By Rudolf Okonkwo
Since I wasn’t made a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, despite winning (apologies Senator Elisha Abbo) all security checks by every security agency in Nigeria since I was in primary three, I might as well say “serving power a la carte” the way I feel without fear of any spiritual attack from a nearby mountain of fire.
Here are the top ten rubbish narratives Bola Tinubu fed us. (Apologies Bosun Tijani)
10: That the crisis in Niger Republic is an existential threat to Nigeria. For this reason, Nigeria must send its overstretched military, broken by Boko Haram, bandaged by bandits, and boxed in by infiltrators, to Niger to help flush out a group of renegade ragtag soldiers in Niamey who executed a coup in the West African country that got rid of another incompetent president that is beholden to a former colonial power and her allies whose only interested is in exploiting the country’s uranium and other natural resources.
9: That despite Russia’s honest claim that it won’t intervene militarily in a war situation with Niger, if the emerging West African version of NATO, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mail, get 11th-hour support of Russia, America, Britain, and France, will flood Nigeria with sophisticated weapons they have long denied Abuja and stay with Nigeria, the way they have remained with Ukraine until Nigeria defeats Putin and his refurbished Warsaw Pack in Niger. Even if they deploy the Wagner group, we will parachute in the Dokubo ducks.
8. That “the fuel subsidy is gone” means that Nigeria will save one trillion naira every two months from thin air. It means that the suffocating poor who cannot breathe will have to dig deeper into their empty pockets to retrieve that one trillion naira and hand it over to the bloated federal government. This is true even for those who walk to work, go to bed hungry, and cut back on the tithe they pay in church. As for the small group of individuals with deep pockets, lavish bank accounts, and bullion vans, who have ‘amassed so much wealth and power and are a serious threat to the fairness of our economy and integrity of our democratic governance’…we say, sanu da aiki.
7. That the promise to “Turn the so-called Yahoo boys into experts in manufacturing and creation of chips” extend to turning every failed former governor (apologies Bello Matawalle) into ministers that will implement Bola Tinubu’s vision of turning all of Nigeria into Lagos, where there is 24-hour light, pipe-borne water, and natural gas pipeline in every house, and the gap between the rich and the poor has become so small that one needs a microscope to notice the difference between those driving Tesla and those driving Datsun.
6. That, unlike Tradermoni, the infusion of billions of naira in palliatives to medium-scale farmers will replicate the Abuja rice pyramid 100 folds. That it will be such that the mantra, “Is it for eba, is it for garri? Is it for beans and dodo?” will be fulfilled. Instead of the poor masses breaking into government storage spaces to steal, they will walk up to silos and on top of public rice and groundnut pyramids and help themselves to free food. And for the 200,000 metric tones of grains in our strategic reserve to be released, out of the 60,000 metric tones of grains that the last minister of Agriculture said we had, none will migrate to our neighbouring countries the way our cheap petrol used to disappear across the border before the proclamation, “oil subsidy is gone.”
5. That with each state receiving the highest ever amount of their monthly share of the national cake from Abuja, not adjusted to inflation, those who have not bought the latest bulletproof SUV for their traditional rulers and concubines will quickly do so and then concentrate on the job at hand, which is to get to that glorious point where we “generate electricity to even roast boli.”
4. That after the likes of Bayo Onanuga, Femi Fani Kayode, and Festus Keyamo take their righteous places in the president’s ever-expanding cabinet (third batch), the business of staying calm in the face of the storm will begin, for it is written, “In the face of the STORM, we stay CALM. When the stage is set, we display the IDEAS that stood us apart.” That is when the wild dogs will sing the third stanza of our national anthem, fart, and go to the big room for fattening season.
3. That the 2023 election was the most credible in Nigerian history because he won it in a runaway fashion, with less than 37% of the votes, without fighting, snatching, and grabbing it at all costs. That Ganduje, with all the dollars in his shokoto, lost Kano for him, and Sanwo-Olu, with all the plots of land recovered from the sea, lost Lagos to that immigrant from Anambra who came into the state at age 12 with just a ten kobo plastic bag.
2. That Emilokan meant he knew what to do when he arrived at Aso Rock. That it wouldn’t be similar to how a clumsy and socially awkward boy, long fascinated by a pretty young girl, ends up at a loss as to what to do when she finally visits him. Similarly, that “follow who know road” meant that the road he knew would lead to Singapore, not Lebanon.
1. That “Let the poor breathe” meant that, besides Asari Dokubo and Femi Fani Kayode, whose hopes have been renewed, he has no poor man on his phone’s contact. Because if he did, these last sixty-five days would have been “A town hall different from bala blu blu blu bulaba.”
Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo teaches Post-Colonial African History at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is also the host of Dr. Damages Show. His books include “This American Life Sef” and “Children of a Retired God,” among others. His upcoming book is called, “Why I’m Disappointed in Jesus.”
