Why are we dancing? Why do we
keep rolling out the drums each time we have a new government, only for us to
start crying few months down the line? Is it that we are too quick to forget or
we just love to dance? Do you celebrate a child who’s about to write his exams
or the one who has written and passed? What is this jubilation for? Because I
really don’t understand. Is it that the election of Buhari in itself has
suddenly alleviated our sufferings? I am really confused here, hearing how six
bikers lost their lives in Zaria celebrating Buhari’s victory.
One
would think that a people who have been shortchanged for so long by past
presidents will know better to be calm and take every word of the new president
with a pinch of salt until he proves to be different. This process is becoming
an unending circle, again and again we’ve danced and again and again, we’ve
cursed and cried at the end. It is still shocking to me that a lot of Nigerians
fell for the story that the president was born without shoes. Was anyone born
with shoes on? Buhari’s triumphant entry into the presidency last Sunday which
coincidentally was a palm Sunday doesn’t yet prove he is the redeemer. Just
like the second coming of our supposed political messiah Obasanjo didn’t prove
any significant improvement in our lives.
We all
thought he was the one anointed by the gods to take us by the hands and lead us
right straight into the promised land, where we shall have no more gnashing of
teeth. But when he left office, the roads were still as bad as they were before
he took office. The hospitals were still without facilities and most
importantly, he failed to defeat the demon in the power sector even with
billions of dollars thrown at it. The demons in the same power sector have
claimed Jonathan just like they did Yar’Adua, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Sanni
Abacha, Shonekan, IBB and ShagariEven Buhari himself had already been defeated by
this demon before. So what says it is not going to be the same this time
around. Remember obasanjo was defeated twice by this same demon.
Why
won’t our leaders take us for granted when they’ve noticed that we are always
ready to jump to our feet and “judile” with the announcement of every new
regime? When Buhari overthrew the democratically elected government of Shehu
Shagari in 1983, many of you reading this took to the streets to boogie down.
When Babangida sent Buhari packing a couple of months later, a lot more of you
got drunk and vomited all over the place. Even Abacha’s sudden death brought
smiles on the faces of most bar owners across the country as they ran out of
booze.
Is something wrong with us as a
people? We are forgetting a very important fact that this election proves that
we are and will still remain a divided people. We are divided by our ideologies
with no realistic integration in sight. The election has also reinforced the
thinking that we are divided by regional, tribal and religious interests and
not national. These are some of the significant issues that will define our
tomorrow.
Finally, some of you who are reading this may be
saying, oh Etcetera, can’t you be optimistic for once? My brother, I can’t.
Optimism and its younger brother, hope have proven to be very dangerous
especially in Nigeria. They have sent millions of Nigerians to their early
graves. What is the point of being optimistic in a system that has always left
me in tears and heartache? Or is it till I get arrested by Mr. Cardiac?
Tufiakwa!
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