by: Chuks Chinyere
“The People,” who are mostly members of society’s lower strata, reside in the bottom of the pyramid for obvious reasons, which speaks to our collective inability to make the best decisions for ourselves, even if it smacks us in the face with a kondo olopa. This is no fault of ours — we are neither educated or well fed enough, to think beyond our next meal — this is why we resign our political capital to career politicians who are best positioned by the Supreme Court to make the best decisions for us, while we gently grapple over the realities of surviving on N7,000 and grains of corn, till the next election cycle. When we’re not giving up our cognitive reasoning abilities to politicians and failing institutions who have not done the least to earn it, we’re relying on God to make for us, the decisions He had blessed us with a brain to task in such regard, which leaves a room for religious leaders practice some political prostituting.
No one is sure in great detail, after Saturday, 25th Feb. 2023, who INEC would say the Nigerian voters decided to make their President, but one thing that is certain is that the hope of the country will again hang in the balance of Lady Justice as represented in these parts by the Nigerian Judiciary. The Supreme Court of Nigeria will again find itself in the spotlights, or the mud as the case may be, with wrestling politicians, all of whom I suspect, will shamelessly help Nigerians realize the last hope we had stored in the refrigerator of our naivety as to salvaging what remains of our chances to making a Nigeria of our dreams through the ballot of a free and fair election, would have better been spent on hoping the EndSARS protests escalated to the point an interim government with Rev. Chris Okotie at the helm, was set to run as an absolute theocracy like Biblical Israel.
The Judiciary, referred to as the last hope of the common man, with the Supreme Court at its pinnacle, leaves us to refer to the apex court as the Last Last hope of the Common Person, where the ultimate breakfast is served. Not that a lot of ordinary people need to first get to a judgment from the the hallowed chambers of the Supreme Court to help them suspect the law was not made for but against them, lower seats of judgment like Magistrate Courts has opened our third eye into that state of enlightenment, which has helped us realize the best way to enjoy such shenanigans is to suppose that the laws for the rich was set different, and set so high us we couldn’t read them. But enter the Supreme Court – the Apex, not anyone higher, who in her absolute righteousness shares the unrighteousness of flawed judgment to reach everyone, both rich and poor, elite and common, like the breakfast it is. I can imagine a former Deputy Inspector General of Police like Udom Ekpoudom, sulking to his wife in his private chambers about how his senatorial ticket for Akwa-Ibom North-West Senatorial Zone, was ripped off him by the irrefutable judges of the Supreme Court and gifted to Godwsill Akapbio as compensation from the APC NWC, for losing out at the Presidential primaries. Or Bashir Ahmed, a member of the Northern Aristocrats breaking things in his study as he reads through and tries to rationalize how the facts in his favor spoke with the other side of it’s mouth thanks to ‘writs of summons’.
The President has cried again and again to the judgment of the Supreme Court every time pre-2015 after each failed attempt at the ballots to become President. I suspect the one time in 07 where the Supreme Court decided to uphold the elections that brought on the Yar’adua administration having recognized the said election was flawed. I am almost certain, it was at that very moment President Buhari made up his mind to flaut the orders of the Apex Court if he ever becomes President; I mean, who would blame him? Governor El Rufai would have a thing or two to say about The Presidency’s resolve to see through the nerve wrecking, bank crowding/burning – depending on which city you find yourself – hunger inviting, most importantly, vote-buy threatening new naira note monetary policy. Many other Governors under the APC like Governor El Rufai did seek redress from the subject of this discourse. The Supreme Court of Nigeria’s helmsmen have cried very loudly (again, the Supreme Court making grown men squill) when the President refused to obey the court orders on the validity of old naira notes. These are the same people that kept mum when Mr. President refused to obey similar court orders in Nnamdi Kanu and Dasuki’s cases. One would suspect these cases did not really affect the common person like the new naira note monetary policy does — ohh, very compassionate Governors we have. Maybe that is why Governor El Rufai, out of his strong compassion for ordinary Nigerians, is supporting a BAT for President against the will of a handful of highly influential Northern Elites as represented by “Elements in the Villa”. It must be El Rufai’s love for the victims of Southern Kaduna that makes him do all he does, knowing that these people are incapable of making the best decisions for them. What a sweet guy.
