All you need to know about Nigeria’s election

0
Buhari

By Prince Charles Dickson

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it. Adolph Hitler

Let me start this week?s admonition with this encounter–A young boy enters a barber’s shop where I was getting a haircut. Pointing at the boy, the barber whispers to me, “That is the dumbest kid in the whole world.wpid-Buhari-and-Jonathan.jpg

Watch while I prove it to you.” Then the Barber puts #200 note in one hand and a #50 note in the other hand. Then he calls the boy and asks him “which of these two do you want son?”

The boy picks the #50 note and leaves. The Barber says to me…”what did I tell you?”….”That kid will never learn!”

Later when I left the shop, I met the same boy coming out of the ice cream shop… “Hey, boy”, I called. “May I ask you a question?” Why did you take the #50 note instead of the #200 note?”

The boy licked his Ice cream, smiled and replied, “Because the day I take the #200 note, the game will end!

Like the boy, our elites and politicians know the game, they know our weakness, and they are winning again. They constitute less than 3% of the population but they are the tiny tin gods we have to obey. They are horse trading, exchanging carrots at our collective expense because they know us. They know most of us only want a measure of salt, rice, few yards of cotton materials with their heads on the fabrics.

They know the day the game will end. They have simply engaged us, as part of the game.

Both the APC and PDP know us, they know we cannot do without them, some of them feel without their heads, or mischievous smile on newspapers no one would buy or on televisions, we wont watch. They know we feel humbled when they tell us they care.

They know we are gullible, we love life and cannot resist their Isi Ewu and bottle of Gulder politics in the East, neither can we go far from the amala and obe ewedu welled laced with assorted beef in Ibadan, and for us up, the more Tuwo Shinkafa the more we nod positively to their lies. They tell us that it is about us, and when they get there would they still know us.

It is not raining now but they have offered their umbrellas when the rain comes, would they not come to collect back because they know us. Just like the brooms we would not see again when we need it most.

Do we know them, I doubt very much, although sadly when events are weighed vis a vis the past it is obvious that we know them, we just refuse to accept the truth.

They know us, so they are caressing us and in our foolishness we praise them to the high heaven. Saint Buhari, Pope Jonathan, they know that our poverty has driven us to the religious edge with churches and mosque everywhere so they target our beliefs and become spokespersons for gods only them see. We are again at the crossroads because we have refused to face reality, we pretend to know when we really do not know, when we know we refuse to talk and all these they know and use against us.

We think they are naive while infact they know we are the hungry ones that are happy rather than angry, they know in the midst of our struggles, problems and hardship when asked how we are, we still say ‘fine’. They know how docile we are, and how we cherish the little luxuries of life pinched to us rather than taking our right in whole.

They simply know way too much, so they manipulate us, make us worship them and make us glorify their stupidity. The Nigerian is peaceful, hospitable and friendly, not easily provoked, infact never provoked except when he is what I call ‘politicoreligionized’.

They know that we do not know, and even when we know we keep silent, so the maze continues, we keep going the vicious circle and still keep searching for what we did not loose. We do not know that we are part of the entire puzzle, we do not know why, but the okada rider would attend PDP rally, attend APC convention, and they know. So they owe us no explanation when they move from party to party because they will always have followership…it is poverty of the mind not just the pocket.

Many of us have in the run up to the March elections, severed relationships, opened sours, planted seeds of bitterness and nurtured discord, all because of a “thieving elite” class.

Many of us have been confused by the elitist slang and byline “CHANGE and TRANSFORMATION” which by the way mean almost the same thing, and we have not till date discussed the real issues.

For most of us, we believe that Jonathan is the best thing after slice bread and for the other divide that believe that Buhari is the messiah, I hate to burst the bubble, that the redemption of Nigeria does not lie in the current crop of cosmetic surgeons called APC and PDP.

We are the one that do not understand that PDP is struggling to keep its 60-year-old promise to hold power, and that APC is a re-congregation of same ilk.

It is the ordinary policeman that is being owed salaries; it is the ordinary Coca-Cola seller that lacks electricity to sell cold drinks.

It is the ordinary Nigerian that is scared of possible outbreak of violence, so he|she moves to the village, where there are no guarantees of safety, while the elite are hanging on the fringes of safety in some far way land.

We do not know our collective worth, we do not see our strength, they know so they exploit our weaknesses and always they win, like they are almost certain to do again. For how long, is there change in the horizon; is there anything to hold on to, are we going to be knowledgeable at least this once to change the course of our destiny? They know us, do we know them…

Let us start from today to see if we can remove the grass from the flowers…the future is bright and ours for the taking but then do we know or we want to leave it to them again?Only time will tell

Send your news stories to [email protected] Follow News Ghana on Google News

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here