On Monday the 25th of May 2020, I received in my WhatsApp post, a most interesting video tape forwarded therein independently by two different people, one of whom is my friend who generally believes himself to be one of the smartest and global characters in the world. It was a video recording titled “Exclusive: President Buhari’s real plans revealed”. I am sure that this video is easily searchable in the e-media and so, most readily available for people to go and see; and most sincerely, I believe that every Nigerian with access to the internet should access and study that video. What did I think of the tape? It was a most brilliant analysis with dates, of “the hidden genius of our most beloved President Buhari, in absentia”!; and what he was going to do to Naija and which will eventually change (or for some, return) all of our minds that, after all, he is (still) really the saviour-political-genius that we have been waiting for; all these latest skirmishes and negative “propaganda” about him notwithstanding! By 2023, with given dates, he is surely going to fix our national grid electricity problems and so, all our national economic problems!
The industries and the foreign investors are going to return; and Naija will become the El-dorado that we had all been imagining and waiting for. The details of how all these had been very well worked out mathematically and economically with the German Government, the Siemens German company and the superlative President Buhari (in absentia) were all so very well presented, that I could not be distracted by anything as I watched and listened to the tape to the very end! The Tuesday 30th June Radio Nigeria 7am news was also awash with our most dear PMB launching a given phase of this ingenuous agenda of the Niger Delta-Itape-Ajeokuta-Abuja-Kaduna-Kano-North Africa Arab nations developmental project of our most dear Naija.
However, as I listened to the man, a cold sweat sense of a Nigerian deja-vu was all over me. The presenter said that he is (as obviously some sort of a mulato) with one parent from Ogoniland and for which reason he claims to be an Ogoni man himself. He displayed the very same brilliance (but without a smoking pipe!) as Ken Sero Wiwa used to display for the slave masters that he served until they hung him on a long rope for all to stop enjoying his brilliance for good! Are we seeing the same thing being replayed? This thought and its cold sweat went through my mind as the very recent “display of brilliance” episode also, in which Professor Ibrahim Gambari was said in the press as our new surrogate president appointed to replace that late blessed detribalized saint of Abba Kyari, according to the gospel of Mr. Onyeama! Gambari was immediately given a Yoruba name; or had such a possibly former nickname to be resurrected for its national sectional yoruba effect in the Buhari political ascendency in the country for him. The deja-vu cold sweat was of course, in this case, of the conquest of the Yoruba and the erection of the Fulani Islamic Caliphate of Ilorin that the Gambari name immediately conjures for any worthwhile student of Nigeria’s authentic history!
Now, this most brilliant Buhari genius with the national electricity supply, already knows that petroleum is no longer going to be a significant word in the economy of nations by 2023; but gas from petroleum mines was going to become the in-thing! For this reason, the Buhari genius was already building gas pipes to take this gas through Itape for our iron ore mining, through Ajaokuta for its iron and steel processing, and then to Abuja, Kaduna and Kano where 3 different electricity producing gas plants will be constructed “for Nigerians”, respectively. Then it will go on to Niger and all the North African Arab nations for world trade to make Nigerians world billionaires! Brilliant! None of these electricity gas plants will be in Port Harcourt, Warri, Eket, Oron, Calabar, Ogoja, Enugu, Asaba, Owerri, Benin, Ondo, Ado-Ekiti, Osogbo, Ife, Lagos, Ibadan, Sagamu, Ijebu-ode or Abeokuta. They will not be similarly taken to our dearest Brother Nation of Ghana; or to Liberia, Cameroon, Congo, Tanzania, South Africa or Ethiopia! Very brilliant also!
Of course, the Buhari brilliance “single story, deja-vu”, that kept the cold sweat all over me for a very long time from midway through watching the video and well after it, was heightened by the other equally very brilliant narrative that the Ports in Lagos were to receive the gracious link by railway by the Chinese, through Ibadan and right through Abuja, to Kaduna and Kano also. As we all know, a university for railways (and for transportation, iron and steel) is already in Katsina! The Warri and Onne/Port Harcourt ports are also being developed all right through to Abuja, Kaduna and Kano. It was very easy to know that even though the continuity of this railway system to the North African Arab nations was there, but not yet to be mentioned; at least for that video. These port and railway systems do not involve Oron, Calabar, Ogoja, Wukari, Maiduguri, Enugu, Onitsha, Makurdi or Jos since none of these are in the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano-Katsina single story axis that Naija revolves around in these days. “Absolutely brilliant!” was exactly the glee on the face of this young presenter of this Buhari genius as he did this section of the presentation.
As I listened and wondered after this single story Buhari brilliant political saviour video story, my mind did not fail in remembering that all our military and security command in the country are now also of this Abuja-Kaduna-Kano-Katsina single story. So are the vast majority of our customs, immigration, police, civil defense, political and strategic federal governances and resources control, including even the petroleum that is still laying the diminishing economic eggs; as well as all the relevant political armamentaria, National Assembly, Executive, Judiciary and all! Wonderful single story, is it not? The thought that this military conquest of a whole large country, a quarter of a continent and of some 250 ethnic nationalities, and maintaining it by such brigandry, is no longer a civilized and possible way in the modern world, did not occur to these somehow very brilliant folks! Even the Nigerian so-called intelligentsia and professional classes have apparently been captured or suppressed by this single story-telling and manipulations; excepting ASUU, with the single story one source and control of federal salary paying, in spite of all arm-twisting and most ingenuous counter painting of ASUU with a single story “only salary and corruption seeking”; contrary to all the evidences! Apparently Naija has signed to this single story, single autocracy, no balancing opinion or even healthy opposition, bi-partisan or multi-partisan polity; but only this “APC-PDP corporate and alternate dancing-chair corruption, in spite of everything” political culture? Is this part of this new ingenuity or college of brilliances in governance Naija? We must love our politicians, but true love of them, requires also telling them the truths.
So as I conclude this reflection on this video, the single story and the deja-vu experiences of it, my spirit desires for me to ask everybody, but especially those who share this my experience in reading this script the following questions: where is the pursuit of the universal, common good in this country? Where is the simple honesty, social justice, ordinary and true intelligence with wisdom; where is the universal love, as the only law of humanity in our current Nigerian governance? Where is the divine wisdom in anybody continuing to believe in a single story repeat narrative, after all that we have seen in the last 5 years? A stitch in time, they say, saves nine; and any time is not late before that end time without the stitch! God, no matter whatever anybody thinks that He is, waits long for people who do or collude with the evil that they very ordinarily and easily can jolly well reason out, to repent of it. But He usually does not do it for ever. Let us pray that those who brought us to this one chance, single story government, as brilliant and howsoever excellent it has been to them, will do the needfuls in its regard – including completing the missing histories by Yakubu Gowon and TY Danjuma. May time, conscience, honesty, genuine integrity and God bless them; and bless Nigeria too! Amen.
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