6-10-2024.

No doubt about the palpable presence of the two in Nigeria. Hunger and anger. There are hunger and anger in the country, with a considerable number of the nearly 230 million of the population going to ‘bed’ with empty stomachs. Which should not be the case in the land so bountifully blessed with in-demand mineral resources.

Only the self styled leaders, who by their selfish and self serving behaviours, are more like rulers, live in obscene comfort at the expense of the larger majority, bar the successful and verified business people, who are none partisan and away from government employment.

The hunger part may explain why many of those who were earlier thought to be very close friends, acquaintances, and colleagues, ignore calls on their phones, and even refuse to respond to text (SMS) messages sent to them, in the mistaken belief that the two were for some kind of requests.

I used to have no use of, and little regards for, the social media, which may be because I was brought up, and steeped, in the traditional media, before the advent of the internet, to make the new media a reality. In the early eighties, yours sincerely had read so much about the future ‘INFORMATION SUPER HIGHWAY’. 

Its final arrival was therefore little welcomed by many, including some powerful people and this writer, because, rightly so, some people would abuse it. And abused it was, and still is. But the uses are also many, so overwhelming to make it indispensable in this age. Information really travels on the ‘AUTOBAHN’, another description of the digital age we live.

The Brekete Family programme, which is essentially the common person’s ‘HUMAN RIGHTS’ organisation, makes my interest in the social media so complete, in direct opposition to my earlier world view of and about it. It serves the interest of the common person who would have otherwise been denied the right to be heard by the elite-dominated society Nigeria has found itself in.

An episode of the very popular programme, which is aired on the electronic, including the social, media and the print media, is about the pervasive hunger and anger in the country, because of the prohibitive cost of living, which is however, not giving sleepless nights to the few ruling elites in the country. The top politicians and top civil servants at federal and state levels constitute the mostly unproductive, unhelpful and insatiable elites in the country, to a large extent.

The indefatigable and inimitable producer of the programme, popularly known as the ‘Ordinary President’ told the Nigerian President, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT), that there was hunger in the country. And he said it angrily asking the President what he thought about his own first term so far.

Standing before the crowd in the programme’s ‘court’, he told the President, “Ask yourself sir, are you a success or a failure, or success in the making? If it is success in the making, how, where are we now? This is almost two years into your tenure, by the third year, na campaign go start.

“My brothers and sisters, if una no go tellam da truth, make someone tellam da truth. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, if you no perform well, forget 2027. Nobody go vote you. If you like, share beans, share rice, share soap. Before, I dey tell Nigerians to collect it and not to vote them. Now, don’t collect from them. The hunger wey no kill you, no go kill you. And if you collect that thing, how long e go sustain you? Don’t belittle yourself, don’t ridicule yourself by collecting that rubbish they come to share. Person no fit remember you, na during campaign he fit remember you? And after that, until another four years, and una still dey follow them, because una be ( he followed with a bleating of a sheep)”.

What is more annoying to many Nigerians is the fact that after 64 years of Independence, after all the hype about the potential greatness of the country, its later day leaders stunted the development of the country by their insatiable desire to enrich themselves from the Commonwealth, at the expense of those they are supposed to judiciously manage it for.

The ugly state of affairs has led to the emergence of a super rich few among a super poor majority, with the (even fewer recognised) business people, in the country where it is no more a thing of pride to be known as a ‘mare’ billionaire. The vogue now is for some people to be seen and recognised as trillionaires owning to the continuing down slide of the value of the national currency, the Naira.

And many salary and allowances-earning politicians and government employees belong to the category of the ultra rich people in the country, because corruption is not seen as a black spot, but a common phenomenon that some others would not mind to be so coloured. It is a land where to ‘make’ money at all cost is better to staying ‘poor’, for some people.

Someone remarked that if China, which started its journey to agricultural development in 1946, is now one of the leading countries in terms of everything excellent about agriculture, there is no reason why most farmers in Nigeria are still using the farming implement and method they have inherited from their fathers, who also inherited same from their fathers, ad infinitum.

Is it therefore by coincidence that most of the former governors are dollar millionaires, some of whom went to the office not that rich to be (dollar) millionaires, or is it like Dan  Bello would say, ‘don’t be stupid, this is Nigeria’? 

If our yesterday was better than our today, then there is no point in repeating today, because applying the same solution to the problem will not solve it no matter how many times it is repeated. If after 64 years as an Independent country we still consider motor vehicles, constant electricity, constant running water, standard education and good health care as luxury that only an insignificant few in the land can afford, then a ‘failed state’ description of Nigeria cannot be further from the truth.

May God intervene in our affairs, especially give us good leaders, who would work for the success of the country, not the rulers, we are now bogged down by, who only work for themselves.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Abuja.