UnderTow
In one of his many, increasingly fatigued editorials, presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, once more fell upon those who have lost faith in the continued existence of Nigeria as one united, indivisible political entity. His most recent outing, titled ‘Nigeria’s unity and all the Iberiberism’, expressed all his unhinged optimism and belief that Nigeria would survive. So liberal with his penmanship was he that after going into the labyrinthine etymology of the word “Iberiberism”, he had time to bite into former president Olusegun Obasanjo for daring to give his usual scorching verdicts about the state of the country. The thing about the former president is that if he chooses not to reply, it is neither because he was caught off-guard nor because he deemed the attack on his person as valid, but because he has no regard for what was said about him. Chief Obasanjo may have many faults, a good percentage of which came to the fore during both his stints in power, but he has for the most part delivered reasonable analyses and appreciation of national issues since he left power leaving people to wonder why that broadmindedness hibernated during his administration.
Mr Adesina premised all his hopes and assurances that the country could weather any storm on two major pillars. The first was that historical precedence had seen Nigeria go through gloomier, ominous times when it appeared the country was certain to go to rack and ruin, but the country muddled through. The second were the lyrics to a hit 80s song by Veno Marioghae, whose whereabouts he wondered. The lyrics, which tickled the presidency’s fancy, posited that come what may the country would survive. Following both premises, and the added declarations by the president Mr Adesina is so sold on that the country’s unity is non-negotiable, the spokesman went ballistic with secessionists and dissenters.
He said: “Why do some people always dwell on the negative? They have been seeing nothing but negative for decades, but Nigeria remains sturdy and steady. Yes, countries do fail, collapse, crumble, but Nigeria will survive. Let them change from malediction to benediction. It will be well with this country. Some fathers of the land will not fold their hands and see Nigeria go down. Fortunately, we have one of them as President now. The young Muhammadu Buhari spent 30 months in the frontlines as a young army officer, fighting the war of unity. And he has said it: we will not be around and watch Nigeria go down. Never. We will rather speak to insurrectionists in the language they understand. And what of Olusegun Obasanjo, a civil war hero. Despite all that he has contributed to the current upheavals by his actions and inactions, words and bile, he says it is idiotic to wish Nigeria disintegration now. Good. But let us put our money where our mouth is. Let Baba mind his thoughts, and his language.”
It is not clear if the special adviser has, in his moments of private reflection, balanced the empirical weight of Nigeria’s fractured social, economic, political and heterogeneous reality against his ideological, optimistic and almost simplistic belief that the country will weather the avoidable storm currently pitted against the country. When the civil war of 1967 ended in victory for Nigeria against those that agitated for the Republic of Biafra, there were those who believed that one of the factors that contributed to the outcome of the war was the fact that the government of Major General Yakubu Gowon was a military government and many of the things that happened during that war were easily swept under the radar.
The current administration got into power through democratic means, but the forebodingly militaristic undertones that accompanied the president’s threat to speak a particular language to a particular people with reference to civil unrest and war, and the special adviser’s gleeful echoing of that controversial statement does not augur well with the concept of inclusive governance. Does Mr Adesina honestly believe that the presidency is so absolved from the unrest going on and that the solution to the conflict is to continually pit the administration against the people? Is that good public relations? Despite the presidency’s revelation that it had uncovered as many as 476 websites set up to fight the president, many of those that have spoken in apocalyptic tones concerning the fate of the country and of the current administration spoke warningly, not cynically.
Is it not hubristic to speak so self-assuredly, daring people to do their worst? Why push people to the brink to find out whether they have it in them to bring the country down to its knees? Any smart government would have learnt from the EndSARS protests that power is indeed vested in the people and they submit it of their own freewill to the government. Mr Adesina loves proverbs with local imagery, and he repeated one about the ram’s whatchamacallit and the thingumajig of a woman. He must therefore be aware of the proverb that goes something like the dog that would get lost would first ignore its master’s whistle. If the presidency continues to laugh in the face of a people who feel oppressed, then may the victims of the foreseeable tragedy not be the innocent bystanders.
