TuesdayRapAround: To Whom ‘National Honour’ Is Due II

To whom ‘National Honour’ is due II
(Continued from last week)

Even to a layman, a genuine, sincere, and all-inclusive recognition, the type that’s devoid of deep-seated acrimony, would have succeeded in ensuring that frail nerves are calmed and old wounds healed. But the June 12 recognition, as was done by president Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, though an afterthought, was nothing but a veiled representation of deep-seated tartness from a man whose penchant for revenge, rigidity, hypocrisy, ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude is second to none.

In all honesty, there are hundreds of other major players in the build up to 1993 presidential election; people who played active roles both pre and post election, annulment era. But surprisingly, none of these actors were listed among the awardees invited by the federal government for recognition. What the Buhari-led federal government failed to distinguish was if the said honours were truly national honours or party affairs such that only those with special or veiled affinity with the ruling party were invited to grace the occasion. Notably, few critics such as Prof Wole Soyinka got invite but that’s enough to give credibility to the whole process.

As a last minute face-saving measure, the SGF, Boss Mustapha came out to tell whoever cares to listen that there are still plans to honour more people. This clearly showed a government that’s incoherent in all its ways. It is safe to say that trial and error is the trademark of this APC-led government – a government that never prepared for governance and having spent three solid but catastrophic years in the saddle, it is yet to learn any lesson.

In an attempt to add substance to the FG stage-managed honour for the said heroes of democracy, the former Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu voiced his resolve to campaign for Buhari’s election.

Even a layman doesn’t need any soothsayer to believe that the whole exercise was purely political gimmick designed to launder the image of Buhari and his kitchen cabinet among the people of the South West, in the build up to the 2019 elections.

As for Mr Tinubu, he’s like a businessman who’s only interested in where his investment will yield, and not necessarily concerned about the generality of the people – people whose public profession or leaning is usually a means to an end. That’s why having successfully governed Lagos for eight years, from 1999, he has refused to vacate office in the real sense of it. Is this how progressive politics is played the world over? Politics of sit-tight. Whether it’s beneficial to the people or not is immaterial, so long self-impossed leaders are feeding fat while the people keep languishing in abject poverty.

Rather than appreciating the reality on ground, the government employed every means available to deceive, as usual, unsuspecting members of the public into believing that all is well.

The thinking in many quarters is why is it difficult for the government of president Buhari to genuinely pursue policies and programmes that are capable of transforming the nation’s socio-economic, political space for the benefit of everyone? Instead of dissipating so much energy on things or areas where the president seems to have ulterior motives?

The zeal and or seriousness attached to the 11th hour recognition for the late business mogul, Chief MKO Abiola and others could have also been deployed to other vital and critical sectors of our national life.

Controversies surrounding farmers-herders clashes is another area where the president should have stamped out without further delay but because of one vested interest or the other, he has been foot-dragging, and engaging in bulk-passing. Where relevant security agencies failed to be alive to their respective responsibilities, the bulk stops at the president’s table and nowhere else. This is the more reason why Mr Buhari and his handlers cannot tell us that national recognition to select individuals deserves better attention more than the nation’s economy; still they can’t say it’s a development that should be given utmost attention than the security of lives and property of the people.

How does the government justify repeated mass burials in Benue State and other senseless killings elsewhere still being perpetrated by marauding herders, who up till now, has become more emboldened by the seeming inactivity of the Federal Government to stop the pogrom.

Only recently, reports have it that some arrested elements have been charged to court for allegedly killing some Fulani hersdmen. The question now is: how many killer herders have been arrested, let alone prosecuted for the senseless pogrom going on in Benue, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Zamfarà and other parts of the country?

The minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Alli, càme out only recently to make another open statement of empowerment, endorsement for the marauding killers where he said laws laid down to moderate activities of the herders should be abolished. In his right thinking, the open grazing from Sokoto to Calabar; Maiduguri to Onitsha remains the best bet for Nigeria in this 21st Century.

Though he has been condemned, asked to retract the statement, given public opprobrium, the federal government on its part has maintained sealed lip over the ill-thought statement. Who then says the president isn’t in the know of the statement?

To this end, lives have been lost; properties destroyed; farmlands run down – all because the herders are fighting for space to feed their cattles.
Is cattle rearing business private or public? Why is it a state-backed, FG-supported business? Why is state instruments of power being used to promote private business and at the expense of others?

It has been argued over the years that select few have been made to cross the poverty-stricken line, while majority of the populace are never able to benefit from the public purse.

The few opportunists who are made today – the mogajis of our clime, would probably not be in that realm had they not been to corridors of power. This simply means, in Nigeria, governmental powers exist to make rulers and their immediate cronies richer, while the ruled are made more impoverished, pauperized.

Government exists to better the lots of the people and not the other way round.

Late Chief MKO Abiola