New Telegraph

Politrickscians on the march again for 2023 (part 2)

INTRODUCTION

Last week, we commenced our discourse on this vexed issue regarding the season of empty and vainglorious promises made by politicians (I call them politrickcians). Most of these promises are neither kept nor accomplished. Today, we shall further x-ray and conclude our discourse on the deceptive nature of the average politician. Please, read on.

 

THE RENTED HALLELUJAH CROWD (continues)

The Politrickcian will mount the soap box to further mouth empty promises as follows: I will banish hunger and annul (pardon me, IBB), the consumption of ordinary homemade yams, maize, garri, akpu, fufu, amala, elubo, eba, fura da nunu, miyar kuka, edikangikong, ofe nsala, nkwobi, atsu, tuwon shinkafa, tuwo zaafi, ewedu and all such unhealthy local foods.

 

“Stomach infrastructure” or “democracy of the stomach” will be my first and primary concern when you elect me into office. I will grow apples, avocados, spinach, berry, water melon, papaya, guava, oranges, bananas, coconut and apricot in your bedrooms, verandas and sitting rooms.

 

I will refine the oil in the Niger Delta, stop gas flaring and exploit the vast mineral resources that abound across Nigeria. I will pay all your children’s school fees, including WAEC, NECO and UTME fees. I will sponsor them to University level; even post graduate studies. My reign will ensure that your breakfast shall comprise of toasted bread, sausage, spring rolls, bacon, vegetables and prawns in batter.

 

Your lunch will be fried pigeon, pork ribs, shrimps in chili sauce and mashed potatoes; while your dinner will be Singapore noodles, crabs, boneless sweet and sour duck, lobsters in black bean sauce and asparagus, and broccoli with mixed vegetable”. What can the average Nigerian Politickcian not do? Nothing! Nigeria befuddles me.

 

ONLY IN NIGERIA

It is only in Nigeria that a Politrickcian will be elected on the platform of a political party, stay put and enjoy the party’s protection and reputation for seven years; quietly or tumultuously decamps to an opposition political party in the 8th year, and suddenly realize that his original political party was satanic, luciferous, leprous, odious, backward, useless and indeed, consists of political lepers and greedy thieves of our common wealth.

Only in Nigeria! He will tell us he has returned “home”, and his fellow thieving Politickcians will gladly welcome him with pomp and pageantry. It is only in Nigeria that a governor will cajole and coax a crowd of people drawn from all nooks and crannies of all the local governments of his state, just for the purpose of commissioning a five-kilometer road project whose touted padded cost is actually more than 500 per cent of the actual cost.

 

The money used in organizing the attendant, “commissioning ceremony” is nearly as much as the project cost itself. Only in Nigeria!

 

The poor, cheated and hoodwinked plebeians will sing their hearts out, tattoo their bodies with uli and ume, and dance atilogwu, mpokiti, igioge, igbokobia, igieleghe and even egbabonalimhi dance. Only in Nigeria!

They relish in the Stockholm Syndrome by empathising and falling in love with their tormentors and slave drivers.

Stalin’s state of the chicken whose feathers he publicly plucked, whilst the croaking bleeding chicken still wobbled back to eat particles of grain from his hand, is apposite here.

 

The politrickcian will hire and arm thugs to win election. As soon as he is sworn in, he discards with the unwanted dregs of the society. He is despised, derided and ignored. He only sees his “oga” in long convoys of tinted glass cars. Frustrated, he takes to the forest and transforms into a kidnapper, armed bandit, book haram, murderer and internet scammer.

 

It is only in Nigeria you will hear the President and Governors “vow” to build roads, provide shelter and education, give water and medicare to citizens, as if they were ever elected for a different purpose.

 

Only in Nigeria! It is only in Nigeria that a community will welcome their son or daughter with open arms where he or she can show and demonstrate overt evidence of vulgar opulence and primitive acquisition. Indeed, the more the “son of the soil”, or “daughter of the soil” stole from the national till, the more he/she is venerated and idolised.

The sudden wealth must luminate in sprawling mansions, in all parts of the world; private jets, a fleet of countless cars, vast acres of holiday resort and snaky escort-heralded convoys of tinted vehicles. Only in Nigeria! Woe betides the poor retiree who comes back empty-handed in the name of prudence, patriotism, honesty and probity while in service. He/she will be shunned, avoided, derided, scorned, mocked and spat at, for being a fool while in service.

 

Only in Nigeria! It is only in Nigeria that elders will pour libation and pray for their children thus; “May God and our ancestors increase your wealth (money), but not your work. May you find, or stumble on money that is not owned by any one”. Gracious God! Holy Moses! Only in Nigeria

 

! It is only in Nigeria that certificated criminals who have ripped us off from our commonwealth will be rewarded and have their necks garlanded with medals, honourary doctorate degrees and National Honours. They will be awarded high sounding chieftaincy titles, all of them ending with one (1). There is no number two or three.

That is a taboo. It is Ogbini 1, Ogbaleghe 1, Okpughukpughu 1, Onwa 1, MajeKobaje 1, Yerimah 1, etc. such criminal elements will be accorded prominent seats and mats in the front pews and spaces of our churches and mosques, scrambling for spaces with our liturgical and clerical officials such as canons and Imams.

