Written By Goke Butika
The way and manner foreign currencies are being discovered in homes, shops and warehouses in Nigeria tells the entire story of how the country has been misgoverned by the immediate past governments, the story is headlined by the yesterday men who had stolen tomorrow from the next generation, unfortunately, those who ought to fight the endemic corruption are busy insulting us with mundane things. Everyday, Nigerian leaders are descending from the sublime to the ridiculous. Meanwhile, hunger has taken away the thinking cap of the masses; everyone unto himself, God for us all.
There is a war going among the classes of stratified population in Nigeria. This war must be encouraged because it shows clearly that a radical departure from the conservative past is here. War rages on among the elite, war rages among the poor, war rages in the political class and the battlefield is the project Nigeria.
It was Karl Marx that pushes the world in the classes of capitalist and proletariat, where each class is being controlled by its defined ideology, because ideology is seen as self justification of a prevailing social canopy. To the capitalist, the theory, history and philosophy that must prevail is hardwork, while the religion would be made to calm the frayed nerves of the angry poor-"that it is easy for the camel with load on its back to pass through the needle's eye than for the rich to gain the kingdom of God". But the prevailing ideology of the poor is that the more you work, the more you earn money. This is designed so that they would not think about slavery involved in making more money for their exploitative employers.
Applying the thought of Marx to Nigerian system, one will realize that only three classes are in existence, two are extremely exploitative and fattening on the aggregate resources and one is extremely deprived and disadvantaged and disenchanted. The first and second corrosive classes are political leaders and religious leaders, while the other one is the confused masses.
Have you noticed the tragicomedy in progress in our media? Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara challenged the governors to publish their salaries, security votes and allowances, saying that only transparency could ginger good governance, but the call was not borne out of love for the country, it was cleverly designed to expose the governors to ridicule, knowing well that the national assembly where he is the Vice chairman is contending with terrible image crisis. However, Nasir el Rufai, the governor of Kaduna state got the message, and would not allow it to stay. So, in a pushback, he cleverly published his pay slip which shows that governors are earning less than 500, 000 after tax. Hmmmmmm! Story for the marine.
Instead of the poor masses who are contending with formulated ration to watch and think on how to punish their oppressors in the next elections, they started clapping for el Rufai as if it is their business that Efe, one of the lazy bones at Big Brother Africa reality show got N25 million and SUV. If you can believe what el Rufai published, then you can believe that a prostitute of ten years in active service is a virgin. Look, what is salary to a state governor? Can you believe that it is over seven million naira to maintain a commissioner appointed by the governor-his house is free at a choice area, his food is free, his car is free plus fueling, his duty allowance, his travelling allowance, his hazard allowance and other perks of office must be calculated together. Now, subtract it from a governor that uses close to 15 or 12 SUVs and cars in his convoy.
If a governor earns less than five hundred thousand naira, do we imply that Permanent Secretaries appointed by the governors have higher responsibilities? Because I know of a permanent secretary that goes home with over N700,000 a month. As if we have not been insulted enough, Dogara the Speaker also quickly published a pay slip of less than N400, 000 a month. Meanwhile, I was at a function where a member of the House he leads donated one million naira. Can I be earning less than N400,000 and be donating a million naira at a social function? The Maths does not add up, but the war of pay slips is just a class war. You and I know that the two politicians, like a great deal of their colleagues are just playing to the gallery.
Another one that is of interest to me is the religious leaders who ought to preach morals and represent the spiritual phase, are now part of the problem. Muhammed and Jesus did not have mansions or private jets to their credit, but today we have billionaire clerics who could part with millions for rock and roll. Today, miracles are for sale, while deliverance is getting costly; Imam and Pastors are sharing election funds, and instead of the masses to think, they would resign to faith as preached by the compromised clerics.
An instructive phase of the war is the war raging among the poor, and the poor in this case includes those who drive "tokunbo" cars and live in substandard houses that could not be provided for dogs elsewhere. They fight one another over the conduct or misconduct of their oppressors, and to add salt upon injury, they would use their hard earned money to buy data to fight dirty on the social media, depending on the sentiment each one subscribes to, and it has gone so bad that the oppressors on the opposite of the divides are now buying audience, likes, comments and paying some hirelings to stay permanently on the facebook, twitter and other platforms.
Haaa! For God so love the poor that He creates them in millions, and tones down their intelligent quotient that they are ready to fight over crumps that fall from the table of their oppressors. Nuhu Osahion speaks my mind when he says, "I am a victim, the son of a victim and the future father of a victim". It is a pathetic situation here in the third world
Lest I forget, I would like to show my profound gratitude to God for the gift of life as I marked another year yesterday, and I appreciate my Principal, Rt. Hon. Najeem Folasayo Salaam for his "billion dollars" worth comment. I am grateful to Rt. Hon. (Prof.) Mojeed Alabi for his call and prayer, I hail the don in who. I am well pleased, Professor Oyesoji Aremu, I thank my friends and allies and hundreds of fans who cheered me up. My gratitude to my family for celebrating their own. May God continue to lead our path.
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