Nigerian politician, remember, you used to come to our houses, town meetings and sometimes hung out with us where we drank local palm wine and ate ‘Isi Ewu’ and ‘Amala’ before the election. But immediately after you had been elected we were declared persona non grata as nonentities and treated like people with soaking leprosy that you now became scared of us. You do not even pick our telephone calls anymore neither do you return our numerous sms. But remember and never forget that before your election you used to call us on our mobiles even at midnight to discuss on how to strategise and manipulate the minds of the people to win their votes. Remember, you called all of us to the village, killed cows, cooked assorted delicious foods, ate, drank, danced and deceptively hugged all of us and we did not kill you. So, when did we turn to tigers, lions, scorpions and cobras that you are now scared of us? Accept the bitter truth Nigerian politician or I force it down your throat that you became afraid of your iniquities and must now rule us in isolation when you knew that you have betrayed us and that you have mortgaged your conscience to corruption and greed. Consequently, you must now rule us in segregation and move around with brutal security guards like Adolf Hitler for protection. Oh Nigerian politician, if only we knew you better!
You stole our billions, but you could at least invest it in Nigeria, but that you have never done and will never do because you do not care what happens to our generation and our children. With our stolen billions you will go to the US and buy bungalows while you go to the UK and buy mansions when we ordinary citizens are dying of hunger. Nigerian politician, you denied us our usual common pap and “akara” breakfast but you feed your reptiles and dogs with peak milk every morning. You denied us our lunch to starve to death but you forgot that you bought bags of rice for us during election time with the empty promises of bringing to us beans, onions and oil in the evening. You denied us our dinner to build mansions for your great-grandchildren with ill gotten billions in foreign accounts. You denied us electricity but powered your mansions with silent generators while we die in mosquitoes’ bites and heat rashes. Oh Nigerian politician, if only we knew you well!
Have you forgotten how you campaigned with us? If only we knew that events would later turn out like this we would probably have acted differently! But how could we when you deceptively rode on the same ‘Keke Napep’ with us with your life touching stories on how you had been like us before God lifted you. Most of us bought your deception and staked our lives on your victory against some of your fellow political murderers, while some got injured and disfigured on the process, some were not lucky enough as they paid with the ultimate price, their lives. But sadly, when you move in your convoy of entourage with your blaring siren, you will meet us on a hold-up caused by negligence of duty by you and your colleagues, and if the road is so narrow that we cannot carry our cars on our heads as you expected so that you could continue on your 180 km/h speed in a residential area that you are not supposed to drive more than 50 km/h, your security guards will jump down from your car on your order and without any course would wipe us like horses and order us to drive into the bush or gutter so that you could pass. Oh, Nigerian politician! If only we knew that your conscience has been stolen by the devil, eh …!
You recruited our young graduates into killing squads and sent them in the night after the good citizens of Nigeria who oppose your suppression or your perceived political enemies just to kill and destroy but in the day time you will hypocritically and dishonestly commiserate with us and pat our backs like the way Judas gave Jesus a betrayal hug. Because of your greed and wickedness you heartlessly pocketed the pension money meant for our aged fathers and mothers who judiciously served Nigeria and lavish the money on your close families and associates while you take your girlfriends to Dubai for shopping. You used your official position to seize peoples’ goods as contraband and converted the same goods for your family comforts. You banned importation of goods like shoes and textiles but all your shoes are Italian made while your clothes are well tailored by designers like Hugo Boss and Versace. Oh Nigerian politician!
Against known ethics and norms establishing our traditional institution by our forefathers, you politicised the body as a Nigerian politician and destroyed it by forcing our traditional rulers into secret, but yet open card carrying members of your political party. Against our customs, you vehemently subdued them and indirectly converted them into ‘oh yes’ members in your ruling cabinet and connived with them as partners in crime to forcefully without any iota of feelings and considerations collect our lands at will on flimsy excuses like the colonial days in Zimbabwe. As if the humiliation and the agony you put us through were not enough, you again threw us helplessly with our hot tears begging for your mercies into police cells. Without anybody to turn to for help in view of the fact that those that ought to have helped us, either you scared them to silence or you converted them into your dragons. We approached the court for a redress since it is said that court is the last hope of an ordinary man, but again you used your official position and money to bribe the judge to ignore all evidences before him and throw us into prisons by turning judgements against us. Now in prison we were crying to God leaking the wounds you had caused us and thinking how our children could continue their education without us because you had hiked the school fees out of the reach of the poor, yet again you arrogantly came to the prison just to say you had warned us. Not done in crushing our mental stabilities and egos, you had once more callously threatened to deal with our children if we dare question you or the judgement just because we do not have Abuja connections. Oh, Nigerian politician!
