The president versus us

By Tony Afejuku

Let the Glitterer state straightaway that today’s subject is appearing for readers’ consumption by sheer luck. What this simply means is that the Glitterer had other things in his mind, of active choices to choose from, before a nudge from nowhere nudged him to pick, prettily, on our president directly now. Let the Glitterer be clearly clear. He legitimately had in his sumptuously active mind the following topics to dwell on: “Other stories and a story”; “New hunger in the land”; “The thing that is the thing to come”; “An insider glimpse of Olu of Warri’s fifth coronation anniversary”; “The funny humourist”; “Infantino”; “World Cup of woeful dreams”; and other ideas of almost perceptible and almost imperceptible ingredients. As a matter of fact, “Other stories and a story”, which was going to attend to the responses of some readers, active readers, of this column, was ready to be shared here from their intellectual and poetic insights. Its lucky day, and that of the other titles, will still enter the creatively journalistic soul of the Glitterer.

During a rare, favoured moment of this presidency, our leader elevated his presence to enter the Glitterer’s mind of dark humour and bile, catching the Glitterer utterly unready for the cynicism skulking there. This rare, lucky moment happened very recently when some Nigerian Catholic Bishops visited the president, our mighty leader, to tell him that the country is bleeding. Did our mighty leader accept the truth the Bishops, led by Cardinal John Onaiyekan, the Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja, told him? Of course, the President of Nigeria, the great man of gambit, did not agree with the Bishops. The bleeding country is already being throttled to the un-motorable road of a one-party state, which our lucky leader tried to deny outright against the grain of truth all about us. Without doubt, there is more than an adequate account/amount – if the Glitterer must employ this term – of hunger everywhere about us. Indeed, the failures, the current ingredients of failures, that is, of our serious leader’s administration, overwhelm us all. Let us attempt to list them: steadily rising inflation; frequent fuel price hikes; power failure; increasing poverty; declining education standards; increasing insecurity; economic downturn; debt increase; naira devaluation; and contrived democracy of a confirmed democrat drawing us backward.

In other words, the Glitterer is saying thus: The structural failures characterizing the current administration have created an overwhelming national crisis. This is evident in persistent inflation, escalating fuel costs, systemic power grid failures, and expanding poverty rates. These economic challenges are compounded by a decline in educational quality, heightened insecurity, mounting sovereign debt, and the continuous devaluation of the naira. Consequently, the administration’s governance model represents a regression in democratic substance.

The president and his presidencynologists will not agree with me, as the president himself did not agree with the Catholic Bishops who (through Cardinal John Onaiyekan) spoke for all of us Catholics and non-Catholics, Christians and non-Christians, and all of us Nigerians who keep on wondering about the luckless luck that has befallen Nigeria currently. But I don’t wish to be misunderstood. When President Tinubu’s gambit propelled him to the presidency in 2023, did we deduce that we would witness what we are experiencing now – as alluded to above? Of course not! This must be our collective answer.

Now when the Glitterer saw our leader of enormous power on television, and heard what he said, to wit, that all is fair in politics, he winced with pain. The powerful president’s statement, meaning any tactic is acceptable to win the 2027 presidential elections, really caused the Glitterer deep emotional pain and a sudden, nameless dread. And his mind spiralled into anxiety as he foresaw a dark, chaotic, and unclear future surrounding the upcoming 2027 presidential elections. In any case, will the elections happen? And if they happen, will they be the elections of the president versus his opponents, or will they be the elections of the president versus the rest of us?

This composer may not be losing faith in the presidential electorate and electoral process, although he believes that, after all is said and done, all Nigerian (and African) politicians in a post-colonial state such as ours are more or less the same. Our past presidents lived and survived/succeeded in office by wits. Is our powerfully powerful President Tinubu different from them? Or will his unlikely civilian successor be going to be different? Have our experiences over the years not told us that our presidents have exhibited tendencies to make one civilian president sound a bit like the other? Or is the current President of your country, my country, our country, going to step into his peculiar bog hole as the 2027 presidential elections approach?

Now the Glitterer wants to make a recommendation. There are occasions when he is like every writer. He begins a sentence, runs to the middle of it, and discovers that there is no way out short of retracing his steps and beginning again nicely and beautifully. We expect the presidencynologists to read this writing, and have a dialogue with the president on it. All of us will be lucky if they do so. It is morning yet on 2027 presidential elections day. The president of presidents still has ample time to kill the hunger in the land. Or did his gambit bring him to his present throne to bleed us to death? Who will remain in the land to rule over it after he has killed us all?

It is morning yet on 2027 presidential election day. His gambit still has time to wear a humane heart and face. He should heed the Glitterer. He cannot conquer and consume all of us – even if he can conquer and consume the presidential candidates who want our presidential throne. Mr Powerful President of presidents should rewrite his sentences.

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