I don’t know if you have noticed this trend, but these days, our politicians seem to be carrying on as if they were superstars of Hollywood.
At least, we all know that Hollywood stars, by dint of hard work and paid dues, usually earn enough money to buy themselves large egos.
Don’t ask me if they deserve all that money considering that teachers and road-side labourers labour more, spend more hours working, less hours frolicking, and still cannot manage to keep their roofs.
Stars however find that they can buy themselves some exotic lifestyles and islands on earth.
Our Nigerian politicians have quite a bit in common with them. They also spend less hours working than the teacher or roadside labourer who spends his entire energy coaxing an unyielding earth.
Politicians are supposed to be people whose lives have been interrupted ‘for a bit’ to ‘go and work for the people’.
(Someone, not me, said they have been engaged to ‘just talk’). In the process, however, I guess they have fancied themselves something like superstars; so they like to carry on like them and also buy themselves islands, not by dint of hard work but courtesy of the Nigerian treasury.
You know how to recognise superstars, no? First there is the dressing, which is often outlandish. In fact, it often goes against the grains of sense; indeed, fig leaves make much better sense.
If the women are not opening up the frontage and dipping the neckline to the toes, they are putting on things that expose the muscles to the naked elements.
You recognise our own superstar politicians by their own coverings also. Rather than baring anything, they don starched and excessively flowing agbada which are big enough to use as parachutes in landing emergences; or Savile Row suits and shirts, the costs of each of which can feed several families for a year.
Then there are the rides. Man, when you see the rides, you agree that there are stars. Every superstar knows that. We will not talk about Hollywood rides.
We are more concerned about the big, shinny, black jeeps in Nigeria that shove my poor car off the road each time we have a confrontation.
Actually, it’s got to the point now my car begins to tremble as soon as one of the big bad wolves comes in view. Honestly, if I wasn’t so annoyed by the cowardice of my car, I would be green with envy.
The conclusion is that it now pays to know one politician in Nigeria. There was a time it used to be that a family that had produced a graduate considered itself in seventh heaven.
People could no longer talk to them anyhow in the market place. Soon after, graduates became two a penny, while some can’t even get jobs now.
So, it seems that our politicians have risen to take the superstardom space formerly reserved for graduates. People now stand tall knowing there is a politician in the family.
Judging by the way such people carry on just because they know a politician, you would think they were now second class citizens while the rest of us are consigned to carrying on with life on the plains of sixth class citizenship (sniff! sniff!).
By their politico-familial connections, they can get taken abroad, build houses and generally do well. Honestly, if I wasn’t so preoccupied looking for a politician who would adopt me as family, I would again be envious.
Something gnaws at me though, and that is that, in the midst of all this confusion, many things are being lost. There is first that thing that you use to remember with… what do you call it now… err…err… oh yes, memory.
These days, I find that my memory is not what it used to be, like our president’s strength. Previously, I could remember the names of all the people throttling this country and holding it by the jugular. Now, I’m content to remember what I had for breakfast.
Then, I have established beyond any doubt that Nigeria has lost her sanity. That is the only thing that can account for all the carryings-on within her walls.
Just imagine, only insanity can explain the juxtaposition of extreme poverty endured by the majority in the land and having the highest number of private jets in the world enjoyed by Nigerian governors. Yet, none of them entered the government houses with the jets.
Even worse, many of them cannot now pay their workers’ meagre salaries, yet they are unwilling to let go of those jets.
Worse…. I need not go on. However, know this; only total loss of sanity can warrant thugs beating up people who were merely reading the news considered unfavourable to the governor as was said to have happened in Osun State some time ago. That is a sign that we have lost it completely.
This is why I can authoritatively and solemnly declare that Nigeria itself is lost. Somehow, between the flowing parachutes and the turbulence of the inter/intra-party fisticuff parlances, chair throwing jaw-jaws, swirling round-table talks and boiling turbulences arising from minor elections or posts, everyone seems to have lost the country.
Last time I looked, it was tucked in somewhere between the thick layers of starch on these parachutes but now, it’s not even there anymore.
I tell you, things are going on around here, the most important of which is that everyone is busy promoting him/herself to superstardom and no one is considering the interests of the country.
To start with, have you noticed how so many sirens have taken over our roads now? Seriously, on a particular day last week, the vehicle I was in was forced to give way to a siren-blaring convoy tagged ‘Oni-Something of Somewhere’ consisting of a Hilux outrider, the blessed vehicle and another one bringing up the rear.
Along the same route, we were forced yet again to give way to a bullion van carrying gun-wielding policemen and any amount of money.
I took solace in the fact that we are used to being pushed aside for money’s sake. Next day, my vehicle had to give way to what I can only conclude must have been the convoy of a politician – no name tag, only one or two black, evil looking jeeps roaring around the kingdom.
There are so many convoys on the road, so much shoving and pushing of ordinary people and their poor cars, so much indifference to people’s dignity and esteem that I am inclined to believe that somewhere along the way, the soul of Nigeria has evaporated.
It’s a little like the story of our folk tales in which someone is sent on a quest but ends up getting lost. Unfortunately, those sent in search of them also end up getting lost.
Think of the stories of Troy and Greece in which the rescuers end up suffering more than the bereaved. Now think of the tortoise who insisted on crying more than the lizard at the latter’s mother’s burial. Now, you’ve got the situation.
Those we sent to rescue Nigeria have somehow contrived to get themselves lost and this is no laughing matter; for that matter, it is no crying matter either.
Every one of our politicians in all the political parties has demonstrated nothing so far but naked greed for posts, positions and power – total signs of being lost.
With Nigeria lost in the power games and starched agbadas of her supposed rescuers, we do have a situation.
It seems to me that the Nigeria of our dreams must be retrieved from these agbadas by our collective voices. We must insist now on the country we want before it becomes permanently folded into those parachutes. We must find Nigeria.
⦁ First published 13thJuly, 2015.