Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Chudi Okoye, PhD., political scientist, is a contributor to USAfricaLive.com
At first, as the election loomed in 2023, there was a loud and forceful declaration by Bola Ahmed Tinubu of his right to presidential succession. That is, after the Muhammadu Buhari presidency.
Tinubu had been promised, he insisted, and the promise must be kept. Thus was born the ’emi lo_kan’ mantra.
It was a brash statement that sounded like a Trumpian claim to singularity: “Only I can fix it!”. It was a similar self-assertion by our man, a declarative ’emi ni _kan.’
Thereafter, the election having been won (albeit by default — due in part to the folly of the opposition parties).
There was an attempted shift to governance, with initial “can-do” boasts about a governing prowess allegedly demonstrated previously in Lagos State. It was now time for *emi lo_can_*.
But governing has proved an impossible task. A lack of talent melds with a lack of imagination and energy, amid a severe lack of resources, though you wouldn’t know it from the lack of restraint in high places. Governing is thus grinding along as we shift listlessly to ’emi lo_can’t.’
Still, despite the poor record of governance, there is no modesty or humility. There is only brashness and braggadocio, in a depressing spectacle of ’emi lo_cant.’
Despite the continuing display of cant and chutzpah, as we groan amid the widespread rot and leadership rut, the nation is slowly realizing it had been conned by a masterful artist, and is now well and truly in the grip of ’emi lo_con.’
At least, until 2027.
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