Tinubu’s youth jamboree and Remi’s rented attire: a tragedy of misplaced priorities

By UGO ONUOHA “Our rulers are adjudicated rapists and raiders of the public treasury. But there’s no need to be so brazen and in-our-face as this so-called national youth confab appears to suggest. ONE of the strengths demonstrated one week ago, on October 1, by Nigeria’s president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, while he addressed the country on its 64th Independence anniversary, according to his media aide, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, was that he stood on his feet for the duration of the speech. I did not watch the broadcast because I was convinced that my early morning could be put to better use including my dawn workout. If what he had to say turned out to be that important, I could find the time to read the text at my convenience. As it turned out, and as usual, there was no compelling reason to read the text in light of the snippets from the broadcast that were uninspiring, distressing and depressing. Commentaries on the broadcast by independents and partisans showed that it was a rousing speech for regime choristers, and to unbelievers it was yet another underwhelming performance from Abuja. For those to whom Tinubu has become a god and a saviour as represented by Onanuga, the mere fact that the president made the speech while standing on his feet was an achievement of significant import. It was an unprecedented feat for which Nigerians should fawn over him. Onanuga, presidential assistant on information, was right in demanding applause from famished folks for the president for standing on his feet to deliver an address that lasted for barely 30 minutes. Corralling citizens to applaud the president demonstrated that Tinubu’s, and his predecessors’ neglect of funding of education has been deliberate. The more ignorant we are the easier it is for our rulers and their enablers such as Onanuga and others to gaslight us. In spite of myself I went back to watch the video of the broadcast. Even for a person who is half blind and hard of hearing, and this is no disrespect for visually impaired and hearing-challenged compatriots, the breaks in the recordings of the video, and the editing should be obvious. You do not have to be a media professional or broadcast guru to see through the cut and join of the tape. In simple terms what it means is that the recording was not done in a stretch or in one sitting (sorry standing). The different frames also indicated the principal was availed with breaks during the recording to sit down at intervals to catch his breath or to walk around so as to refocus before he returned to the presidential set. For unbelievers and naysayers who ordinarily should be treated as patriots, they saw a president who has been turned into a liar by his aides and speech writers. Or by his own making and choice. They saw a deterioration in a regime that has transited from deploying propaganda as a governance artform to one that sets up the president to be lying out-rightly to Nigerians. It was so bad, so shameful, and so embarrassing that Nigerians were fact-checking their president real time during a ‘live’ broadcast for what should be a solemn independence anniversary. The many lies in the broadcast including the handling of the Ways and Means federal government debt of N30 trillion, incurred between the former president who was Nigeria’s affliction, Maj.- Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, and this regime, are in the public domain. The greater tragedy is that the debt which was secretly and illegally procured, and which use has not been accounted for, will be paid for by Nigerians up to the fourth generation, in a manner of speaking. The rapacious operatives of the regime of Buhari must be having fun at the expense of the rest of us, wherever they may be. The Tinubu honchos are not doing badly in the unabating assault on the commonwealth. Even the cases of those who were caught with their hands deep inside the national till have gone cold, and as we say here, ‘entered voicemail’. We have not set out to agonise over the issues from the broadcast that have been sufficiently litigated in the courts of public opinion. The courts of law are actually out of the reach of the majority of Nigerians by reason of cost for a people who have been deliberately pauperised by their rulers. In any case why go to the courts where the acolytes and stooges of the rulers rule supreme. They are not bothered about your going to court, indeed they encourage you to do so knowing that their kinsmen and kinswomen are in-charge. “If this regime is not determined to steal in the guise of a 30-day youth conference which will cost billions of Naira, it should borrow an idea from Kenya. The template is clear, simple, transparent and less costly.” One of our primary concerns in this intervention is Tinubu’s proposal for a national jamboree for youths. Not surprising, the only significant detail about the plan was that the jamboree would last for all of 30 days. At the end of the 30 days, according to the president, Nigerian youths would become more united, more articulate in their contributions to enriching government policy formulations, more vigorous in participating in nation building, a sharper voice in shaping their futures, among others. In addition, the president announced that the ‘National Youth Conference’ will ‘address the diverse challenges and opportunities confronting our young people, who constitute more than 60 percent of our population’. The conference and the conversations therefrom would unite young people to collaboratively develop solutions to issues such as education, employment, innovation, security, and social justice. Our rulers are adjudicated rapists and raiders of the public treasury. But there’s no need to be so brazen and in-our-face as this so-called national youth confab appears to suggest. The majority of Nigerians have been impoverished and castrated by successive regimes, and more so by Tinubu’s. They cannot do