There are so many things wrong with our country at the same time. Unfortunately, there are very few of these problems that we can honestly and dispassionately discuss, for fear of being branded, pigeonholed and dismissed as partisan. But that is only kinder side of the coin. On the other side, you could suddenly find yourself explaining a thing or two to the EFCC, DSS, police, the armed forces, Office of the Attorney General of the Federal, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Immigration, Customs, Ministry of Urban and Regional Planning, the custodians of the Abuja Master plan or just any government agency that might be thrown into the mix. That is the real fear that has kept many otherwise-very-critical voices permanently silent.
So, even as the country sits adrift on the ocean of economic rudderlessness, everyone is watching with morose silence. Everyone appears to be keeping his thoughts to himself, eternally afraid of the now-legendary ‘body language’. It does not matter that the immediate past administration was not nearly as confused as this before we branded it ‘clueless’. Hmm.
Now, as I sit here pondering about how we got to this sorry pass, and what can be done about it, my mind wanders to the proposed emergency powers. But then, the redhead that helps keep my overtly fecund imagination in check quickly reminds me that ‘wandering’ (whether of the legs or of the mind) is still a crime in the constitution operated by the Nigeria police. I immediately stop wandering. So, let me ‘wonder’, instead.
And I wonder whether President Muhammadu Buhari has acquitted himself creditably enough with the powers he already has, for us to contemplate giving him even more powers. Can we honestly say he has not abused the ‘small’ power he presently has, for us to now entrust him with a blue-cloud of powers? What emergency powers did President Barak Obama need to push OBAMACARE through? How about the successful bailout for the US automotive industry? How much of it rested on emergency powers approved for Obama, by an assembly controlled by the opposition party?
When did we give up on our presidency-controlled bureaucracy? So much so that the president now needs special powers to get them to obey him? How much of the stagnation in our economy today can we honestly trace to the existing laws? Or are we seeking to suspend the constitution? Or democracy?
Thankfully, I just learnt that that PMB has not asked for any extra powers. That the emergency power thing is all a speculation. Yes, the same speculation that has seen past NNPC GMDs clandestinely calling for another hike in the prices of petroleum products. O Lord, may all these speculations never see the light of day. In fact, may they rot along with the heads that conceived them. Amen!
May the dreamers and those whom they dreamed this policy for continue to deny themselves. After all, we are still living in a season of denials. A season where we have moved from no recession to technical recession and official recession and back to recession being just another word. Semantic noise!
But don’t go thinking we just started living in denial under PMB. No. It was there during the GEJ years. For instance, when we first raised the red flag on the economy that was heading south, the GEJ government denied it. And to prove us all wrong the debased (sorry, rebased) the economy. And without producing even an extra toothpick, our economy overtook that of South Africa. We became the largest economy in Africa, even as our people were dying of hunger.
When that government eventually ran out of stunts, it reluctantly conceded that the economy was in dire straits. But even at that, those who wanted to boot out Jonathan (many of whom are in and around PMB’s government today) frustrated every effort to halt the suicidal descent and save something for the rainy day. Like prodigals, they insisted on sharing everything in the treasury. Rather than see the situation as that of the onset of genuine depression, they put everything down to the incompetence of Jonathan and his team. Today, Jonathan is gone, a new team is in place, but the recession is deepening. However, we continue to live in denial.
We’re heading to God-knows-where (and should ideally be retracing our steps), but we’re too scared to tell our president the truth. Everyone is cheering (and jeering) him on. But I know one thing for sure: The hottest place in hell will be reserved for all those who saw this evil and neither said anything nor did nothing – especially those whom the president genuinely trusts to give him wise counseling, given that he cannot know it all.
So, if PMB’s forex policy looks like something torn from the page of a 30-year-old blueprint, please, tell him it has been overtaken by events. If the TSA regime needs some tweaking, bring it to his attention. If the anti-graft war needs a new narrative, say so. If you think talking tough to Niger Delta militants, who are blowing up oil installations, is akin to threatening the person, holding you by the balls, please, tell PMB he is committing economic suicide. If, as an adviser, you feel the idea of a grazing corridor/reserve is archaic, say so. Don’t go about trying to actualise the impossible. PMB might not know. And I’m told he takes a good advice whenever he sees one.
Stop living in denial.
But nothing underscores our death-wish insistence on living in denial than our proclivity towards matters of religion and faith. On this score, we simply refuse to face reality, even when it stares us in the face. We rather prefer to, like the proverbial ostrich, bury our heads in the sand, in the false hope that all is well.
I suspect it borrows from what the Christians call ‘positive confession’, where it is believed that your faith and what you profess from your mouth have a way of determining your reality. So, when a guy is broke and he wants you to throw something in his direction, he begins by telling you ‘I’m rich’. And then, I ask: If you’re rich, why do you still want to borrow from me?
Somebody is ill and he begins by telling you, ‘my enemy is sick’. So, why are you taking drugs for another person’s illness?
Despite manifesting all the symptoms of a more serious ailment, the ‘believer’ is more comfortable treating headache, common cold, cough or, at the most, typhoid and malaria. If you ever suggest that he gets tested for tuberculosis, to ensure that his persistent cough is not something more serious, you hear an instant retort: “that is not my portion”. He would remain in that state of denial until it becomes too late to arrest the tuberculosis in the bud.
It is also this disposition that renders us completely vulnerable, as randy preachermen prey on (rather than pray for) us.
Yes! Even in this end-time, when the devil has unleashed all manner of agents on us, in the name of pastors, imams and clerics, we have still refused to face reality, and forge a united front to uproot these agents of Satan in our midst.
Almost everyday, we’re greeted with fresh tales of pastors and Muslim clerics, slaughtering human beings for rituals. We hear of corpses buried under the pulpit and mixed with cement during foundation-laying for new church buildings. We hear of preachers running baby factories, masquerading as prayer ministries. We hear of preachers proselytising with their phallus. But rather than call the perverts what they are, we come up with the story of how enemies of the church want to destroy God’s house. Soon, the blame is put on the journalist or media house that reported the story. Friends and followers of the randy pastor soon begin to call and issue all manner of veiled and unveiled threats. If you’re a Christian, they would remind you of how you cannot dare to be so critical of errant Islamic clerics, or they would accuse you of having collected ‘blood money’ from Muslims to run down Christianity. And if you’re a Muslim? God help you! You’re pursuing the larger agenda to Islamise Nigeria.
Of course, the moment this our touchy issue of religious divide is brought into the matter, everyone steers clear, and the evil festers, unaddressed. Imams continue to charm and takeover other people’s wives, and we look the other way, because ‘Muslim faithful get very emotive at any criticism of their religion’. And so, perverts continue to hide under the the cloak of preacher to give Islam a bad name.
