By: Chuks. Chinyere(jj)
Trying to impress Nigerians is a hard job. Don’t argue with me, I’ve been a Nigerian a long time.
Scrolling through my phone, I lift my head to announce to my friends the devastating effects of global warming, or maybe how hellfire is starting to build up on us and how there’s a big bad thing prepping to happen.
“Before now it was a bush fire in Brazil, now it’s New South Wales in Australia and Sydney too in the same country. Terrible things are really happening in this World o. The other day there was a disaster. A volcanic eruption happened somewhere in New Zealand, took the life of one person this…”
“Wait. One person. Just one person died in a whole volcano?”
“Which kind disaster be that wey only one person dey die, I was expecting to hear like 747 people. Mtchew, make them come Naija come see disaster na.”
It’s really a hard thing to do, trying to impress Nigerians with bad news. We have been through so much. I mean how do you begin to wow an average Nigerian with a corruption saga of another country. Can it beat a snake swallowing N36 million?
I remember a certain man who died trying to please Nigerians — or should I say he died trying to do the right things. (Unfortunately, the right things don’t please Nigerians.)
It only took a man like Major General Buhari as President to have us begin to appreciate the saints in Goodluck Jonathan and his former boss, Umaru Musa Yar’adua.
I started following politics and reading dailies after the 2007 General Elections, and I can not remember reading a single headline or column anywhere, which was praising the enviable achievements of the then Yar’adua administration. There were cartoonists making fun of this man for laying out a clear seven-point agenda and promising to follow the due process and respect the Rule of Law in all his doings. Yet when this man became critically ill, in service to us, nobody stood by him or showed him support. Everyone was calling for his resignation and he’s head with it. Who knew if our love could have saved him and given him a reason to fight and conquer that cancer? Well, this is possibly why God blessed us with mans like Major-General Muhammadu Buhari.
You know what they say, “Person wey suffer suppose get sense.” Having a bad taste in your mouth long enough will teach you how to appreciate the sweetness of honey.
There is almost never a day I take my daily stroll through the streets of social media, Twitter especially, without hearing hearty chants of the wonders of Governor Seyi Makinde. This man seems to be doing so much in Oyo State, it’s beginning to become suspicious.
I heard this man made a little over N57 million available for Maths and English “extra lessons” for SSS 3 students across all Oyo State Government-owned schools; isn’t that just “ridicule-us?” Yes! This man is trying to ridicule us. So he knows how to prioritise education like this, he knows the business of Governance so well, and yet decided to keep himself in hiding all these while allowing Umu Africa to continue in sufferance? He must be sued for this nonsense.
Wait, what did I just hear? Governor Seyi Makinde slashed the LAUTECH fees from N250,000 to a staggering N65,000? No, no that’s unacceptable. What is he trying to do, make education cheap or what? This man is trying to impress me, I don’t like being impressed, biko.
That’s not all? You guys should wait, I’m hearing something about the Oyo State 2020 budget. HE DID WHAT? Allotted 22.3 per cent of the state budget to education alone? That’s hitting the UNESCO benchmark nah; it’s unbelievable. What is this man trying to do na? Is it that he doesn’t want a second term or what? If you end up educating the entire Oyo State in your first four years, how then do you intend to win re-election in 2023?
I mean, with all the young men getting an education and trying to do better with their lives, how do you find uneducated thugs to help with ballot snatching, stuffing, and that electoral violence Baba Adedibu thought us before he passed on and passed the baton to Yahaya Bello?
This man is just something. I am suspecting him to be an uncaring husband and father. Okay, he might care about his immediate family but it’s obvious he doesn’t care about his fourth and fifth generations unborn. You can’t tell me otherwise, ’cause if he does care about them I don’t see any reason why he will promise to give an account of every kobo to be spent from the over N208 billion 2020 budget of Oyo State. How then does he plan to sideline some “ doe” for future use? You sef reason am na.
I’m really in shock. Seyi Makinde’s doings is beyond suspicious. We are all in a country where there’s no money; poor man is crying; big man dey hala. The Federal Government is borrowing us into eternal debt; uncompleted projects litter the entire country, leaving everywhere looking like an abattoir. Yet, this Governor Seyi Makinde of a guy is somehow finding it possible to make over N1 billion available for owed pensioners to get paid? That’s it; I can not can anymore. At this point, I might have to protest.
Wait o, looks like I’m not the only bad belle in the building o. Looks like the children of Animals Promising Change, also known as APC, have beaten me to this protest.
“Ajimobi has employed 1000 in 8 years, Seyi Makinde has employed 10,000 in less than a year.”
These are the Saul vs David like songs of praise we’ve been hearing them sing all over social media for months now, and APC bots are not having it, for obvious reasons of course.
I cannot say what Former Governor Ajimobi was thinking when he proclaimed the achievements of his administration as “the pinnacle of governmental achievements”. It’s not like I disagree with him, there won’t be another Governor of Oyo State whose performance will possibly match up to his “flood”. Governor Seyi Makinde has changed that forever by raising a standard against him. It will take more than printing the face of a good man on “okada shelters” to tarnish the image of a good man; a good man who has cracked the code to pleasing Nigerians with effortless deeds.
Awesome piece, Chuks. Thanks as always for trusting us with your works.