Opinion
By Steve Osuji
PARABLE of the Dung Beetle: This little creature, the beetle, takes delight in faeces. The dung beetle gathers poo voraciously, rolling it into a ball that can get as big as 50 times its size. It is said that the beetle doesn’t stop picking up crumbs of faeces. It stops only when it can’t roll the ball of shit anymore.
This humble creature doesn’t just roll animal dungs about, it actually feeds on it, burrows the ground and buries it or simply lives and procreates inside the mound of manure… and dies in it too. The Dung beetle’s universe is built around its oversized ball of waste.
Nigerian leaders today are the verisimilitude of dung beetles. Probably the most corrupt people on the face of the earth, they easily remind one of dung beetles. Arch-kleptocrats, they are busy and forever tending to their dung (loot), the filthy lucre purloined from the commonwealth. Like the lowly creature aforementioned, they never get enough and they never tire from piling up more and more dungs/loot. Our leaders lives are made remarkable, it seems, by the size of loot they have amassed.
OF DUNG BEETLES AND UNMANNED TERRITORY: It is being mooted in some quarters that Nigeria’s corruption chronicles may be coming to a crashing head soon. About 99% of our so-called leaders today are of course enmeshed in one form of corruption or the other. It can be said that our leaders are not leading, they are ‘corruptioning’.
Let’s call it government of kleptocrats, by kleptocrats, for kleptocrats. The point being made is that our so-called leaders are not busy running the country, they are busy rolling their dungs. And like the beetle, they never get enough.
But the danger in filthy lucre is that it’s much more easier to amass than to manage. Like the beetle strenuously rolling its mega dung, one can imagine our kleptocrats daily sweating over their tens of billions (in any currency)!
Let’s say for instance, that our Senate President is possessed of N10 billion. His entire preoccupation and focus would be on keeping his dung safe, keeping it away from poor, prying eyes of the people and fending off even fellow kleptocrats from preying on him. His heart would permanently reside where his loot is. He is ever and anon, rolling his oversized dung, devoting time, energy and intellect on it. He has pretty little time for his job as head of Nigeria’s legislature.
Have you wondered why most of the time Godswill Akpabio is making dry jokes or speaking off cue? His mind is likely to be far away from his body. His mind is domiciled with his loot.
It is the same story with most of the top notchers of the Bola Tinubu cabinet – former governors, erstwhile federal ministers and legislators. Most of them are so rich, they are blind to their environment. They are so preoccupied rolling their mound of loot, they care little about anything else. Of course, the president must suffer this self-affliction the most for he is evidently possessed of a kilimanjaro-sized dung.
UNMANNED SOVEREIGN: It’s a dangerous augury ahead for our motherland. Not many can see this. While our leaders are busy tending to their loot, our country remains untended to. Nigeria is currently bereft of any platform for sovereign think or capacious intellectual input. Those who ought to be thinking for Nigeria, those charged with thinking for the collective are busy rolling their dungs or striving to build a bigger heft of dung.
A SCAM OF A PRESIDENCY AND A FAILING NATION: The current situation is not helped by the fact that the Bola Tinubu Presidency is at once a scam and a scandal. It’s a scam of global immensity and a calamity waiting to befall the Black race. Lacking in legitimacy or leverage, it has mortgaged itself to the West in it’s desperate search for legitimacy. In blindly doing the bidding of the West, President Tinubu has in a few months totally immiserated the populace, leaving 90% of Nigeria roiling in the dust.
With such level of poverty in the land, Nigeria currently sits on a tinderbox. It’s a matter of time before a cataclysmic social upheaval erupts – if nothing is done quickly!
It’s either the West is hard at work on this dark scheme or the presidency is utterly bereft of thought. Or both. Petrol at N1000/litre is a death knell. Naira at above N1000/dollar is sucking the lifeblood of the people. It’s not sustainable. The populace is being pushed to violence soon if this situation is not reversed.
THE WEST AND THE (W)REST OF US: Conspiracy theorists think the West (read NATO) is hard at work in Nigeria. They say they are using the pretext of Tinubu’s weak presidency to completely ‘capture’ their prized target, Nigeria. Especially now that they are losing grip of the sahel countries, they will seek more control of the west coast of Africa beginning with Nigeria.
The NATO’s military base in the Gulf of Guinea will have to be beefed up enormously so that when the fire starts, they can move in quickly. Our Western friends are also capable of lighting the fire and sending in their own firefighters to ‘take control’ of situation.
Recently, the US State Department (the heart of the US Government) published a silly missive endorsing the Tinubu election after nearly a year of an electoral heist that was condemned by the world, including America.
Many Nigerians are indeed most curious as to what could have pushed the US to fall shamelessly to this level of damning capitulation. Safe to conjecture however, that whatever it is must be very important to her overall strategic calculations.
NOTHING GOING ON BUT CORRUPTION AND VENDETTA: of course, it has been almost one year of the Tinubu horror for Nigerians. The size of the economy has shrunken by over 100% and everything is far worse than Tinubu met it. Yet they don’t have any ideas how to remedy the situation. They term the madness going on to be reform but that’s part of the wicked lies and propaganda on which the Tinubu government and indeed, his entire life, stand.
All we see is hitherto unknown levels of corruption and relentless vendetta against the president’s perceived enemies.
A good example is the so-called 700 kilometres coastal highway. This singular project epitomises Nigeria’s corruption at a proportion that can only be described as Tinubuesque. Such a project ought to be put through the utmost, if not international due process and bidding. But it was simply handed to President Tinubu’s crony! Details of funding, duration, environmental assessment, etc, are all shrouded in opacity. The coastal highway is Tinubu’s corruption at a brazen apogee.
Worse, the highway may have been prioritised from among a dozen more important highways just to get at ‘enemies’. In rushing to do this dubious project, what’s probably the largest private investment in Lagos, Landmark Beach Resort had to be damaged post haste and without compensation. It is said that Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate in the last elect probably has some stake in the multi million dollars recreation spot by the ocean. This may explain the rush to destroy Landmark even in the face of a better route. David Umahi, erstwhile emperor-governor of Ebonyi State is Tinubu’s Man Friday. A dour kleptocrat, Umahi is a cranky robot on default malfunction. Only such a mono-minded machine would rush to start a billion dollars project with nary a local bid notice! He’ not only the best man for a crazy job, he’s the best man for the Tinubu era!
It’s the same witch-hunt against former CBN governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele who is being hounded for allegedly trying to scuttle Tinubu’s quest for the presidency. Tinubu’s obsession this past one year has been to hound Emefiele without end.
BACK TO THE BEGINNING: The other day I bought fuel at N1000 per litre. Tears welled in my eye as I paid. I knew immediately that Nigeria is gone, perhaps for good. Tinubu is a colossal mistake all of us will pay for soon.
I knew we have lost it. Nigeria has lost it, our beautiful country has crossed the rubicon. Will she return? Only if Providence intervenes.
A.
May 06, 2024 @ 15:59 GMT|
Tags: Mr Godwin Emefiele Steve Osuji
