“THE PRESIDENT IS NOT IN A GRAVE OF MANY ERRORS”

Birthdays are for sharing of cakes, but to offer one for a nation like ours that have spent all of its years of existence in a grave of unending errors is so grievous a mistake on the part of one whose original function is not that of an undertaker but of a midwife, from there forth on to the function of nurturing and catering, and teaching how to live, much akin to the role of a mother and a father over their offspring, this is the summed role of a ruler, not the reverse.
For there are more than assumed differences between a birth and a death, yes there was a birth of a nation dated October 1, 1960, (even though January 1, 1914 is more like it) and indeed we have since then never stopped the dying, when from this date forward, living is what is expected of us. Every one of the midwives on assumption of duty has deemed it fit, to continue on the path of its predecessor and function as an undertaker. This is the very unmaking of Nigeria whether at 52 or at 98.
But here our concern is much in relation to the celebration of the working masses, at their effort at nation building not merely in their daily sweating to produce the wealth of the nation, but their rising to consciousness to understanding that there every expectations from the ruling elites for the country to be built and developed in a way and manner that the working masses would benefit from their sweat rather than have all of it appropriate to feed the ego and luxurious life of the elites and that of their cronies would always be betrayed. The task of nation building can therefore not commence without a successful pulling down of the ruling elites and their neoliberal regime by the direct movement of the working masses into the arena of struggle, this is the very the reason that makes the January 2012 protest against the fuel price increase of great significant.
And like we all know with the protest that there was a birth, the birth of the possibility of a new beginning for the nation, and a new way of governance with the working masses and their interest at the heart and act of governance.
With Nigerians from all works of life establishing a common symmetry, with state function suspended and the street in their full control, even the dreaded Boko Harem felt no need to throw any bomb, these Nigerians indeed could not have been ordinary in the way to successfully showed to all of us the possibility of how unity can be built through working class unity from across all ethnic nationality and religious divide. Can you imagine Muslims providing a shield round the church while Christians do their thing and Christians do the same while Muslims were praying, oh no these cannot be Nigerians, not to now talk of the fact that they are ordinary Nigerians, to accomplish such a feat, when the elites continued to labour at it unsuccessfully, which is why the President seems not to have been wrong when he said these were not “ordinary” Nigerians, not with the demonstration raising the slogan of power, regime and system change just less than 9 months of a massive electoral turn out to elect him as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
There was the possibility of a death to all the old ways of doing things and running the country to feed the pocket of the ruling elites and their cronies. This death did not arise and yet there was a death and the killings. All of these the President seems to ignore in his recent outburst on the January protest, since it was clear there was no need whatsoever to acknowledge the role played by him in the death of the protest by sending an occupying force to take over the street neither did he deem it fit to apologize for the killings. He did not command any force to Lagos to occupy the Ojota’ Gani Fawehinmi Park, neither could the DPO of Pen Cinema Police Station, Agege, Segun Olubunmi who shot and killed Ademola Aderinde have acted on orders of the president, the IG or is it the Commissioner of Police made that clear enough there was no order to that effect to shoot and kill innocent peaceful protesting Nigerians not when the protest were entirely peaceful. Nor does the president need to weep over the death of Abdul Malik Rabiu Badawa, and Bashir Musa Zango, in Kano and many others who were mauled down including that of Mustapher Muyideen in Ilorin even days before the strike was to officially kick off, do we need any other evidence that these Nigerians were not acting on their own or is it more easier to say that the police men and soldiers who carried these killings and cleaned the street free from its occupation were not Nigerians!
Flowing from the above we cannot all but see reason with the President that the “protest in Lagos was manipulated by a class in Lagos and was not from the ordinary people”. Such profound wisdom from the president should and must not go unacknowledged by us all and indeed we can with this welcome him to the Olympian height of cerebrum functionality never before attained by any other Nigerian ruler. This is why the comedy of error would be more on the path of this writer to conclude that the President is in a grave of many errors and expect him not to want to stretch the luck in his name of Goodluck to cover all the years of the won mandate and the one still to come. The good days cannot so soon be so very early over; Nigerians only need to learn how to wait and wait for good governance to come. The delusion therefore is not on the part of the President to the extent that his regime is filled with good intentions for the country.
We cannot therefore pick a quarrel with his paid apologists... or even with "our own" Rueben Abati, only that they are spending our money, very good money to educate us all of how things would all be better tomorrow! We are the ones who are failing to be good students to heed the professorial teachings of the president, of why government “must act in the public interest, no matter how tough, for the pains of today cannot be compared to the benefits of tomorrow.” But no, history is such a very bad subject to learn from when it comes to cataloguing all the promises of all other regimes that have forces on us a regime of increase in fuel prices. Is it that the kitchen cabinet crew of Abati and co are failing to school the president or is it the president that is proving to be an unrepentant bad student of history, given the bad nature of our history on this account, or he is simply stoop down low to the level of the unschooled and unlettered ordinary Nigerians that he is governing or history as a subject has been “manipulated” by those the President is accusing for fueling the protest in Lagos.