President Buhari prides himself as a converted democrat, and it is said that he became a believer on the site of The Dissolution of the Soviet Union “without a bullet fired”. This, I suspect, is what empowers him to disregard constitutional provisions for power separation, so that he can share some of these entrapped powers with those people around him to help rule Nigeria with him and take the blame for his most ingenious policies, like the New Naira Note. These people, many have referred to by different monikers, The Cabals, Elements in the Villa, The President’s Kitchen Cabinet. We can’t see them, but we can feel them, and like the wind, we know they are the people advising the President wrong on his bad days, which are many.
Plausible deniability has been one of President Buhari’s strongest suits, the Elements in the Villa being his biggest enabler. It does appear that the Elements in the Villa wants the best for Nigeria, better than what The People would ever want, and my interview with the Elements in the Villa have opened my eyes to their beautiful plans for this country — a country where the Northern Aristocrat will grow and strengthen her already stronghold on the country and her most valued mineral resources, even in the southeast parts of the country, simply because nobody know better how to enjoy the good things of lives like the Northern Elites of Nigeria. This is why they are working very hard to institute an interim government after inconclusive elections fueled by violence, riddled with economic hardships, engineered by the debacle of a monetary policy like the new naira notes, as advised by the unseen Elements in the Villa. It doesn’t matter if banks in Sagamu are burning down, as long as the oil fields in the Niger Delta got black gold in it, all is in order.
The APC on the other hand has proved to be the most people-centered progressive political party in the history of Nigerian polity, by fielding Nigeria’s most arrogant man and the North’s most outspoken tribal bigot, on the same ticket. The beauty of this APC presidential MuMu ticket is not that it has zero regard for one of the biggest Nigeria’s biggest polarizing factors, the issue of religion, which is the base for Nigeria’s strongest bane today – insecurity, and the snatcher of Nigerian lives across the nation. Many Christians have died, one lady was maimed and burnt on camera, while some other was kidnapped never to be seen again, all because their religion was Christian and not Muslim. Yet, the APC in its full arrogance decided that two Muslims on the Presidential ticket is no biggie, which speaks to their open-minded progressive ideology that promotes competence over religious affiliation. The Northern sect within the present APC structure supporting Tinubu’s dally to Aso Rock in hope that his old rugged bones will not carry him through the 4-8 year dilly-dally of an administration would last, so that they would have full control of our commonwealth, might just be in for some shocker as the southerner in company are lay in wait for such an opportunity. As the Bible says, those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. So as present leadership of the APC wait impatiently to plunder what remains of the country, one of our prominent men of God is advising us to lay in wait too, this time in patience, so that Saul will have a go at our dear frail lives for another possible 8 years, before King David comes to our rescue.
The People have made it clear they have no such time to wait, as naturally impatient as Nigerians are, they have done a damn good job of waiting in the last 8 years. From waiting in line for palliatives, to queuing endlessly for SIM re-registration and NIN re-capture. From waiting for voter registration and PVC collection to queing in the longest queue just to give away their old naira notes, to going home empty with the new naira notes to spend. As I write this, many are waiting in various parts of the country endlessly for the new naira note to touch their hands and fuel for their vehicles, but thank God we do not have to wait 8 months like undergrads to get our lives back on track. Our chance to make the right choice in a few days away, hopefully INEC will effect exactly what the President wants. The President has made it clear, as much as he can, that he wants to leave behind, on the sands of time, the footprints of a man who conducted a free and fair election that reflects the desire of the people. When further quizzed on the motive behind his desire, he noted that Tinubu’s disrespect for him and his shackle on the Star of Lagos affairs is in no way a catalyst to why he is trying to make sure Tinubu loses the election. He further buttressed that the mistakes of yesterday should not be deliberately repeated even though they were deliberate the first time. “This is not 2019, it’s my chance to show Nigerians that I care about their welfare, now that I am not on the ballot and have zero personal interest in who wins“, the President noted and finally, something we can all be thankful for.
