A friend sent the following to a WhatsApp group platform: “A man asked his wife why she always calls him, ‘My African President,’ and she responded, deadpan, ‘Because the things you promised me, you have never done!’”
Nigerian politicians, especially of the Fourth Republic, are wont to making promises that they have no intention of keeping. And that is why the Nigerian electorate desperately ask for ridiculous immediate gratifications, like N500, aso ebí, or some grains of rice, before voting during elections. A bird in hand…
The Yoruba would say that is the ifá divination for Nigerian politicians who make outlandish promises that they utterly have no intention to fulfil. It’s not for naught that Nigerian politicians, seeking elected offices approach the altars of celebrity Men of God for approbation, approval, endorsement and “anointing.”
From these expeditions, these politicians have ended up taking the wrong values of the gift of false prophecy after the laying-on-of-hands by the Men of God. This nonsense extends even to sports.
Politicians’ gab of false prophecy
16th June 2021
By Lekan Sote
A friend sent the following to a WhatsApp group platform: “A man asked his wife why she always calls him, ‘My African President,’ and she responded, deadpan, ‘Because the things you promised me, you have never done!’”
Nigerian politicians, especially of the Fourth Republic, are wont to making promises that they have no intention of keeping. And that is why the Nigerian electorate desperately ask for ridiculous immediate gratifications, like N500, aso ebí, or some grains of rice, before voting during elections. A bird in hand…
The Yoruba would say that is the ifá divination for Nigerian politicians who make outlandish promises that they utterly have no intention to fulfil. It’s not for naught that Nigerian politicians, seeking elected offices approach the altars of celebrity Men of God for approbation, approval, endorsement and “anointing.”
From these expeditions, these politicians have ended up taking the wrong values of the gift of false prophecy after the laying-on-of-hands by the Men of God. This nonsense extends even to sports.
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Èdè Wa Ni: Ẹ Pàdé Àròjinlẹ̀ Tó Ń Dá Àwọn Ènìyàn Lẹ́kọ̀ọ́ Nípa Ẹranko Lédè Yoruba
Recently, players and officials of Sunshine Stars of Akure, a club that has lost 19 out of 19 matches so far, received one-month salary, out of eight months’ arrears owed to them by their management. The purpose is to motivate the players to play against Dakkada FC of Uyo and “to fight against relegation” in the remaining 13 matches.
The task of selling hope to the players fell on Deji Ayeni, the new coach, who promised, “We are ready to end this poor run. Everything is possible… All we need now is reorientation.” Famous first words of a new employee angling to sell hope to a team thoroughly demotivated.
After Nigerian politicians are done with selling false hopes cast in manifestos, all they do, most of the time, is to make more and more promises, to explain their failures when they eventually get into office.
Like the “Men of God” that they patronise, they have become exceedingly adept at selling hope, the “high” of the downtrodden. Socialist political thinker, Karl Marx, avers that religion is the opium of the masses.
The capacity of the average Nigerian politician to mouth promises to, or raise the hopes of, usually gullible citizens is what confers them with the gift of the gab for false prophecy. Nigerian politicians are long on promises, but short on delivery.
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), typically sells his own political prophecy with his customary phrase, “I assure you,” which mischievous people say he pronounces, “A ajjure yu,” to convince Nigerians that he would do a thing.
The assurances he gave during his 2015 electioneering, to fight corruption, provide security for Nigerians, and turn the economy around, are turning out to be no more than famous first words.
Some of his aides have reportedly dipped their hands into the commonwealth, while insurgency, kidnapping, banditry, and predatory herdsmen attacks on farmfolks have escalated, just as poverty become more widespread.
A President, who swore to protect all Nigerians, describes separatist Indigenous People of Biafra, whom he confuses to be the same as all Igbo people, as “just like a dot in a circle,” then threatens, “Even if they want to exit (Nigeria), they’ll have no access to anywhere.”
The President appears perturbed by “the way (the Igbo) spread all over the country, having businesses and properties,” as he sternly promises IPOB, “We’ll talk to them in the language that they understand. We’ll organise the police and the military to pursue them.”
You must however, acknowledge his modest achievements in providing infrastructure, and allow him to boast, as he is wont to, that he has been able to do more, with lower revenue from sale of crude oil, than his predecessors who got more robust funding.
Check out the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano and (uncompleted) Lagos-Ibadan Expressways, second Niger Bridge, renovation of Abuja airport, and upgrade of Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja-Kaduna rail lines, though there are complaints of occasional breakdown, which the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, promptly denies.
But all Nigerian governments, including the Buhari regime, have failed woefully to provide seamless delivery of electricity and water supplies to the people of Nigeria. You may have noticed that President Buhari no longer talks about these issues as he seems to have given up on them.
And just as he appears to have given up on some of his electioneering promises, some of which he claims others made on his behalf, he appears determined to deliver on promises (that were never publicly made) to his kinsmen of the Fulani nation.
He is supporting the migratory tendency of his cattle-rearing kinsmen with a dated gazette of the Northern Nigeria Regional government of the First Republic which he appears determined to foist on the whole country, whatever may be the opinion of the frightened people of Southern Nigerian states, or their governors, the custodians of lands in Nigeria.
He justifies building the Kano-Maradi rail line with the argument that it would attract freight business from the $12.97 billion economy of Niger Republic, the land of his first cousins. Yet, he neglects to speedily complete the Calabar-Lagos rail line that links more than $300 billion Southern portion of the $400 billion Nigerian economy.
If you do an extrapolation, or deduction, from the President’s weak explanation for extending rail lines to Maradi, it will be easy for you to conclude that his regime will not do the same for Benin Republic or Cameroon because he has no first cousins in those forsaken countries.
Niger Republic was expected, by 2016, to increase daily exploration of crude oil to 80,000 per day, out of which 60,000 barrels had already been committed to Chad and Cameroon. And with installed refining capacity of 20,000 barrels per day, one wonders what freight will be loaded on the Kano-Maradi rail line.
To understand Buhari’s worldview of a borderless Sahel region that includes his kinsmen, check his coy curve at the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference of the Germany-led metropolitan powers who met to divvy up Africa among themselves.
The Kano-Maradi rail line is an attempt, of sorts, to correct the error, or foolhardiness, of the metropolitan powers, it seems. This, you will agree, is a classic case of a long gone empire striking back in the most atavistic manner.
You must also agree that it is unacceptable for Nigeria, a country with barely more than 200 million people, to have the dubious title of poverty capital of the world, ahead of countries like China and India that have more than 1.2 million people.
Buhari needs to publicly identify those 10.5 million Nigerians that he claimed to have taken out of poverty, though it was actually 100 million Nigerians that he voluntarily promised to liberate. Failure to do so may further portray him as a serial breaker of promises.
He also needs to explain why Godwin Emefiele of the Central Bank of Nigeria appears to be formulating macroeconomic policies while the near-absentee Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, appears totally detached.
If you don’t understand that the foregoing is a roundabout way of saying that Nigerian politicians, including you know who, are liars, you may never be able to catch a hint even when it is brazenly in your face.
The Nigerian political elite are a tribe of liars. Ask Lai Mohammed.
