entities have never been blessed in the choice of the leaders that have been leading this nation right after the departure of the colonial warlords from the theatre stage called Nigeria.
With a sigh of relief from the grip of the slave masters, one would think that we would be so humanly sufficient to prove to the London merchant John Lock that we are not ‘’people without head’’, after all.
If anything, we have over the years proven to the Whites in their denigrating assertion that we are neither mentally matured to lead ourselves right nor intellectually configured to develop as a nation.
From the 1966 coup with its attendant lopsided loss of lives of one ethnic group to the counter coups and to self-determination project which was a reaction to the purported ethnic cleansing of Igbo extraction in the northern Nigeria;
And eventually the full blown ethnic cleansing of Igbo witnessed in the civil war; Nigeria has only succeeded in driving home the point that Africa is a dark continent, and more unfortunately darker than hell.
Standing in the centre stage of this gloom and doom are the politicians and the ruling elites. Name them: APC, PDP, SDP, LP, and Accord— whatever.
They fit for the description of George Orwell’s Animal Farm where you can’t distinguish the face of humans from animals; they are all bunch of unfeeling, dry as dust incurable buffoons. They are the evil geniuses we are year in year out in romance with.
They possess power of raping us while we are mourning and moaning—all at the same time. If they wrestle and try to hijack what is of utmost importance to them—power–they will drag us into their disaster as pawns in the game.
No thanks to the Peoples Democratic Party and the presidents it produced in its sixteen years of ineffectual reign in our national space after we had a break from the khaki wearers and barracks dwellers.
In contrast, while it took sixteen years to ruin a nation of 100 million plus population, the Buhari-led All Progressive Congress administration has proven to be master of human disaster in bringing the nation of almost 200 million population flat on the floor just within the space of three years.
Nigeria, nay the global spectators, can never forget the year 2015 and the post-2015 of the old shepherd Muhammadu Buhari’s reign as part of the chronicles of trying time for Nigeria.
Just as PDP was sent packing from the stage, another face that surfaced was the broom-wielding party. In its process of formation, anyone with clairvoyance would quickly conclude that we were entering a ‘one-chanced’ vehicle.
As it stands today, it is even visible to the blind that the crop of APC members—from head to toes—are another set of rogues and bunch of desperate and power thirsting politicians.
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To the amazement of the foot soldiers and crusaders of ‘’anything but Jonathan’’, no sooner the car zoomed off than they realised that they were in for what they didn’t bargain for.
They soon discovered that Buhari the supposed saviour didn’t even have power over his own common health. A man that was seen as fictional Olivia Pope has now turned to be a bestselling fiction.
Take religious and ethnic sentiments out and live only objectivity, Mr. Buhari is not a coat worthy to be seen on Nigeria’s body.
Apart from the insecurity and the economy quagmire inflicted on us through is unguarded utterances he made on different occasions outside the shore of Nigeria couple with his analogue economic style; the man is not a model of leader for a heterogeneous state like Nigeria.
His parochial, myopic and narrow-minded style of leadership projects him as an ethnocentric fellow. He is more of a divisive leader than an integrator.
Earlier this year, the undoing of Mr. Muhammadu Buhari’s administration reached a crescendo when the overwhelmingly armed bandits known to be Fulani herdsmen invaded Benue State and maimed humans like animals.
And from there, virtually all states in the middle belt have had a taste of barbarism from these agents of Satan. To be fair to Mr. President, we cannot say that he is the sponsor of these killers; however, he must be told that sheer aloofness in the place of responsibility will be termed as complicity.
As we enter into another season of political prostitution informed by lack of ideology, given the trendy news of defection upon defection we are witnessing these days; we are bound to be carried away by this drama of shame though carefully scripted.
My fear as this drama unfolds is distraction and diversion of attention. If care is not taken, weightier matters will be forgotten. Issues of economy, Fulani herdsmen, restructuring, good governance, and search for good leadership will be left for kite chasing.
And as we may be manipulated to be basking and chewing sugar cane in the midst of their drama, the dying snake of this crop of politicians will rear its ugly head again. Mr. Buhari will be mapping out plans for his second coming of reign of terror and horror—however ways.
If luck and manipulation fail to favour him, we might still be faced with another Buhari. Or Yaradua. Or Jonathan. Or Obasanjo. And we are back in square one again.
Matthew Ige, University of Ibadan