You told some of our youths that education is evil and deceived them by providing for them food and clothes so that you could continually manipulate their minds easily for your political advantage, but your own children are all in foreign universities like Harvard and Cambridge. Nigerian politician, the Minister of State for Education, Mr Nyesom Wike recently made a thunder official shocking revelation when he said that no fewer than “6.2million” Nigerian girls are out of school. According to the Minister, the figure represents “62 percent” of Nigerian school-age girls. Oh Nigerian politician, are you seeing these incubating danger of prostitution and the spread of HIV as a result of your uncaring policies etc.?
Nigerian politician, what shall it profit you to gain the whole Nigeria and lose your soul? What have you done to help your constituency or your village since your new position? Did you think about the children especially those ones that go to schools under the hot sun of the Nigerian whether without sandals? How about those born disabled that need help? What have you done to help those motherless babies? Nigerian politician, what wrong have we Nigerians done that you can not forgive us? Did you think about the consequences of your actions? Do you think that only ill gotten wealth will be enough to keep your children contented in Nigeria? Do you see your children after your generation politically successful under fair election in Nigeria because of your name? Oh Nigerian politician! If only we knew!
Nigerian politician, why are our troubles a source of joy to you? Our tears do not shake you, our pains and sorrows do not touch you, our complaint angers you, our cries become your strength, while our deaths seem to give you satisfaction. You tied our hands and pierced your sword right inside our hearts and the more we vomit blood begging you to have mercy the more you push it harder. And when it seems that we are tired to cry because our strength has failed us you become angry and begin to shake your sword on our chest and if the pain becomes unbearable and we manage to muster the last strength to open our mouths and answer the call of nature in protest like a dying sparrow in the name of crying, you get mad at us because our tears have dried up and cannot flow. Infuriated that our tears have failed us, unchallenged and defencelessly you mercilessly all over again begin to slap us, kick us and box us until we collapse. As we lie motionlessly and unconsciously with our hot tears of pains now profusely wetting the ground, then you begin to laugh at us like the Jews against Christ on the cross of cavalry. Oh, Nigerian politician!
If only we knew that you would treat us like this, if only we knew that the future under you would bring this kind of brutal and painful experience, if only we knew that under you would be so sad like the days of rapture in the bible when the saints must have marched on. Aah! If only we knew, just if only we knew, we would not have allowed the donations you gave in the church/mosque, the bags of rice, the umbrellas, the canopies, the chairs, the drinks and the T-shirts you bought for us and the money you gave to us as bribe etc. with your empty manifestoes and promises to deceive us. Out of illiteracy or hunger we ignorantly helped you to put us in perpetual pains when we collectively rigged that election. Our actions were probably influenced more by hunger because we wanted food in our stomach therefore we accepted all you threw at us without thinking deeply about the consequences. May God pardon us for the crime we committed against ourselves because in times of ignorance He forgives.
Be warned that a day shall come when your Abuja connection will fail you, when your sweet words and lies against us will also stand in opposition to you because you must give account of each soul that died under your care. Equally remember that he who kills by sword most die by sword and that there will never be sleep for whomsoever that murdered sleep. You may have temporarily defeated us in this first half but you have not won the match because the tips from our coaches have made us wiser and we are now better informed with sharp skills like the one of Diego Maradona and hot shots like Cristiano Ronaldo. We are waiting for you as a Nigerian politician in 2015 when we will show you your report card as we also wait for your children in the near future after your retirement when we will remind them of their statements or their silence approach during your terror days. But before then, please these swords – corruption, bribery, nepotism, dividing and ruling, ethnic mind set, favouritism, blackmailing, political godfather, kidnapping, jungle justice, illegal detention, greed and political murder etc. on our chest, they are cruel torture and very, very painful. Please Nigerian politician, can you remove them?
Uzoma Ahamefule, a concerned patriotic citizen writes from Vienna, Austria
Mail: uzomaah@yahoo.com
Phone: +436604659620 (sms only)
Blog: http://globalreporters1.blogspot.com
