At a recent function in Abuja, Vice President Kashim Shettima expressed his disappointment that some Nigerians would rather be amused by the free fall of Naira value than pour ashes on their heads. According to him, “It is not only disheartening and disenchanting but also heartbreaking that yesterday when the Naira culminated to ₦1,500 to the dollar, instead of us to coagulate into a single force and salvage our nation economy, sadly, some clowns are celebrating on Twitter of an impending implosion of the Nigerian economy.” Look, if any clown here badly needs help recognising what he truly is, it is Shettima himself.
When insecurity was rife in Nigeria under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, Shettima did not think it was necessary to “coagulate into a single force” to save the country. He, and a set of fellow governors, took off for Washington D.C., to “report” their president to foreign agents. Now that he faces a similar bad situation as vice president, he expects to reap the understanding he never sowed. Who exactly does he expect to bunch up and help him solve the problem of Naira depreciation? This time last year, the same Shettima was all over the place campaigning for votes and—with an admixture of outlandish promises and insults to opponents—swore they would turn our earth to heaven. Now you finally have the chance to live up to your promises, you are sourcing the wisdom you need to lead from those you defeated? Yeye man!
Shettima is not the only joker looking for those who will help them do their job. Another one of that tribe is their party spokesman, Felix Morka, who asked opposition parties to go beyond condemning the APC administrative impotence and share solutions to Nigeria’s problems with them. In a Tuesday interview on Channels, Morka said, “One of the concerns we have is that opposition is not about condemning. So, it is not enough to just condemn. These leaders should be able to – assuming they have that silver bullet that they say the government is not deploying – point it out.”
If a plaque is to be handed out for halfwit clowns with poor memory, Morka should be the uncontested winner. He seems to have forgotten—and so quickly too—that the whole of his party’s opposition before they made it to Aso Rock has never consisted of anything but condemnation. Nothing—I repeat, nothing—the PDP and the LP are doing today comes close to the acerbic and vituperative activities of the APC when they were the opposition party. In fact, the PDP and LP cojoined are relatively tame—and lame—compared to the toxicity of just Morka’s predecessor Lai Mohammed alone.
So now Morka expects the opposition parties who want to take their place to give the APC the very ideas the APC needs to stay in power forever? Clown! In case he has never pondered on their party’s antecedents, he should be reminded that the APC itself has never offered Nigeria a model of political opposition that is composed of either solution-finding or even respectful conveyance of an ideological position to authority. Every intellectual agenda and moral vision the APC ideologues and “Lagos boys” ever offered were all cash-and-carry projects funded by their leader who needed to sell himself as Chief Obafemi Awolowo reincarnate. That is why, on the occasions they have won national elections, the first thing they abandoned were those very ideas on which they built the APC’s so-called “progressive” character.
Eight years under Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) stripped some of the biggest names in their party of all mystique, revealing them to be mere blowhards. While some were able to dodge some criticism by claiming they were sidelined under the Buhari administration, nothing has changed now that they are the chief occupiers of Aso Rock. In virtually every sphere, people are groaning under the weight of oppression. The government has not officially admitted it, but they too seem perplexed by the Nigerian situation.
Things are getting out of hand, and there is palpable fear everywhere that when people get pushed to a point where they have exhausted their options, they will resort to the language of the unheard: violence. On Monday, hundreds of residents of Minna, Niger State, and Kano, Kano State, publicly demonstrated the unbearable cost of living occasioned by the Naira devaluation. The surprise is not even that some people protested, but that everyone is not yet on the streets doing the same.
Nigerians have endured a series of hardships for far too long. Look at the past year alone. From the unfortunate Naira redesign policy that brought untold—and entirely needless—hardship on the populace, we have stumbled into fueled crises engendered by the removal of subsidies on petrol and forex. There was no space for recovery before people were plunged into another round of economic crisis.
With Nigerians exposed to the harsh vicissitudes of global economics, the cost of living has spiralled out of control with barely any mitigating measures. The minimum wage remains N30,000 (about $20) and people can barely afford basics such as food, healthcare, energy, medicine, transport costs, energy, etc., let alone the little things that make life pleasant. Families everywhere are watching their purchasing power tanking and the quality of their lives depreciating. These are tough times, and they have been indefinitely extended.
Speaking of tough times, Tinubu’s New Year speech already enjoined Nigerians to maintain a steel resolve in the face of adversity. He said, Dear Compatriots, take this from me: the time may be rough and tough, however, our spirit must remain unbowed because tough times never last. We are made for this period, never to flinch, never to falter. The socio-economic challenges of today should energise and rekindle our love and faith in the promise of Nigeria….
In the history of presidential speeches given during a national crisis, this one must rank very high among the most tone-deaf. Trite and out of touch with reality, it came out insensitive. It is not that hard for a man ensconced in the lush surroundings of Aso Rock and who will never know the pain of hunger, deprivation, and frustration to say “we” (and please note the use of corporate pronoun by someone who lives—and has always lived—on public resources) are made for tough times, never to flinch and never to falter. He—or the speechwriter who composed the uninspiring prose—must assume that our Nigerian skins are overlaid with leather hides and can therefore indeterminately endure the lash of hardship.
Imagine a president who still takes a “private visit” to France amidst the grinding poverty in his country telling us that desperate situations should enhance patriotism. When it comes to suffering, they will expect Nigerians to demonstrate patriotism and unity. When it is time for pleasure, they experience that alone. The dissonance between his speech and executive action reminds you of every charlatan cleric living off the sweat and blood of his congregation while telling them that their “suffer suffer for world” will lead to “enjoyment for heaven.”
Even his own ardent supporters, some of whom resorted to name-calling the Yoruba people who did not support Tinubu’s presidential ambition, are now regretting their support for him. Things are that bad, yes. It is easy—cheap, actually—for a man who does not have to look at the faces of his children and tell them why he cannot live up to his responsibilities because he does not have money to tell other men that their descent into poverty should enhance their patriotism. If not because we are supposed to respect our leaders, the mindset that people should swallow the pill of tough times with patriotism alone qualifies Tinubu to be called another APC “clown.”
