By Jude Atupulazi
Last Tuesday, the respected Monsignor Simon Amateze, was at Fides Media for some business. We met and he was ecstatic as always at seeing me. He never hesitates in telling me how impressed he is with my modest efforts in reaching out to the world through my page. But in this last meeting he added something extra while praying for me.
He said I was a prophet. Funny as that may sound, writers, some of them, are actually prophets because they seem to appreciate things from prisms different from those of others. Writers often choose to tread the unpopular path because of their peculiar gift of seeing things ahead of time. But this isn’t restricted to us though. I’m sure there are many people out there who can see far too.
Coming back to the situation in our country, it really doesn’t take much for anyone to see or have an idea of what can happen in the near future as I did. This is because Nigeria has been doing the same things the same way for years and getting same results: failure. Thus, it has become fairly easy to make informed guesses by those who have been following events in the country very closely.
Nevertheless, many Nigerians have proved to be what we call Aba na anya. They look but do not see. Or it may be that they look but do not understand what they are looking at. This is why some people are fooled by such people as fake pastors, native doctors, fraudsters and politicians.
I will focus on the last group; the ones that are fooled by politicians. The mumu of these ones no dey here, as we say in Nigeria. They are told the same tales in every election by politicians and they swallow the tale hook, line and sinker. They are given crumbs and they dive and grovel for them.
They forget their immediate past. All that matters to them is the present and that present is the small bag of rice they are given or that pittance which they will soon exhaust and complain the next day that things are difficult. Those people are the beloved of politicians because of their gullibility and short sightedness. There is nothing you preach to them that they listen to.
And so, in the run up to the last elections, people like us who are lucky not to be as gullible as some of our compatriots, saw through the ruse called APC and Tinubu; just as we saw long before then when Buhari was warming up to occupy the nation’s numero uno seat. I remember crying myself hoarse as I warned about the disaster-in-waiting called Buhari. But some people, including learned folks, saw him as a disciplinarian and one who abhorred corruption.
Indeed, if you look at the man called Buhari you will go away with the impression that he is a serious fellow and it may be easy for you to fall for that tale that he is a disciplinarian. I wasn’t sold on that though and so I shouted and cried out but it all came to nought. He came and took Nigeria backwards by several years.
And then stepped forward another disaster-in-waiting called Tinubu. We again shouted ourselves hoarse but this time many listened and rejected him but the powers that be thwarted the popular mandate of the people and foisted Tinubu on us.
At this point, let me say that Tinubu has the capability of righting many of the wrongs in the system but the problem is that he is too much of a systems man to rise against the system, for how can you genuinely expect him to oust those with whom he had been involved in dipping hands into the commonwealth of the nation all these years?
The truth is that Tinubu has only succeeded in continuing where Buhari stopped in many spheres and chief of them is nepotism. He has been subtly turning governance into a family or ethnic business and has been going about it so unabashedly. We all saw a clip where the two sons of Mr President were ranked in order of protocol ahead of ministers and government officials during a State visit to Qatar. Both Seyi and Yinka
were the first to be introduced to the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamid, even ahead of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Also Tinubu appointed his son-in-law as DG, Federal Housing Authority, FHA. He appointed his brother as a Minister. His son had attended the Federal Executive Council meeting before he was stopped. The same son of his had turned a presidential jet to what someone described as Air-Uber, shuttling with friends to and from Abuja. Today, his two sons practically led the government delegation to Qatar.
It is also on record that all the ministerial portfolios related to finance and economy were shared among a particular ethnic group.
Is this the Nigeria that the Ziks and Awolowos envisaged? Certainly, things cannot continue this way and many are now ominously believing that something may give.
We have seen how Tinubu said he would cut the cost of governance by limiting his entourage on foreign trips to 20 persons. But the entourage to Qatar included three members of Tinubu’s immediate and extended family, 35 members of the main body who arrived in two separate jets and an advance team estimated at 40 persons who also flew in a separate jet. All in all, three jets from the presidential fleet landed in Qatar, with about 70 persons, excluding the flight crew of 15 persons for three aircraft.
One therefore wonders if there is nobody advising the President or he is just surrounded by only bootlickers and yes men. As someone wrote, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, if he has a modicum of dignity and self-worth, should resign for breach of protocol and gross disrespect to his office. But we know this is Nigeria where the allure of office is enough to make some people turn houseboys to those in power.
Even Buhari did not condescend to this base level and to think that it is morning yet on creation day for the Tinubu administration. Who knows the things he will do in the future? Again, as someone stated, it will not be any surprise if Bola Tinubu nominates Seyi Tinubu to succeed him in 2027. And I tell you, many will not be shocked because we are beyond being shocked.
Something tells me that by the time Tinubu is through with Nigerians he will make Buhari a saint when it comes to nepotism.
For sure, Tinubu is a disaster foretold by the prophets.
