The governance regime that was imposed on Nigeria through the fraudulent elections of February 25, 2023 has, not surprisingly, turned out to be a fugacious compact. Nigerians were never part of the sleight of hand. And so, they have mercilessly been left in the cold.
Some eighteen months after a duplicitous electoral commission led Nigerians by the nose, the country has found itself in the throes of extreme authoritarianism. We are in a situation where political power, as in all dictatorial conditions, is held by one man who controls not only national politics but also the people’s thoughts. This disorder is sustained by mind machines which are ceaselessly deployed for purposes of falsehood and deception.
The overall objective is to get the people to remain completely subservient to the totalitarian disorder represented by the government of the day.
President Bola Tinubu’s Nigeria epitomizes all this and more. As a matter of fact, the government has an approach that differs somewhat from typical authoritarianism. Here, the government is not striving to convert or persuade the people to its side through propaganda. Instead, it employs intimidation as a means of coercion and suppression, thus making it almost a state policy. Anybody whose position on national issues clashes with that of the Presidency must be made a game to be hunted. He must not be allowed to express his position on any issue that borders on governance without being harassed. More often than not, he is blackmailed to the point of submission. That is why Peter Obi, the face of opposition politics in today’s Nigeria, is being harangued and blackmailed at every turn. The Tinubu presidency is working hard to silence him. He is a thorn in the flesh of a government that cares nothing about the people.
Also, the Nigeria Labour Congress led by Comrade Joe Ajaero is gradually being made to look like an enemy of the state. Government has started making deliberate efforts to label Ajaero a dangerous character who must be put out if government must have some peace. The repressive tactic of the government is being deployed for a purpose. Government is doing an incalculable damage to the fabric of the country. But it does not want anybody to talk about it. Those who must are expected to praise government to high heavens for a job well done.
Somehow, government is succeeding in its effort to reduce the people to imbecilic proles who do nothing but gaze morosely as their country tumbles into the abyss. Today, a liter of petrol sells for a thousand Naira. This, by the standard of the average Nigerian, is not affordable. In the next one or two weeks, the pump price will rise by another 50 percent, if not more. Yet, the people are doing nothing. They have chosen instead to resign to fate because the mind machine has reduced them to moronic beings. From the look of things, it would appear that government is working hard to make mental subjugation the defining characteristic of the Nigerian. That trait is already being exhibited by the people of Nigeria.
Here are people who are dying in their numbers on a daily basis owing to the hardship in the land, yet they carry on as if all is well. In Tinubu’s Nigeria, prices of goods and services have gone out of hand. Run-away inflation has destroyed the social and economic fabric of the country, yet government does not know what to do.
It merely talks on the hunch. Under normal circumstances, government is supposed to be apologizing to the people on a daily basis over the hardship in the land. But it is not doing so. Rather, it harasses and intimidates them so that they will acquiesce rather than complain or ask questions. This was what we saw when Nigerians took to the streets in August to protest against the bad governance that is killing them. Rather than take steps to placate them, government chose the path of intimidation and brute force. Some were killed while hundreds of others were injured. A good many of the protesters are currently facing prosecution for daring to raise eyebrows over their continual degradation and deprivation. Bank accounts of some others have been frozen. What was their offense? They dared to join issues with a totalitarian disorder that has no place for the welfare and well-being of the people.
What is happening in Nigeria at moment is no happenstance. It was programmed to be so. Tinubu came prepared. For so many years, he was in the trenches preparing for the presidency. But he learnt the final ropes under the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency. Buhari ran a government of nepotism. He practically northernised Nigeria. As someone who was looking towards tomorrow, Tinubu never complained about Buhari’s nepotistic order. He was bidding his time. As Buhari was stepping aside, Tinubu ensured that he took over the ruling All Progressives Congress. Having done that successfully, he declared that it was his turn to control the affairs of Nigeria.
His manner of control has since begun and Nigerians are seeing disorder in its most naked form. From the outset, Tinubu left no one in doubt that it is his turn and the turn of his Yoruba ethnic group to reign over Nigeria. He is not pretending about anything. More than 90 percent of all the strategic appointments in his administration are made in favour of his Yoruba people. The north is squirming over the lopsided appointments in favour of the Yoruba. But Tinubu is not bothered. Buhari northernised the Presidency and nothing happened. So, what is the difference now? That is what Tinubu appears to be saying. Indeed, Nigerians are living in a country where the president’s mindset revolves around self and ethnicity. He is at the commanding heights of the presidency luxuriating. He is dishing out favours to his acolytes. He is ensuring that his ethnic group takes its turn in the sharing or looting of Nigeria. For Tinubu, anybody that does not like his approach to governance should wait until he or his people grab the presidency. Until then, Tinubu and his Yoruba brethren can eat on.
Perhaps, Nigerians would not have bothered about Tinubu’s clannishness if they had food to eat. They would have asked Tinubu and his brothers in the southwest to have it all. But the problem the people face borders on double jeopardy. They have neither public office nor its perquisites. Worse is that they cannot even meet up with their most elementary obligations. Tinubu’s totalitarian disorder has made it so.
QUOTE:
“Under normal circumstances, government is supposed to be apologizing to the people on a daily basis over the hardship in the land. But it is not doing so. Rather, it harasses and intimidates them so that they will acquiesce rather than complain.”
