With TONY OKOROJI
Okoroji
Not long ago, we did not have the thousands of boreholes that today litter the land and supply the water with which we cook, wash and bath. The public water supply system seems to have all broken down across Nigeria. It is now: “to your tents, oh Israel”. We have now discovered the little machines that help us pump to the surface whatever water is underground, whether contaminated with typhoid fever or jaundice.
Do you recall that in almost all our neighborhoods, everyone used to take his bucket to the public tap to fetch water? Of course, the water did not flow all the time. You made sure that whenever the water came running again, your bucket is the one right under the tap or as close to it as possible. Did you ever experience the fight and brouhaha that took place at those public taps as people struggled and tore at each other to get a vantage place for their buckets? That is what is going on in Nigeria today.
I cannot help but feel that every politician in Nigeria is trying to position his bucket under the national tap so that the money can keep running in. If his bucket is full, he acquires a new headache. How does he hold on to what he has acquired? For decades, the best drug against headache in Nigeria was called APC, not Panadol. I hear that the greatest insurance company in Nigeria today is also called APC. If your bucket is full, you will be a fool not to insure yourself against the headache of those busybodies called the EFCC who can in a twinkle of an eye overturn your bucket.
Except you have sworn to a partnership with poverty, you must obtain a very good deal from the only insurance company that can cover you with an anti-EFCC policy and the company is called APC. The governors are smart guys. Do you need to be told that the fear of EFCC is the beginning of wisdom? See what they did to Willie Obiano, former governor of Anambra State. With everybody moving in one direction, Nigeria has almost become a one-party state, just like our current best friend, the Peoples Republic of China.
Is it not clear that we do not quite like noise, opposition and debates. Some of our so-called leaders will argue that liberal democracy is not exactly African. We like maximum rulers.. That is why we cannot stand the likes of Nnamdi Kanu, Omoyole Sowore and even Peter Obi. They make too much noise and speak too much English. What is wrong with them? Can’t they fall in line and get some ‘choppings’ from our maximum ruler? Can they not see that our current lingua franca is Chinese. Very soon, it will be compulsory for all our children to learn Chinese in our schools.
Have you noticed that after our struggle to stop being a British colony, we have now with open hands quietly accepted to become a Chinese colony? The Chinese are now funding and building our railways, airports, roadways and everything else! Nobody knows exactly how much we owe the Chinese. How are we sure that the Chinese are not also funding our politics?
Almost every governor wants to join the APC, the greatest party in the history of mankind that has turned Nigeria, the world’s biggest black nation, into Eldorado, a land overflowing with milk, honey and blood. I guess the governors want to share in the adoration the Nigerian people are heaping on APC for the revolutionary leadership they have foisted on the nation.
Have you noticed how easy it is to make money in Nigeria these days? You don’t need a degree or any special training or skills. Just collect a few of your jobless friends and gather some AK47 riffles. You can start a kidnapping business or storm any school or college and collect all the children there and take them away to any forest. It will be all over WhatsApp that the ‘bandits’ have struck again. You can then name how many bags of rice and tomatoes you require to feed the children and how many hundreds of millions of naira you want to release them. Outside of politics, banditry has become the biggest and most thriving business in Nigeria. Look out very soon for ABN, the Association of Bandits of Nigeria asking for dedicated seats at the National Assembly.
Welcome to Africa’s Revolutionary Republic – the one-party state called Nigeria.
See you next week
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