“Talk Sense to a Fool and He Calls You Foolish”

                 

By Denrele Animasaun

A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.--Chinua Achebe

Just when I thought our politicians could not sink any lower, they then go and show that there are depths lower than low they can easily crawl out of. Last week, my British colleague alerted my attention to a sickening report about Nigeria covered by the BBC and the Washington Post.  It seemed that Goodluck’s sycophants had unfurl banners round Abuja, using similar hashtag campaign of the missing Chibok girls. They, in their absolute stupidity and arrogance flew the flag for Jona’s 2015 campaign. Only they could have thought it was right to capitalise on other peoples’ tragedy.

I am sure they did not see the harm in what they did, they simply thought that there was an opportunity to link the  Chibok girls hash tag to  Jonathan’s ambitious re-election bid.  They must have thought what a stroke of genius that they had come up with it. How they must have thought that people will recognise the hash tag similarity and of course, people will applaud them and it will be a success! I  don’t  know  about  you, but in a country  of  very  clever people, why do  we often act dumb, crass and uncouth?  Where have we left our pride and honour? What have we traded for the loss of our moral compass and what are we saying to our young. We are quick to shot down people who speak out and question our collective morality and integrity. We have thrown out respect and replace it for those that shout the loudest and offer nothing but chaos and confusion.  We have lost our humanity and compassion.

This time,they have gone beyond the pale of decency and  they  have the temerity  to  explain it away that the top  huncho  knows  nothing about it and that makes it  all right?  No, it does not make it right; in fact there lies the problem with these arrogant and power drunk hunchos.  The  floor is strewn with  litany of  excuses and  they wish  it  away and we consign it  to back with the other big white lies and  mediocrities.

I mean,  the  fact  no one amongst  the so-called media savvy lackeys would  have thought that  #BringBackJonathan2015, is  simply puerile. The international press did register their horror and disappointment that such campaign to bring back the girls can be tainted and abused at a higher level to exploit the situation.

It seems that the mad (politicians) are running the asylum(Nigeria) how  obscene to  gather that the press office to the president  was  not  aware and meanwhile,many of this  banners  were  flying in prominent places in the capital and  women  at  their  rallies  had hundreds of this said hash tag  embossed  across their  T-shirts?  What do you say when the blind seems to be leading the clueless? They say, that those gods want to destroy, they first make mad. We are witnessing a runway train and they cannot stop it because they are in too deep. We are watching how this train will hit the buffers with all these supercilious idiots on it.

So to my  delight it  was a relief  and with pride to read  that Wole Soyinka  took  pen  to paper to register his disgust in an  open  letter. The man of letters covered the mood of right thinking Nigerians. Is there no respect for the family of the missing girls and for the worldwide concerns for their return? The open letter covered what is wrong with Nigerians today and more. Soyinka is brave, erudite and conscientious as always. He  called it  as he  sees it  when he  said that; “The dancing obscenity of Shekau and his gang of psychopaths and child abductors, taunting the world, mocking the BRING BACK OUR GIRLS campaign on internet, finally met its match in Nigeria to inaugurate the week of September 11 – most appropriately.

That banner read:  BRING BACK JONATHAN 2015″ Of course, there are many in their ivory towers who readily dismissed what this esteem elder has said. I remember what another esteem sage Chinua Achebe, had said; “When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we see something which you do not see.”

They obviously have no respect  as they  are filled with own self-importance and arrogance, they  dismiss the achievements and contributions  that  the likes of Achebe and  Soyinka  made to our country  and in one  quick  swoop, they  become belligerent and they will time  rue the day.

Despite the protestations of not knowing by the Jonas camp, it is plain to see that if it smells like a duck, looks like a duck, then it is a duck! No way can we continue to live on a diet of lies that are spewed and scattered as the gospel. Nigerians have got to have the courage to believe the truth and develop some moral back bone. We can no longer feel  it  is safe  to stick  our necks further down  the sand and  rather than  face the  facts; Nigerians have  got a serious  problem and it is  about time we faced the facts and  see what  we can do  as a collective.

There are  immoral and avaricious individuals  who are doing everything that they  can to siphon  more of  our  common  wealth  for their  own  gluttonous  agenda. They are so desperate to hold on to the vestiges of power and are ready to try all dastardly means to do so.

It is absolute disgrace, there is no redeeming   features in these desperados even if they attempt to   dazzle us with their cloth of respectability. This simply will not wash. Like elder Soyinka sad;” the damage has been done, the rot in a nation’s collective soul bared to the world. The very possibility of such a desecration took the Nigerian nation several notches down in human regard. It confirmed the very worst of what external observers have concluded and despaired of – a culture of civic callousness, a coarsening of sensibilities and, a general human disregard. It affirmed the acceptance, even domination of lurid practices where children are often victims of unconscionable abuses including ritual sacrifices, sexual enslavement, and worse.  Spurred by electoral desperation, a bunch of self-seeking  morons and sycophants chose to plumb the abyss of self-degradation and drag the nation down to their level.  It took us to a hitherto unprecedented low in ethical degeneration”

He was acerbic and funny to suggest that perhaps if they must, they could bring back some essentials like “electricity and other elusive items like security, the rule of law, etc.

The list is interminable.  And funny “The nature of what is being brought back is thus what raises the disquieting questions. It is time to ask the question: if Ebola were to be eradicated tomorrow, would this government attempt to bring it back?”

No one could have put it better.  What do we say to our young, where do we stand on the side of history? Should we all be tarred with same odious brush?” Most of us love a life of delusion, escapism, grandiosity and denial for so long.

Credit: Vanguard