By BASHIR ADEFAKA
{At the event coordinated by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Diaspora Matters and Foreign Affairs, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, President Buhari asked what “has happened to the Nigerian elites?!” He continued: “You allowed Nigeria to be mismanaged for 16 years without saying anything,” he charges the Nigerian elites in New York. He added, “They call me Baba Go-Slow. Those who had gone fast where did they go?” Those were the unputdownable words of Mr. President that have been unsung but which this online column of mine, WAKE UP, has afforded me the opportunity to bring to the fore and throw open as challenge to all of us.}
Sometimes any Nigerian, with clear conscience of being first and foremost citizen before being whatever he has grown up in life to be, would want to wonder if many of those that still cry woe of national failure actually are part of this country or are “mercenaries” hired and imported into the now 58 years old nation to only find what fault to scream over about it and turn eyes away from good or positive things happening by the nation.
In the 21st century some so-called artists still want to feed fat on painting Nigeria in bad light as a failed country even after the three and half years old government of a man, Muhammadu Buhari, celebrated all over the world as the most trusted anti-corruption fighter in Africa and cross-continentally acknowledged pro-development and exceptionally pragmatic leader, has replaced that of a people who mismanaged Nigeria for 16 years.
I listened to an audio sent to me via the Canada-Nigeria NGO I am member of, mimicking the voice of late talker-singer, Gbenga Adeboye, and I was met with awe, full of disappointments.
The voice in the tape tries to prove why celebrating Nigeria at 58 is a misnomer and he started: “What exactly makes us proud about Nigeria that we are celebrating?”
And then he listed: “Oh! We are celebrating lack of electricity! We are dancing, matching and parading over N350 to $1! We are celebrating over bad roads! We are celebrating over fuel pump price of N145! We are celebrating over bad school system! We are celebrating over our ladies who have become prostitutes! We are celebrating over lack of healthcare services for citizens”. He said more.
Treating all of those one after another, which among his list of woes he cries about but now refuses to see when things are changing for better has he not seen change over? He is not alone at it, even there is one Ewi artist called Ologun Dudu, who lousiness in this manner is without measure.
He fails deliberately to admit that the woes he is crying about, even though things have now improved, were caused by 16 years of the nation’s mismanagement by people he would ordinarily want to return to power just for his personal good. Whereas he should join voice with others who are moving towards the positive direction for the love of country, what he can do is waste his talent to disparage and damage the man who, only in the last three and a half years, has mounted the nation’s driver’s seat with little motivation but has by his own love for the common masses struggled in the face of stiff opposition to actually take Nigeria back from the few destroyers and hand its ownership to its right owners, the masses of the Nigerian people.
Sometimes people like the owner of that voice in the audio in question see what I try to do here – telling the truth they know but don’t want to be told in order not to give credit to a Fulani and Muslim man in power – as working for government. Does it bother me since government knows how many people are working in its employ? But it will bother me if, despite knowing that whether you talk or not you will be so tagged, I fail to talk.
This government has made the celebration of Nigeria at 58 a thing worthy of doing.
Nigeria is no longer about “e go better” which they say is prayer of the poor. Now we are right on track of betterment and if those, trying to destroy the country that they also belong to for reason of self stomach borne by bad-belly politicking, know what is good for them, they should come along as shouting on top of voice over emptiness can only easily earn them a heart disease leading to heart attack.
This brings me to concluding with the challenging statement issued at Nigerian elites in New York, United States of America by President Muhammadu Buhari, when he had a meeting with Nigerians in the Diaspora (USA), but which has not been adequately highlighted by media endeavours of our collectively owned country.
At the event coordinated by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Diaspora Matters and Foreign Affairs, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, President Buhari asked what “has happened to the Nigerian elites?!”
He continued: “You allowed Nigeria to be mismanaged for 16 years without saying anything,” he charges the Nigerian elites in New York.
He added, “They call me Baba Go-Slow. Those who had gone fast where did they go?”
Those were the unputdownable words of Mr. President that have been unsung but which this online column of mine, WAKE UP, has afforded me the opportunity to bring to the fore and throw open as challenge to all of us.
If you call the doing-well President “Baba Go-Slow”, truly like the President said, those that had gone fast, how far of a benefit have we gained from their going fast and being ICT-age politicians in power other than the corruption they bequeathed to us as legacy?
And now, not only are they struggling hard to the extent of funding killings and destabilization of society to discredit the current government and pave the way for themselves to come back, but also, for going to three months now, a major figure among them has continued to lock up our National Assembly to shutdown the Government of Buhari, while he is busy moving around the country telling how he will strengthen the Nigerian banks as an “educated” President (because the one there currently did not go to school), if elected come 2019.
A stitch in time saves nine! Time we wake up as a people of Nigeria!
Happy Independence Celebration!