We must therefore take it for granted that Nigerians are so much used to suffering and fuel price increase (imagine since 1989 SAP days of IBB) that they have indeed fallen in love with the act of periodic hiking of fuel prices and all its added suffering, better to buy it at whatever sky rocket price than suffer the more heinous palpitation of no fuel at all… Don’t go minding the crude oil. This is available. This is black gold. But what use is gold, black and unrefined …. To have knocked vehicles all over the road would be more of an indices for a failed Jonathan regime, which would not be good for counting luck for Goodluck, so in fulfillment of the spirit of electoral juggernaut and campaign of no promise whatsoever, “everything would be done to make fuel available at the appropright upping of the price at fuel station in line with the price at the international market”. So goes the thinking and wisdom of the presidency.
And must we forget that there is nothing local or national about our crude oil, international oil Barons and companies, do the discovering, the drilling and of course the doctoring of the figures of barrels in the face of stacked illiterates Nigerian public official oil experts who know nothing of the numerology of oil drilled outside of the figures handed over and added kickbacks both under and on top of the table deals and raw cash inserted into “carry go bags”. So then there can be nothing else than the local equivalent of the international price, given that we must be seen as doing our own fair share of gratitude to the international oil barons by paying them back in kind through patronization of their refined products of our own crude oil, how is this not a boost for our economy to use our own crude oil, unmindful of where ever it is refined. This would boost sales figures and provide the downstream jobs of importing fuel, for the local boys, of course make funds available for donations to be made into party funds, and what better way than a subsidy regime. This is free give a way, the mistake must not be made, our surplus most be duly spent to built and encourage a class of enterprising entrepreneurs that we can hope in future would do the good job of replacing the monsters and their foreign sharks of so call international oil barons. Our own enriched and rich enough bourgeoisies would see the need to built and maintain new refineries at no cost whatsoever to the State, to free more of our resources for our cherished pastime of the ruling elites and you know what I am drifting at.
The presidency next forages into the realm of sociology and culture to tell us of our love for music and comedy. Hear the president “They go and hire the best musicians to come and play and the best comedian to come and entertain”. This is excellent wisdom ...though not new at all… And the masses in their own foolish wisdom would not expect a tasking of the resources of the state to be expended on a public official in the Culture or Tourist ministry for this almighty and allknown piece of sociological information, not less would they expect their president in all his wisdom to pedal such streetwise and indulge in a waste of public fund. The president would not dare do that; someone must be making a mistake! But not to worry... Nigerians can dance, we love to celebrate, see the way we bury our dead … our weeping must be as short as possible, the sad countenance in most cases is for the public view, especially when it brings into view the question of succession, The Civil Societies, even so called Oppostion with base in Lagos rose in defense of an official handover in January 2010, given the then incapacitation of the president, Lagos streets then was not occupied by some too rich boys and girls who could never go hungry, never bottle water drinking lot to add their voice to the call of an end the rule of the kitchen cabinet Cabals, who held power on behalf of the president in full disdain of the constitutional provision that the Vice President should act in the absence of the president... except that we don’t know, if Jonathan can educate us all that it took him financing all the bottle waters that were drank on that march in Lagos to demand that the Vice President be allowing into acting capacity for the in capacitated President.
Fela Anikulapo Kuti remains the foremost and number one of all musicians at the Lagos protest, there were a list of those who wanted to win their way back into the hearts of Nigerians that they so disappointed, when they were all falling over themselves to line their pockets with cool cash for their faces and voices to line unrehearsed songs endorsing Jonathan for President, they came up so disappointed, but who ever made any promise, except to the Godfathers abroad and home to continue things as they were. So how much was paid to bring Fela from out of the grave to become the very living wire of the protest? This calls for a probe panel, both a Natioanal Assembly and an executive probe panel to determine the amount of public funds that have been diverted from budgeted expenditures by the “class in Lagos” to line the pockets of the Lords of the Underworld to allow this “bloody civilian” some fresh flesh for his already rotting bones! The wisdom of the President cannot here be on recess, and not to worry there is no need to wait forever, another charge can be brought forward like the question of violating code of conduct bureau which is constitutional provided for.
How was it possible for Fela to so synchronize with the mood of the people that were on the street protesting, and not a warrant was issued for his arrest, or is that they “the (Ruling) class in Lagos” had also manipulated the police not to see the havoc Fela was capable of doing and was doing in mobilizing the street thick and strong, or is that the presidency (No! this is not possible) does not know ..that music is a veritable tool in the act of mobilizing support that you would expect the President to know something as simple as this, which came in handy in his electoral campaign and was heavily budgeted for, then what is happening… where is the failing in the presidency in this regard. Over to the Civil Societies in Lagos, this is a good enough campaign to call for the sacking of some of the boys and girls both at the media unit or some of the special advisers for not doing their job properly.
