Nigeria We Hail Thee! -By Ayodele Adio

The news that five million Nigerians are in danger of a potential famine has been reverberating across the Western media for months now but all we get from our politicians and pundits is deafening silence on the matter. It seems as though we are more interested in Dino Melaye’s latest musical antic, “ajekun iya”, the just concluded Big Brother reality show or whether or not the Director General of the customs should appear before the Ssenate in his official uniform, when right within our borders another humanitarian disaster looms. I am further mortified, if not livid, by the nonchalance of northern leaders who have continued to fail their people through the years. How does one explain that the president, senate president and the honorable speaker of the House of Representatives are all from the North, where this famine threatens the most and yet there is no sense of urgency in response to it?

There truly is a difference between occupying positions of authority and leadership, and sadly what we seem to have is a system that builds strong individuals at the expense of strong institutions. In such a system, individuals are empowered with wealth and affluence while their immediate constituencies, through which they earned seats at the table, are left in abject poverty. Imagine the tremendous courage displayed by the government and people of Senegal in scrapping the nation’s Senate or Upper house, to save an estimated 15 million dollars from the nation’s annual budget that will go into a fund to help victims of recent deadly floods. Unbelievable!

I dare say that leadership thrives on compassion, a willingness to be fanatical about the welfare of those led. A nation without a conscience and the slightest of compassion will continue to recycle injustice and rebellion at the cost of innocent lives. I wish I could write about something more cheerful, anything but the collective democratic blunder of electing simpletons to pilot the affairs of an ailing nation.

Senator Hadi Sirika, minister of state for Aviation, has become the toast of the administration, the poster boy of the “APC change mantra” after delivering on his promise of renovating the Abuja airport runway in six weeks. Hilarious! When a country rolls out the drums to celebrate the renovation of a 3.6 kilometre runway, be sure it has been condemned to mediocrity. This is a country where over 35,000 people lost their lives in road accidents in 2015 alone, yet we are in frenzy because the Kaduna to Abuja expressway was renovated to cater for the needs of the elite who were inconvenienced by the renovation of the airport runway. Forgive me but like the late MKO Abiola once said, “you cannot be pissing on my back and tell me it is rain when I know piss is hotter than rain”. The Abuja runway renovation was a typical case of the elite protecting their own interest, so pardon me for refusing to dance. Now I agree with Charly Boy, “Our mumu don do”.

By the way, conservatives in Kano are taking turns to tongue lash the highly cerebral Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II for speaking “truth to power”, while remaining in denial of their reality. I however will not be pontificating on this issue as it is largely a family affair but then can the people who supported his enthronement pretend they did not know what they were inviting into their homes? When he challenged the ex-president as CBN governor, the same conservatives cheered him on, even spread roses on the floor in which he walked on and further epitomised his “let justice be done though the heavens fall” machismo. Karma is an ass.

In all of these our dear president has gone incommunicado only to be seen fraternising after Jumaat prayers on Friday. Nigeria we hail thee!

Ayodele Adio is co-host of a Lagos radio programme.