October 1st, an anniversary, and a country’s blues

“If we are a serious people we should be looking back in anger as we celebrate the 65th anniversary of our country tomorrow. We have failed ourselves. We have failed Africa. And we have let down black people all over the world. The countries we started off with [indeed we were in front of some of them] have since left us behind. Nature endowed our country with so much natural resources to make it belong to the First World, but we have consistently given ourselves ruinous rulers whenever we have the opportunity to do so.” MOCKERY! This word probably best captures the slogan for the 65th anniversary of the independence of our country. The federal government unveiled the, what might as well be a tongue-in-cheek slogan, when it revealed the activities that will precede the anniversary celebrations of the country tomorrow. Nigeria gained political independence on October 1,1960, amidst funfare and much expectations from Africa and the Black World. The theme for the anniversary which will culminate tomorrow is “Nigeria @65: All Hands on Deck for a Greater Nation”. The theme is ostensibly designed to emphasize the critical place of unity, collaboration, and patriotism ‘among government institutions, the private sector, civil society, and citizens in building a nation of peace, prosperity, and progress”. As enunciated by the government the theme underscores the need for collective effort to consolidate past achievements and pursue greater national aspirations ‘under the Renewed Hope Agenda’. That’s where the ‘innovation’ ends. The other contents of the anniversary package are normal, routine and run-of-the-mill. They included Juma’at prayer on Friday, September 26, at 1:00p.m.; Inter-Denominational Church Service, on Sunday, September 28, at 10a.m.; and a World Press Conference, on Monday, September 29, at 10 a.m. During the rituals, and after them, our country will continue or return to its normal routine of bloodletting, grinding poverty, indifference of the ruling elite to the plight of citizens, insecurity, banditry, out of school children, increasing number of internally displaced persons [IDPs] in a country that’s not officially at war, renewed hopelessness, despondency, ‘japa’ syndrome [of youngsters and even adults] voting with their feet by fleeing the country in droves, profligacy of the rulers, arrested development, among other vices. “If some Nigerians thought that Buhari will be the end of a president stoking hate and division, then they did not reckon with the coming of his successor, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, also of the APC. Even before he acceded to office and power, he had publicly declared that the presidency was his, and Yoruba’s. Embedded in his ‘emi lo kan’ slogan were selfishness, nepotism, corruption, division, disunity, among other vices. And he is living up to it. His appointments into critical and sensitive public offices are skewed to the extent that they make Buhari look like an apprentice and a saint.“ Many previous rulers of our country, military and civilians, have been myopic, nepotistic, and suffered from tunnel vision. But the last 10 years of the rulership of the All Progressives Congress [APC] have stood out as signposts and symbols of everything that is designed to put pressure on the country’s fault lines. Former president, the late Maj.Gen. Muhammadu Buhari [2015-2023] was a threat to the cohesion and unity of this country in spite of his claims to the contrary. He had said with his own mouth in a foreign land that while he would be in charge as president, he would only take care of those who voted for him during the 2015 presidential election. That statement that divided the country into 97% positive voters, and 5% naysayers [ignore the percentages that did not add up] became the state policy. The atmosphere of the country was fouled and poisoned, but the consolation for the targeted victims of Buhari’s publicly stated meanness was that during his eight years the country experienced more of his non-presence [not necessarily absence], and  ‘non-governance’. They were eight years of waste that dragged Nigeria backwards by, at least, one generation. During a media chat in December 2015 [the only one in his eight-year underwhelming reign], Buhari berated a section of the country, asking angrily and dismissively “what do the Igbo[s] want”? That was his reaction to a question about youth restiveness in the south east who were demanding for a referendum to settle the issue of the Igbo nation continuing to remain part of Nigeria. Buhari did not fail to tell the global audience of the prime time TV programme that he was part of the marauding soldiers during the civil war [1967-1970] who killed the restive youths’ fathers, their unarmed mothers, and siblings irrespective of whether they were combatants or not. Down the line during his reign, he derisively and derogatively referred to the Igbo nation as a dot in a circle. At no time did the accursed ruler describe any other nation within Nigeria in such demeaning, dismissive and insensitive terms. Buhari’s era may have been marked by ‘ungovernance’, but he left behind a legacy of hate and disunity. If some Nigerians thought that Buhari will be the end of a president stoking hate and division, then they did not reckon with the coming of his successor, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, also of the APC. Even before he acceded to office and power, he had publicly declared that the presidency was his, and Yoruba’s. Embedded in his ‘emi lo kan’ slogan were selfishness, nepotism, corruption, division, disunity, among other vices. And he is living up to it. His appointments into critical and sensitive public offices are skewed to the extent that they make Buhari look like an apprentice and a saint. To be fair to him, his appointments have, unlike Buhari’s, not been promoting a sectarian agenda. But it may be worse in its appearance of innocence. His appointments create the impression of building a cult and rewarding fealty to a cult leader. That could prove more dangerous and unsettling for this country at critical times. Tinubu is not restrained in putting his