Sometimes it feels like foolishness is irreversible except we do the hard work of completely changing people. Let me explain.
Nnamdi Kanu was in his house, soldiers came, he ran away, his followers didn’t, some of them were even shot dead, according to their claim. YET the same Nnamdi Kanu starts broadcasting from abroad where he RAN to and he asked you to fight the same soldiers he ran away from. Matter of fact, in his first broadcast he lamented the killing of his dog, instead of the killing of his followers. He even mentioned the dog’s name! He is abroad, he tells you via the internet to be brave, to not run away, to destroy Nigeria he could not destroy while he was here, and he still has followers!
Fani-Kayode cursed Igbos. Wrote SERIES of articles mocking them. He even suggested those Igbos who were killed in the 60s had it coming. Yet, the moment he starts insulting Fulani people, millions of Igbos aligned behind him, hailing him.
Same Fani-Kayode asked sometime ago that who should he join in the PDP? He asked who is in the PDP that can compare to the likes Buhari, Tinubu and El-Rufai, in the APC. Then he was in APC. He joins PDP and Tinubu became a cursed person who pee in his pants, El-Rufai became retarded and even haters of Christians, and Buhari became a Jihadist invader from Futa Jallon. Now he is said to be on his way back to the APC and “we must come together to save Nigeria” plus “remember he is one of the founding members of the APC”
When politicians leave their party they say they had to follow their conscience “I can’t say because I am a founding member I must remain where evil is taking place” Then they join another party and it does not favour them and it is “well, I am back to my party, remember I am a founding member of this party”. And Nigerians accept this provided there are other selfish considerations.
On the one hand you want to call these politicians foolish for making this so obvious. But then you wonder if it is not a case of they know Nigeria has too many stupid people so you don’t really have to make your games complex. It is like some of these home videos, not that the producers don’t know they drag the scenes, some feel they have to drag the scene for the kind of people who watch home videos to be able to understand.
If Nigerians were not selfish people, politicians will respect us more. They will play less games because they know no one will support them when they do and people find out. But then they know there are enough foolish people to jump on their side the moment they press certain buttons.
For Fani-Kayode it is to accuse Muslim or Northerners of oppressing Christians or Southerners. Immediately his sins will be forgiven and he will be hailed.
For Sowore it is to lie to poor people that politicians want to kill them and steal their money and he is the only one fighting for them so if you don’t accept him, you have chosen to suffer and you will die suffering – fear mongering.
For Nnamdi Kanu it is to tell one section of the country that another section of the country wants to take their land through whatever happens to be in the news at the moment. That he ran away from soldiers while urging people to go ahead and die is immediately overlooked.
If Shekau comes out tomorrow and starts saying he is actually after Fulanis who are oppressing his Kanuri people, I am sure he will suddenly have a lot of supporters from a section of the country.
If Boko Haram says tomorrow that their agenda has always been to fight “killer herdsmen” they will turn into heroes very fast. That is how dull or insincere a scary amount of Nigerians are. And this is why we say democracy is the problem.
Democracy creates a situation where you want to always make majority happy, so that if majority was wrong you act like you don’t know. When last did you hear Buhari talk about corruption? I am thinking it may have dawn on him that yes there is corruption but the people in government or passed government were learning corruption when compared to the average Nigerian.
We cannot fix ourselves if we keep deluding ourselves that the problem is only in government (by government I mean political appointees) whereas the bulk of the corruption, incompetence and insincerity is coming from Nigerians on the street.
We need to start working on our kids, fixing their curriculum to include best practices and selflessness, and the true and different understanding of greatness. We need to do the hard work of changing ourselves before leadership can change. This we just need a good President approach appears like a dream to me, and dreams mostly do not come true.
Eseoghene Al-Faruq Ohwojeheri writes from Benin city