Only in Nigeria! It is only in Nigeria that small level officials of Government will easily pocket billions of naira and amass tens of houses and then smile home thereafter after a judicial slap on their wrist.

 

Only in Nigeria! It is only in Nigeria that Boko Haram and armed bandits will abduct our innocent daughters from Chibok, Dapchi, Kankara, Jangebi, Kaduna and Kagara. Rather than unite as a Nation and fight a common enemy, as the Americans did on September 11, 2001, when her national pride and symbol of strength, the New York twin towers, were    leveled to ground zero, Nigerians will engage in lamentation and rightly blame the nonperforming President and Governor of the receiving state.

THERE IS NO DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA

Indeed, Nigeria, especially under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, does not practise democracy at all.

Rather, it practises electonocracy, judocracy, executocracy and legislatocracy. I will explain these terms which I have personally coined from my personal lexical dictionary.

 

That was what informed the aliases of “Ozek baba”, “mobile dictionary” and “mobile library”, that my late legendary mentor, iconic Chief Gani Fawehinmi SAN, SAM, GCON, fondly called me whilst working with him, up to becoming his Deputy Head of Chambers in 1985.

ELECTIONACRACY

“Electionacracy ” is a system of government where elections are held as a ritual at intervals of four years in Nigeria, with the emergent elected or selected leaders, rather than giving the electors democracy dividends, merely stabilise themselves in power, commence primitive acquisition of wealth and forget the electorate that erected the leaders in the first place.

They then begin another round of campaigns after pretending to work for two years. They are already looking forward to the next election when the electorate has not benefited from any democracy dividends from their first term.

JUDOCRACY

“Judocracy” is a genre of government practised only in Nigeria, where Presidents, Governors, Legislators and LG Chairmen are thrown up as having “won” in an election. Their victory is immediately challenged. They get enmeshed in these legal calisthenics for the next two to three years of their corruption- ridden governance.

 

Then, suddenly, they are conceived, incubated and delivered in the hallowed Chambers and precincts of our law courts, rather than through the ballot box.

The will of the people is thereby subsumed in the decision and judgement of courts of law, the nonrepresentatives of the people.

 

EXECUTOCRACY

“Executocracy, ” as practised in Nigeria, is an aberrant form of government, far removed from democracy, where the executive arm of government acts in torrerem of other arms of government.

The Executive continually browbeat, intimidate, harass, marginalise and subjugate the Legislature and the Judiciary. It is usually headed by a maximalist, autocratic, absolute and dictatorial head, who views himself as Loius XIV of France. Loius XIV was so intoxicated with the effect of liquorinebriating power that in 1655, he proudly

stood in front of parliament and declared “L’etat, C’ est moi” (I am the state). He said this to indicate his complete hold on power to the exclusion of all other lesser mortals.

NOW THIS

LEGISLOTACRACY

“Legislatocracy” is another peculiar genre of democracy as practised only in Nigeria. It is a fundamentally flawed legislative system where there is an over-bloated and virtually jobless 360 members of the House of Representatives and 109 Senators, all of whom are not unsurprisingly permitted by the 1999 Constitution to sit for only six months out of 12. This enables them to seamlessly engage in extra-legislative businesses and money-making ventures.

 

These legislators, contrary to the clear provisions of the 1999 Constitution, legislate on EVERYTHING except making laws “for the peace, order and good government of the federation”.

 

The lawmakers carryout oversight functions under Sections 88 and 89 of the constitution, not in furtherance of any public interest or any common good, but in pursuit of their private pockets after extorting money (during budget presentations) from ministries, MDA’s and other government establishments, both at the federal, state and LGA’s level. Under legislatocracy, Mr. President’s requests are sacrosanct and written on Hamurabi tablet of inviolability.

 

So, like the agama lizard, the lawmakers can only nod their heads “yes, yes, yes”, to all presidential requests, however anti-people. Legislatocracy ensures free padding of budgets to accommodate their insatiable baccanalina propensity to consume and indulge in primitive acquisition of vulgar wealth in a rentier economy. Legislatocracy also ensures that rather than make laws, legislators fight over constituency projects.

When given hundreds of millions to execute these projects, they end up digging a few boreholes, repairing village culverts; buying motorcycles, hair dryers, grinding machines and wheel barrows, to their hapless clapping peasants and thugs that were used during the last elections.

 

Nigeria’s peculiar legislatocratic system ensures that the lawmakers receive the highest pay amongst law makers across the globe, including older, tested and more established democracies of the world. Only in Nigeria! It is so sad, so debasing, so heart-rending and so idiotic. Nigeria, we hail thee! (Concluded).

AND THIS

CRACK YOUR RIBS

“A young boy comes home from school in a bad mood. His father asks him what’s wrong, son? The kid tells his dad that he’s upset because another kid has been teasing him and calling him gay. The father says ‘punch him in the face next time he does that. I bet he will stop. The kid replies ‘yeah, but he is so cute”.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

“The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning”. (Adlai Stevenson I).

LAST LINE

God bless my numerous global readers for always keeping fate with the Sunday Sermon on the Mount of the Nigerian Project, by humble me, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, OFR, FCIArb., LL.M, Ph.D, LL.D.

 

Kindly, come with me to next week’s exciting dissertation

 

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