Why fail and delay in the introduction of music, dance and comedy into the school curriculum, why is the president wasting time, compulsory music and comedy playing sessions in all work place… the excellent pre-electoral performances of the drafted and paid music boys and girls who told us all of the beauty of a Jonathan Presidency and all the good it would do our nation. Why not legislate a permanent job for them all and have Nigerians all the time routing their love this presidency… Nigerians love music and comedy and in turn anyone who does as much as making this available to them..except that in their household the culminating phenomenon of the permanent panopano PHCN leaves them with no other option than seek the option of daily walking distance of kilometer to hear and exercise their love for music and comedy which is literarily impossible in their dark shanty enclosement of a home.
Why not break the monopoly of the use of these cultural instrument and employ the mighty weight of the resources of the Nigerian state to show this good for nothing “ (Ruling) Class in Lagos” , how it can properly be done, Oh no! The presidency is scared of founding new frontiers for good for nothing politically controlled media houses in Lagos. Then they would say we have an unserious president who wastes the resources of the country providing good music and comedy to the enjoyment of the people who love good music and comedy! Why must the advice to the Malawian president come in handy for the president himself “not bother, forget the critic and go on”.
On the charge of free food, there is no need erroneously concluding that the President thinks that Nigerians are so wretched and so too hungry that we all woke up very early to walk Mushin, Orile, Ipaja, Agege , Ajegunle, okota, Ketu, Ikorodu, Amuwo (etc) to Ojota to eat one meal that was being handed out to complement the music and the bottled water, who is soon forgetting how hospital we are..when the budget speaks volume of our hospitality bearing in mind the huge figure allotted to refreshment by the presidency.
What is criminal in an opposition doing something that would put it in the good instead of the masses that it would count on their vote the next election around… or is that Jonathan never ever been in opposition does not know the book and rule on which opposition parties leverage on. But then are ordinary Nigerians not capable of fending for themselves, but their little drops to support their expectations and indeed the truth which is no good tale to the ears of the presidency was that millions of Nigerians were out there on account of the quest for running things differently from the rot that presently pervades governance in Nigeria.
Which is why we need not then go and conclude that the mock coffins and the effigies that were carried on the street during the protest were all self made, all came from the humble and simple quest for an end to corruption, and end to importation of fuel, and end to non functionality of refineries, an end profiteering from the sweat and blood of the working masses, an end to the regime of neo liberalism. But the president must be told that all manners of sins can be forgiven, even the use of innuendoes against the “(ruling) class in Lagos” (and also forgotten by the them with the appropright upping of the sharing formula in favour of cash flow or oil well equivalent personalized in the behind for the them). This is why the whole hue against the opposition is more of wool out for a dyeing look, no more than an embarrassing stunt to win the listening earn of the president for bargaining at the table. Is there any section of the Ruling Elites who are in anyway opposed to the fuel hike or the idea of making more money as much as possible even if it means further pauperizing the working masses.
But when the president states that “people were given bottled water that people in my village don’t have access to”, this should not be seen as a shocker but a thesis from the erudite of the president at the boldness in putting forward a political treatise that could earn some PhD student a doctorate in political philosohpy if elaborated upon, governance cannot and must not conducted on an ethnic bases, those who cling to this theory that development would go round the country, if all the sections of the ruling elite are allowed to take turn, should learn from the president and his village afterall people from his village still do not have access to bottle water, so the Igbos can as well forget 2015, the North should not even think of it!
Now that we all share the same knowledge with the president in relation to his village, can we go further to ask why this is so, is it that the roads are not good enough to ferry those products down there without being bugged down by unmotorable creek paths or being waylaid by some masked faced guns boys who are still on the waiting for the amnesty to fit them into the list for their monthly pay cheque, and while they wait they can do with drinking some luxurious clean water.
“Look at the demonstrations back home, look at the areas these demonstrations are coming from, you begin to ask, are these the ordinary citizens that are demonstrating? Or are people pushing them to demonstrate?”
The president is not in the know that the people are feeling the pinch, that the so call middle class has literally been wiped away or reduced to much of pretense status still held onto only for the mere fact of ego.. that people could drive all the way from places like Ikoyi, Lekki, VGC, FESTAC, Sateline Town, etc and join in this sing song against a regime that had promised them a debate …only to assume that it won the debate and go on ahead to implement an increase when to all reason and fact the discourse was still on, and the government had failed and was failing to convince anyone except itself and the local oil barons who stand to benefit from the increase, why they must go on with an increase that ..they are yet still thinking how they would again increase it…

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