It was like a dissenting voice against the All Progressive Congress and its campaign of change on the floor of the Senate in the National Assembly on Thursday, January 28. It came as a shock, a rude awakening if you like, not because of the message but the bearer of the message.
A voice so at odds with the ‘change’ mantra that we have come to associate with President Muhhamadu Buhari and the APC has been described in some political circles as rebellious.
But the message was loud, clear and simple. Things are not going according to script in the inner caucus and someone has finally decided to tell Nigerians what we, in fact, know and suspect, given how a certain Lion of Bourdillion has been relegated to the backwaters of the affairs of state by his political benefactor. And Senator Oluremi Tinubu, the wife of the Jagaban, the APC’s national leader, has given us a sneaker preview.
What were her observations? She went vocal on no other subjects than those tied to the 2016 budget. That was the budget that never went missing but got its details revised in the dark of night and switched with an earlier document filled with some of the most outrageous proposals. Ones that proffer anything but change from a government that has made change its cardinal message. The same appropriation bill that was leisurely prepared, never recalled after its submission to the National Assembly but being tidied by the administration as revealed by the Minister of Budget Udo Udoma to the National Economic Council last Thursday.
Senator Tinubu veered into that controversial issue that no one else would want to be caught in between. And my God, she did deliver the message very well.
Unfortunately for the senator too, Information Minister Lai Mohammed, who served under her husband and has been under his political tutelage, on the same day, was invoking curses on anyone, and everyone, that criticizes the social, political and economic stance of President Buhari’s administration.
At the communion of Lai Mohammed with heads of media houses in Abuja, he told them that pseudo analysts like Senator Tinubu and some hack writers were on the prowl, informing them that the ilk of the senator who disagree, criticize or condemn some of the current administration’s policies have been paid to disfigure the perfectly captured appropriation bill, a first of its kind for the Nigerian masses and to undermine the ongoing farce that its calls anti-corruption war against those accused of pilfering our commonwealth.
But I can relate with Senator Tinubu. She was venting out the frustrations that comes with being dumped, especially having helped Buhari to win the presidency that has eluded him for so long. She may not be acting or playing the script of anybody but those of the real change agents and of how transitions should look like. How the socio-politico economic metamorphosis should really be, real change.
As President Buhari’s administration progresses, there is need to accommodate and endear the spirit of listening, especially to all discerning voices for or against various steps of government programs to form balances. The dissenting, the critical and those in the king’s pantaloon of old and today’s noise makers.
The same treatment should also play out in the case of the individuals who are non partisan or partisan. They don’t need to be knocked off the bridges of life because of their position for or against the government of the day at any given time. It is unpopular to accuse, intimidate and threaten those who hold opposing views against a government by a supposedly information manager. The pronouncement and actions of such people hired by the government are held as laws by law enforcement agents to detain all opposition voices with impunity and unlawfully because they dare to speak their minds as a result of their observations.
Day in day out political aides paint terrible pictures about leaders, rewriting their interests and concerns towards the growth of the nation as against their personal interests that is geared towards self aggrandizement through self services. President Goodluck Jonathan was often mocked as clueless and was described recently as an “ineffectual buffoon” by the Economist magazine. And that’s due to 99 percent of the time to the actions and inactions of his aides while in office.
Months after the presidential election was won and lost and a new government installed, the name calling has continued with people still turned against themselves on the created divides. Those who seem to study and understand the body language of the president like members of the now ‘directorate of shoe shiners’ make life unbearable for perceived enemies of the government. This is not supposed to be.
Democracy allows the practice of human rights, upholding the principles of rule of law and not holding people captive or denying them certain privileges because they speak their minds or informally advice the government against any of its policies that may be unpopular to the people.
If the president had held staff of the department of states services in contempt over their role during the build up to last year’s presidential elections, such attitude on which he held them in disrepute should not be accommodated while he is in the saddle of leadership. That is what governance is all about. It’s about assessments, stocktaking, accommodation, equity and not intimidation, partiality, eye service, shoe shining and other diminutive role of name calling being carried out by those with bigger assignments of strategizing and drawing up policies with about 40 billion naira in their control and their collaborators who cannot stop harassing writers and analysts on the pretense that the regime has relapsed into a draconian rule.
Twitter: @MOkpogode. [myad]
