O. JASON OSAI urges Nigerians to be conscious of the power of the ballot, and protect it
Numerous video clips that recently made the rounds in the Nigerian social media show politicians, technocrats and bureaucrats doling out handouts to crowds of people in a disgusting display of barefaced hypocrisy. In one of the clips, a high ranking officer in the Presidency was seen gleefully handing out exercise books to school children from a balcony. In another clip, soldiers in battle fatigue and civilian operatives of government wearing tee shirts that blazoned "Happy 64 Independence Anniversary" were handing out one loaf of bread each to a mammoth crowd of men and women who were falling over each other just to receive; that was in a Yoruba speaking city. In yet another clip, a state governor shamelessly promised to send four thousand youths of his state into what is essentially modern day slavery and the gullible crowd of young adults thundered a deafening applause.
At University of Lagos (UNILAG), professors joined in applying for N35,000 soft loan aimed at cushioning the effects of a volatile marketplace and diminishing valence; the loan was originally targeted at lower cadre officers. As it is in UNILAG, so it is across Nigeria. The capacity of the professorial salary to displace goods and services on the shelves of the marketplace has been reduced to the point professors are not able to maintain their families based on their legitimate income. In other words, professors have been driven below the poverty line; this means that the Nigerian middle class has been obliterated. Dele Farotimi, a passionate advocate for the birth of a new and better Nigeria, holds that come clergies have become complicit by distributing few cups of garri in polytene bags to their congregants and discouraging them from joining in any civil action.
The above anecdotes and the fact that the dramatis personae are agents of the institution that enacted policies that have reduced Nigerians to beggars is reminiscent of the classical strategy for governing "stupid people" as enunciated by Joseph Stalin (1878-1953). In a graphic demonstration of the fickleness of the human mind, the Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953, plucked off the feathers of a chicken and dropped bits of wheat towards it as he walked around his compound. The profusely hemorrhaging chicken followed Stalin everywhere, pecking on the wheat. Likening this coldhearted scenario to political engagement, Stalin said thus: "this is how easy it is to govern stupid people; they will follow you no matter how much pain you cause them as long as you throw them a little worthless treat once in a while". This illustration speaks volubly to political leadership in Nigeria.
Today, Nigerians are profusely bleeding and perceptibly pained as a result of the effects of bad public policies. Borrowing from Stalin, Nigerians have, arguably, become "stupid people" who have consistently followed their political leaders irrespective of how much pain is inflicted on them through public policies that serve only the purpose of the elites in power. The "stupidity" of Nigerians derives from their allowing themselves to be deceived into believing that ethnicity and religion are the dividing lines in the Nigerian socioeconomic space. Another strategy for defeathering Nigerians is the indigenisation/privatisation of government stake-holding in the economy, which was crookedly crafted carefully to benefit elites in the final analysis. In an OP-ED titled "Nigerians as Defeathered Chickens" (The Tide, November 30, 2022) the author holds that Nigerians sadly continue to follow their Stalin-hearted leaders as they shamelessly shilly-shally across political party lines completely devoid of any philosophy or ideology other than the "I, me, mine" ethos that characterise political participation in Nigeria. In the same vein late Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961) of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), once lamented that the problem with Africans is that they complain about bad leadership but when the opportunity comes for election, they still elect the same group of people. The full weight of this statement is still with us in Nigeria.
Appealing to the Nigerian elite to add conscience to power, Dr Sam Adeyemi offers that the minority elite class has seized political power and cornered economic power to themselves, families and cronies to the exclusion of the teeming majority. Referring to the book Why Nations Fail, Adeyemi holds that the other way out of the current economic stranglehold is for the masses to wrestle power from the minority elite. In this regard, another video presents a rather instructive scenario. Utilizing the "man-chicken-grain" analogy to contrast the Stalin instance, the clip shows a little boy holding a sack that contains grains being chased around an enclosed compound by more than fifty chickens. Crying and holding fast to the sack, the boy tried very hard to outrun the chickens but the chickens persisted until he dropped the sack and they settled down to a feast.
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It is my fervent prayer that Nigerians should become conscious of the power of the ballot and endeavor to protect it with every fiber of their being. Again, coming to grips with the fact that the dividing lines in every society is economic, Nigerians should never allow ethnic and religious sentiments to becloud their sensibilities and decision during elections. Therefore, the millions of defeathered but enfranchised Nigerians should regrow their feathers and be resolute enough to teach the Stalins of Nigeria politics a lesson that will positively change the narrative of the Nigerian situation. In this regard, the clip of chickens resolutely chasing a boy with a sack of grains is illustrative and instructive. Nigerians should break the yoke of docility and liberate themselves from the bleeders who masquerade as leaders in the Nigerian political and social space.
It is said that the limits of oppressors are determined by the endurance of the oppressed. He that hath ears to hear let him hear.
Professor Osai writes from Port Harcourt
