Wike’s Cookathon And The Famished Masses -By Ugoji Egbujo

During election campaigns, politicians will sit near gutters and eat akara. They might buy some and share them with passing school children. When the need for votes is urgent, politicians flirt with raw poverty. They can’t convince the poor that they have become so honest with public finances that they eat like everyday people. The roadside theatrics aim to woo the public.

They know the masses are always sentimental. The masses can see through those performances, and yet because of them, they forgive politicians of all their sins. The politicians need not dwell in misery with them, it’s enough that they come down, from time to time, to fellowship with poverty. When politicians assume public office, they can discard the farce and return to allowing the public to peep at their real meals and champagnes. They embrace other kinds of pretensions. This week, the minister of the federal capital showed the public his opulent kitchen and exotic pots.

The man who recorded the video laid bare the vanity of the enterprise. He said the video would ‘break the internet’. Perhaps in the minds of those gathered for the sumptuous feast in these trying times, the hungry poor would be excited to see senior government officials running around a shiny kitchen, turning soups and laughing heartily. That is the mental state of our politicians. The public should be fascinated with pictures of a big man doing any chores in his lush kitchen. That must be why the video was released. It didn’t show the man dicing vegetables or onions and descaling fish. No, that’s unnecessary hard work. It showed the man turning the thick soup, which must be filled with orisirisi.

But it’s good that the handlers of these politicians concoct some of these things in attempts to show their bosses as human beings. To re-humanize them in the eyes of the public. Yet everything should have its time and season. There is a season to hold political meetings in faraway London in an ostensible bid to further Project Nigeria in the interest of the common man. Yes, there are times for frivolity. And there is a time to understand that the economy is a deep economic mess and the poor can no longer breathe.

When the masses are being strangulated by galloping inflation, politicians should show pictures of themselves huddled together, gazing at files, pretending to think about the predicament they have brought on the nation. Agreed, some cynical folks might not fall for that gimmick because they know many of the big politicians no longer read, let alone engage in rigorous thought, yet such a scene, as artificial as it might appear, might evidence a sense of sobriety. A kitchen scene by guffawing ministers at a time when federal workers can’t feed their families smacks of unfathomable aloofness.

Perhaps it’s an abject lack of empathy. In this country, public officials suffer a common ailment. They can’t feel the pain of the people. They can’t contrive it. They don’t try. While the poor trek to work because they can no longer pay bus fares, a minister bought brand new SUVs for traditional rulers and published them in newspapers. He said he spent the huge sums to buy the new vehicles to enhance the security of the city.

Our politicians lack empathy and ideas, but can’t they learn optics? I don’t mean eating in bukkas on election eves. I mean gauging appearances and perspectives before acting. Those who seek to break the internet must choose their stories wisely. They must stop showing politicians drinking imported forty-year-old whiskeys while the naira tumbles in the wilderness. But they can show Wike and Gbajabiamila fasting and praying for the recovery of the naira. Because that will make people believe everybody’s fate lies in the floundering currency.

As Wike cooked and made a meal of it, Femi Gbajabiamila, the president’s chief of staff craned his neck into the pot as if there was a secret to discover and others cheered. You would think Wike was cooking crocodiles. This isn’t a good time for politicians to show the hungry poor that the suffering is not general. Food inflation is off the hinges. People can’t find food to eat. Some risks are unnecessary. Politicians are blessed. those who occupy high offices are fortunate. They should eat without provoking the poor to envy. If they must let the poor see them cooking wantonly then they should ensure they are cooking not for themselves but for a school or motherless babies home. In this country, nobody thinks politicians shouldn’t eat like emperors. But they can do that quietly without thumping their noses into the faces of poor citizens brought down to their knees by hunger.

The politicians, however, shouldn’t get all the blame. Our political culture is underpinned by brigandage and opportunism. So even an innocent young entrant into politics might go through the ranks and come out bereft of values. The system doesn’t inculcate discipline, moderation and patriotism. Rule following fetches no reward. So who would blame the politicians? Some of the jobless and hungry youth might watch the video and thank God that their leaders are still living large on their behalf. Though hunger might be their portion, they are happy because their favourite politician can eat like a king. They might even appropriate for themselves the bragging right that their man has accumulated more wealth than their neighbour’s man.

The politicians know this. They know the masses are hungry but pathologically sentimental. So sometimes they eat akara by the gutter and at other times, they allow the poor to peep at sybaritism and empty bottles of 40-year-old whiskeys, subsidy or no subsidy.