I discovered that my ATM card was
missing a few days ago and I started looking for it frantically, not because I
had money to withdraw from the account, but because I am used to having it in my
cardholder, just not seeing it there had some effect on me that I was missing
something important...and for days now, I'm still searching for it, I am almost
sure it wasn't stolen, I can't remember being robbed of it...
I woke up yesterday 28/01/2015 to
another one, my phone was blown-out from the charging port, probably a result
of power surge from changing over power supply. I tried turning it on but the
screen flickered and bang! it went cold, never to respond again... I was like
God, how will I survive without a smart phone. I searched my drawers for a
spare battery that I'd always kept, hoping it was just a battery thingy but I
couldn't even find the precious spare, I almost went into a rage, wondering why
is all of this happening then something bigger came to me in my frantic search,
I found two of my former dead phones in one of the drawers I was scouring
through and unconsciously i told myself "why you dey worry sef, you go buy
another one when you get kudi". I dropped the newly dead phone in my
pocket and headed to work, hoping it will reset someone and come back to life.
By the time I got to the office,
a million and one things had gone through my mind that I couldn't even remember
the phone was in my pocket, it was until i pulled it out again that I
remembered I was holding a very dead burnt smart phone. I pulled out a charger
from my desk was like "let's try again", I didn't finish hitting the
power button on the phone before I saw the smoke and a popping sound, I quickly
turned it off and unplugged and somehow something within me dropped two phrases
that literarily defined the way things are in Nigeria today, two things that we
ignore by creating a cloak of sanity in our insanity, yes our political
indemnization... "False Hope" & "Dead Weight", two
powerful phrases that works hand-in-hand to guarantee that Nigeria is thrown in
utter darkness without anybody being held responsible for her woes.
Before I proceed, I will like to
sight a political example, a perfect precedence for what Nigerians are
satisfied with at first and then decry in the loudest of voices from their
comfort zone when it is obvious that they are responsible for their woes.
The Esama of Benin, Chief Gabriel
Igbinedion, the father of the former Governor of Edo State came begging in 2002
that his son Lucky Igbibedion should be given a second chance to fail again, in
his words; If a child fails a particular class in the academic world, he's
suppose to repeat the class and pass. The people of Edo accepted his gospel
of "false hope" knowing that Lucky will always be Lucky and they carried the dead
weight for another four years.
The totality of our polity in
Nigeria since the death of Military rule has been filled with "Dead Weights" preaching the gospel of "False Hope" on the altar of
our democracy. The doors of democracy opened in 1999 to an army of dead weights
dropping in from our past to take over our present, and define the not so
distance future we are in today. It's been 16 years already and they are still
here. The dead weights were the heavy weights when the doors were opened and they
got heavier, so heavy that they can't move on their own. The sad end of their heaviness and immobility
is that they appeared to be stuck on our leadership sledge, and unlike Santa
that brings good tidings and good will to all men, the magic that moves the
sledge without the reindeer feeling the weight, our own dead weight politicians
preach false hope and with no magic to wave at us, and yet we pull their weight
like reindeer, hoping that their falsehood will turn even, although we are sure it
won't. It is sad that we know we have the power to drop our dead weights and
ride free, but still we cling to their false hope without dignity, defending
their deadness with phrases like "dry bone shall rise again", pouring
water on dead concrete slabs, waiting for it to sprout a leaf, a surface that
we all know cannot be dug to plant a seed.
Back to the matter, the real
reality we deal with today… the truth about our status as a nation in the hands
of our ruling identity, the PDP, the dead weight that has nothing but false
hope in it.
For the last six years of our
existence as a nation, the ruling party at the Federal and State level
(considering the ratio at state level) has been an institution that has paraded
very heavy dead weights, false hope and a very robust accentuation of deceit.
From Obasanjo to Gbenga Daniel, Sule Lamido to the local government chairman in
the remotest part of Kogi State. I will start from the identity of our current
presidential element and the truth.
I found a statement credited to
the president, a statement that formed an essential part of his campaign manifestos
in 2010/2011 and this was repeated in more than one address. Jonathan said: "I
remember the day I was chatting with a group of elders and they said after the
war there was electricity everywhere, they travelled out and so on. "I came to live in Port Harcourt in
1955". Even then, it was only Port Harcourt that had electricity, even
the big city, Bonny does not have. But now, government must make sure even the
smallest village and settlements have electricity".
Beyond the fact that those words
were empty promises that created false hopes, it bares the lies that presents his
identity as a dead weight . How come somebody that claims 1957 as his official
birth year would say "I
came to live in Port Harcourt in 1955"? It is clear evidence that
Jonathan actually falsified his real age before joining the civil service to
work in his advantage. Perjury in the highest office in the land but still we
hold unto this dead weight and naturally our chant is " that's how
everybody in the service change their age", my answer is that is why
Nigeria is where she is today.
Odili
as the Governor of Rivers state invited the president to commission the same
bridge and road twice from the two different ends, Obasanjo
found out and it was kept a PDP thing. The good news is that the multi-billion
naira bridge collapsed 2 years later and neither Odili nor the builders are in
jail. He was even in the same town to commission a fake power plant between the
second christening of the same bridge, the commissioning was lighted with a
generator kept miles away from the commissioning point, Dead weights, False
Hopes, Lies, Deception, the hallmark of our PDP government.
The irony of those years was that Obasanjo was never in Lagos to commission a
single project, not because none was happening, it was simply because he was at
war with BAT, he even tried selling off all federal presence in Lagos,
including the National Theatre in Iganmu.
Since
PDP arrived, "they have awarded Enugu-Onitsha express way to contractors on
different occasions, including recently through SURE-P, YET the road is
moribund", worst than it was under even the dreaded Abacha. Sand and gravels
which are meant for the road project are dumped on one lane and they are
already overgrown by weeds and probably home to wild life
initially leaving across the road. According to us, we hold unto false hope, we
give it to the dead weight "they need more time".
Our
sitting President has earned a perfect dead weight status by not only
continuing the PDP streak that was almost redefined by his predecessor but for
ill-health, he is currently the champion at it. He's surrounded by heavier dead
weights and to cap it all, he's got no hope to offer, false or true. The
President has been more evasive in both falsehood and deceit and the hall mark
of his administration has been the loss of lives and properties, and a vehement
approach of blaming everybody that dare to complain or advise from outside his
circle of being either the sponsor or directly responsible for everything that
goes wrong while he's responsible for nothing, a monumental case of dead weight
with no hope in sight. As usual, we are behind him in drones, ready to vote for
him again, our chant as usual, "he's a Christian", "It's the
South South's turn", "He's trying" as if he was elected to
pastor a church, represent the south or try.
I
choose not to list the failing of my dead weight president beyond the facts that I've
laid out, even those of us clamouring for the so-called continuity, I will like
to ask, what exactly do you want him to continue? This question is for the sake
of clarity of purpose, what do we want GEJ to continue? The death, insecurity,
corruption or ineptitude in leadership or lack of sense of direction? Until I get a
million answers to these simple questions, I will assume that we ready to pull
this dead weight called PDP upon us again, knowing fully-well that there is only
false hope, no light at the end of any tunnel because indeed, PDP is not a
tunnel, but a circular pit that leads to nowhere.
The moment you realize that no one is your enemy, except yourself, you become truely free -- Babaolowo
I'm Abidemi Babaolowo Oderinlo
I Write What I Like
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