Dumb And Dumber: Nigerians And Their Leaders By Charles Odimgbe

I have come to the realization that Nigerian leaders are dumb, and we the citizens are even dumber. With the news media replete with news of the mindlessness, self-aggrandizement, looting, pillaging and personal enrichment by our politicians, we the citizens just talk about it and bury our heads in the sand as if this too shall come to pass. With the economic recession biting so deeply into the lives of the average person, our leaders put on blinders while we seem to have resigned to our faith that nothing is going to change. Rather than focus on getting our system right, we engage in all kinds of vices as shortcut to make ends meet. In the papers, every day, you read about ritual killings, armed robbery, kidnapping, killings by our so called protective forces, conflicts and clashes between the cattlemen and farmers. You hear about politicians making crass and insensitive statements that make you scratch your head and go “huh”? What do we do in response? We engage prayer warriors and flock in thousands to fake churches, hoping that God will come down from heaven and rescue us.

The fight against corruption is almost dead due to lack of support, tribalism, partisanship, and an inept as well as unethical judicial system that makes no sense. It is amazing that after one year of fighting corruption, we have nothing to show but court appeals and counter appeals.

Nigeria’s purported annual budget designed to help the country out of recession remains unimplemented for one reason or another. If the fight against corruption, as some argue, is tilted, with the All Progressives Congress (APC) only investigating and prosecuting members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), so be it! Hell, if or when the PDP comes to power, they will have the opportunity to investigate and prosecute APC members – and that is if they will ever get their act together enough to regain the center.

We watch as errant Governors make pronouncements that border on treason, separatist movements agitating for their own destinies, as if it is a cure-all for our woes. Our elected representatives enact state laws that fly against the constitution, and federal laws that trample on the state rights and the rights of the common man. We have no electricity but still pay our electric bills every month. No basic amenities such as roads, water, sewer and drainage systems, but pay all kinds of dues as part of Internally Generated Revenue, to our leaders to divert for their own personal benefits. We read how much monies our leaders arrogate to themselves, how they convert public property and vehicles for personal use, how they donate public funds to their preferred personal projects, and award contracts to their friends and cronies who are barely qualified to execute such projects. The Internet is saturated with gruesome and unsavory images of dead bodies caused by accidents, lynching by angry mobs for unsubstantiated and petty crimes, and people harvesting body parts for rituals. Many of our young women have now turned to prostitution as a survival mechanism – serving rich businessmen and politicians, while some young men have turned to kidnapping. Meanwhile their schools have remained as dilapidated as ever.

Every day, our leaders jet out to exotic cities, spending millions of dollars to vacation and to receive medical attention—even as Nigerian hospitals remain dilapidated and unmaintained. American presidents do not vacation or go overseas for medical treatment. They made sure that they have all they need within their shores to take care of themselves. Not Nigeria. We are content in reaping where we did not sow. It does not matter that the citizens that elected these dumb politicians are dying by the scores for ailments that could be cured by simple antibiotics, yet we stand and shout about whose political party is being victimized for embezzling our money.

The question would be, does our political elite not know about the state of the economy? Do they not see these gruesome images on the Internet? Do they not understand the impact of all these stolen monies on the economy and population at large? Do they not drive on these tattered roads with their 4-wheel drive vehicles? Do they not smell the stench coming from feces due to lack of functional sewer systems? Are they too blind to see the erosion eating away at our landscape due to lack of proper drainage system?

Do these political “leaders” not hear the cries of the masses, the dying, the infighting, and the confusion? Hell, yes, they do! They just don’t care. They have concluded that the masses they are charged with looking after are even dumber and that they could get away with anything regardless. That’s about the only way one could explain their illogical and immoral behaviors given the decay that Nigeria is facing today. The Nigerian elite is so dumb and arrogant they no longer understand that they are tied to the faith and future of that country. They the lack morals and foresight to understand that whatever the image of Nigeria is overseas, such is their image!

If our leaders are DUMB, we who elected them are even DUMBER! With our country failing, we bury our heads in the sand, talk politics all day, and pray all night. To cap it all, whatever little earning we have, rather than invest in worthwhile projects, we relinquish them to our churches while our children starve to death. We are dumber because we have failed to ask the right questions of our political elite or anyone in power. We lack so much self-esteem that we are content if anyone from our state is in power and gloat as if they were our blood relatives. No, it does not matter that this so-called attitude is negatively affecting our daily lives. No, all that matters is that the sense that we have someone in power. We hold on to that illusion even when we cannot feed our family today. We are so dumb and hence the reason we never ask ourselves why I should pay electric bill when I have no light? How long will that cup of rice, distributed by my senator, last for my family and me while the senator siphons all our monies overseas? Why do I need a governor and local officials when there are no roads, functional hospitals, storm drainage system or running water? All we do is pray, fast, complain everyday about how Buhari is Buharing every one.

Reinhold once said, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage to change the things that I can.” Nowhere did he ask God to do anything for him, only grant him the courage the change the things he could. Nigerians have no courage! We are all cowards! Our leaders have done a fine job of feeding us fish every day and now we cannot fish for ourselves. Change does not happen by divine intervention. Change happens because people got sick and tired of being sick and tired. However, Nigerians are never fed up, we hold onto this belief that one day a Chineke will come and rescue us. The question is why? An economist once opined that Nigeria is a country where the worst never happens but nothing ever gets better. That in a nutshell is a description of why we are still suffering and smiling. Our stupidity today has been confirmed! Even as things are getting worse, still we endure and shout fire, fire, fire every day. Well, we’ve got fire all right.

Today any separatist with a twitter is calling for the separation of the country. I ask myself why? If we are not able to manage this country Nigeria that was handed to us in tact by the British, what makes you think we could better manage it broken apart. The truth of the matter is that Nigeria has become a country of “chop-I-chop” and those advocating for a breakup of the country are simply perfecting a ruse for another set of greedy selfish persons to gain access and perpetuate the same pillaging we see today.

In my previous article “Buhari, Now What” I outlined how every person in that country has a role to play in our progress, but are we playing those roles. This is the time to start taking your country back. For starters, if the government does not supply you with electricity 75% of the time in a month, don’t pay the bill. What will they do, disconnect the light that you never had? Since the government has refused to provide us with proper road amenities, send a clear message to your elected officials and put them on notice that your vote is going to someone who will work to pave the roads! And mean it! Show your faces in the numbers and demand to know – it is your right. If you believe that paying a senator N250,000,000 a month is over the top, ask them to reduce it! Picket, demonstrate and rally peacefully. Inform your local representative that if those numbers do not change, he will be unemployed come election time. Having said all these, I venture to make one prediction. Nothing will happen. In Nigeria, our leaders are dumb and we the citizens are even dumber.

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