By Tunde Asaju
It is the season of party primaries. If you believe in magic, you could be forgiven for remembering legendary King David reciting 2nd Samuel 1:27. How are the mighty fallen!
Although there are 68 registered parties, basically two are relevant in the Naija scheme of things re-echoing Ibrahim Babangida’s vision. They are the Party of Desperate People, PDP officially Peoples Democratic Party and the Asiwaju People’s Congress, APC publicly known as the All Progressives Congress. For millennials who have never used coins, these are the different sides of the same coin. Those now in PDP were once in APC and APC wheeler-dealers were once PDP stalwarts.
There is neither ideology nor leanings in Naija politics. Politics remains the only form of employment that guarantees a salary for no work done. Politricians have no fear that their take-home pay won’t be enough to take them home. In Naija, if there were still a dime in the Central Bank, it would be used to take care of the politrician. The sickler could die and the infirmed could pray to live, the politrician gets his pay.
Before strangers send a petition to the UN, this is not punishment; it is an option. Naija masses love their politricians more than their own lives. Few would sign off their organs to be harvested at death, but they do actually die for their beloved politricians. Love of politricians have broken many a family tie. Friendships are ruined on accounts of politrics and wars have been fought on political conviction. When a Naija supports his politrician, all rational faculties are suspended.
The result of years of unflinching loyalty to the politrician are exhibited across the land. Roads that have been tarred in every budget since the Brutish left with their Union Joke have gaping potholes. Communities still draw water from mining pits with the belief that if those pits were drained, untold calamities would befall their communes. You couldn’t quarrel with the logic, after all what is a community without a water source?
The loyalty of Naija people to their politrician manifests in the level of insecurity in the land. We are not the Swiss; we do have a valiant army, one that has seen action in every international skirmish since forceful conscription into the first European civil war a.k.a World War I. Yet, army generals get snatched up in transit; so you could imagine what happens to bloody civilians. We have a robust police force; one that has won global accolades for its peacekeeping and peace-enforcement operations.
The reasons we have no security for Tola, Tukur and Tochukwu is because Naija people chose to have their politricians protected by the forces that should protect the integrity of the nation. We are that altruistic. Not many nations have this level of altruism.
For our selflessness, our politricians show gratitude. They keep themselves in office. The word retirement does not apply to them. Once a politrician, in office till death do us part. Ex-soldiers, evil servants and business people get ‘begged’ to serve. It’s a plea they usually accept with glee. Once they’ve tasted elective office, it’s impossible to beg them to serve.
Local government officials take their duties very seriously – which basically is to do the bidding of their state governors. Governors take their mandates seriously; which is to remain loyal to the godfather. Loyalty to the godfather guarantees re-selection and rigged endorsement. Those who come to Naija politics must not come with Teflon hands.
Retirement that most workers in the developed world look forward to is a curse of the gods of our land. To retire is to be sentenced to a life of misery and sudden death. Politricians hate the word – retirement more than they hate death. The retired have no assurance of getting their benefits. Their successors help themselves to it. Retirees die on pension queues or of curable diseases.
Loyal governors get enviable remuneration, a ticket – to the parliament where sleeping on duty, absence from debates and indolence are the definition of hard work that pays mouth-watering benefits. The parliament closes without evidence of productivity.
The 2018 selection season is already shattering records and setting political upsets. Muhammadu Buhari the president with the most enviable flying and holidaying job in the world has secured 2.9 million of the five million votes he was promised at the primaries in which he was the sole candidate. That’s a tazarce or continuity endorsement for the nation’s rigging machine, a guaranteed four more years of the change between six and half a dozen.
Akinwumi Ambode who inherited money-spinning Lagos but failed to clear the mess on his streets is sentenced to retirement. Afropuffs is learning to joggle ball in middle age, having lost his party’s trust for 2019 in Kaduna. Champagne Dino’s rebellion has given him hope to keep his classic cars as a PDP sinnatorial candidate, but he stands against the formidable federal might. One Buhari minister relinquished her job and party membership and now stands in the limbo. A loyal Buhari minister defeated her stepson to clinch a senatorial seat in Yobe.
Bayelsa’s common sense couldn’t make his people read the tweets and lost their trust. A dancing sinnator just saw the difference between politrics and competing in Naija Got Talent. A former beauty queen turned rebel wife had her hopes dashed.
This indeed is the season of shocks and upsets. Seers swear that this is the calm before the storm.
tundeasaju@yahoo.co.uk
