Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet
Suyi Ayodele, a columnist for the Nigerian Tribune, is a contributor to USAfricaonline.com
Eniayéndàmú (He whom the world is troubling) was born good. His birth was celebrated. Leaders all over the world gathered at his christening. The expectations of what the baby would be later in life were high. And the expectations were not misplaced.
Nature took care of Eniayéndàmú’s future from the cradle. Everything that should make life comfortable for him and his offspring was deposited in his backyard. To ensure that he attained the expectations of his parents and well wishers, God gave him good caregivers in his infancy. I mean men and women of honour who competed among themselves to give the best to the newborn baby. Those early caregivers were good economists in their own rights. They took advantage of the facilities and deposits in their immediate environments and turned around the living conditions of Eniayéndàmú.
In the West, Eniayéndàmú’s caregiver used cocoa proceeds to nurture him. The man up North relied on groundnut pyramids and prepared Eniayéndàmú’s future. His minder from the eastern side utilised proceeds from oil palm to attend to his needs and future. The Mid-West babysitter gave Eniayéndàmú. the best from rubber and oil palm. Life was good; life was abundant and Eniayéndàmú flourished.
The child grew in leaps and bounds. Nations came to him for help. Neighbours fought over one another to get his attention. He lent to international bodies. He had no need to borrow. Eniayéndàmú became prosperous. He had money and every other thing money could buy. He became an instant leader. His age mates waited on him. Nobody dared take any decision without his consent. He dictated the tunes, he set the pace. He was a darling of the world.
Along the line, something happened to Eniayéndàmú. His growth became stunted. Though he has all the features of an adult, Eniayéndàmú retains the frame of a toddler. The promising child has grey hairs in all the five places – head, ear, nose, armpit and pubic. But he is still crawling. Though he eats all edibles and cracks all bones, the adult-child has refused to walk. While all his age mates have developed, our beautiful child remains in one position. His bones are strong, but he is weak to stand up and walk. The one who was once a lender has now become the worst of all chronic debtors, finds it difficult to service his debts just as he owes the most inconceivable of all creditors.
How did Eniayéndàmú arrive at this ill-fated curve of his life? The simple answer is that the significance of his name came calling on him. A man is as good as his name. Names and their meanings are very important in our society. When a child is named Folórunsó (God watches over him), he is not expected to take silly risks like climbing a palm tree with a weak rope. The same way an Onaiwu (this one shall not die), who doesn’t know how to swim, is expected to avoid rivers. Trouble started with Eniayéndàmú, when he got rid of all his good infant minders and handed over the affairs of his life to locusts who came in the form of new babysitters.
While the world at large mourns the turn of events for Eniayéndàmú, his new caregivers are least bothered. While men of honour and goodwill agree that Eniayéndàmú deserves better treatment from his new minders than he gets, the victim itself shows no sign that he wants to get out of the woods. When the poor are content with poverty, it is difficult to preach prosperity to them. That is the lot of Eniayéndàmú.
That is why at over six decades, Eniayéndàmú, with a beard that is as long as the tail of a monkey, crawls where his mates do marathons. Everything nature has deposited in him to make him great in life has turned out to be a curse. Every nourishment that would have allowed him to grow and compete with his contemporaries all over the world has been appropriated by his caregivers. This is why he remains prostrate amid wealth. His is a great calamity! And more calamitous is the fact that there is no hope of a better tomorrow as the worst of caregivers oversee Eniayéndàmú’s affairs at the moment.
Today is October 1. Exactly 64 years ago, the British Union Jack was lowered for the Nigerian Flag of green-white-green to be hoisted. In our elementary classes, we were told that the two green stripes on our Flag stand for the “natural wealth of the country.” The white stripe, our General Studies teachers said, represents “peace and unity.” Fantastic concepts by the first set of caregivers. Nigeria is indeed blessed with natural resources. We have no reason to be poor. But the late Primate of Anglican Communion, Bishop Abiodun Adetiloye, explained why we are poor amid wealth. He said God gave us locusts as leaders to manage our resources. Locusts, by nature, don’t leave anything to harvest on the field! This is why our leaders upon leaders pillage our natural resources to no end
The designer of our National Flag, Pa Taiwo Akinkunmi, added the white stripe in the middle as a symbol of “peace and unity. The old man died on August 29, 2023, at the ripe age of 87. He witnessed 63 years of birthday anniversaries of the nation he helped to nurture. I don’t know if the man was happy seeing how the peace and unity he conceived in his design became our albatross; how Nigerians of all tribes were turned against one another by leaders who only thrive in disunity, chaos and insecurity. Nigeria is 64 years old today, we can ask how many of us are at peace and how united are we as a nation? At 64, the question, which formed part of our secondary school debates and symposia about 40 years ago remains unresolved. A friend told me that there are only two tribes: the good and the bad people. But in Nigeria of today, we still think along the argument of which region or ethnic group is domineering or short-changed. The world has indeed troubled us!
How did we get here? How did we allow the present locusts in power at all levels of our political administration, divide us such that the poor in the land cannot come together to chart a new plan for Nigeria? How did we arrive at this terrible juncture such that when those who stole the nation blind come visiting with their palliatives, we gather in our thousands to hail them? How do we explain that while Herbert Macaulay established the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC) in 1944, which later changed National convention of Nigerian Citizens, and appointed Nnamdi Azikiwe as his Secretary-General and deputy, but today, an Okechukwu Mbanefo cannot become a councillor in Kosofe Local Government? And how an Obajusigbe Adeyemi cannot own a shop in Upper Iweka, Onitsha, Anambra State? Why is it that the same North where the late Ahmadu Bello appointed a Sunday Awoniyi of Mopa, Kogi State, as his Private Secretary, can no longer tolerate an Adewale Ibiyemi as a clerical officer in Sokoto Civil Service Commission?
Today, our present eaters of vegetation would gather in stadiums across the state capitals and local government headquarters to take the National Salute in celebration of our independence. In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, our new husband, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, would mount the rostrum while members of the nation’s Armed Forces would march past to give him the traditional National Salute. In Government Houses and various banquet halls, there would be wining and dining, dancing and clinking of glasses. Various event centres would be decorated, and balloons would be inflated to give an ambience of a nation in joyous mood. A look across those cosmetic environments, poverty, squalor and deprivation walk on all fours.
On the highways, amidst the celebrations, Nigerians would be kidnapped in their hundreds. In villages across the North-East and North-West, thousands of peasant farmers would be attacked and killed by bandits. In Benue, Plateau and Niger States, this very day of independence, villagers and other ordinary citizens would be at the mercy of terrorists, bandits and cattle rustlers. In the South-West countryside, felonious herdsmen would make meat of farmers on their farms. But in the FCT and all state capitals, our unfeeling caregivers would hug and backslap one another, mouthing “happy independence.” But why has this sordid fate befallen Eniayéndàmú’?
The fault is not entirely our leaders’. Our misfortune as a nation is a shared one – the leaders and the led are guilty. How many Nigerians have summoned the courage to question their political leaders? How many of us have the courage to interrogate how a man who could barely feed his family suddenly turned a multi-millionaire in less than six months after he was appointed as a minister, or commissioner, or elected as a senator or a member of a state House of Assembly? Who defends these figures if not the same poor masses? I have come to realise that most Nigerians lament and condemn their leaders only when they are not benefiting directly from the largesse stolen from our collective patrimony. Once their kinsmen are in power, and bits of the national cake drop for them to pick, most Nigerians don’t care. Once it is our son, we build a wall of protection round him.
The Edo State governorship election took place on September 21. The results were announced, and a winner declared on September 22. With all that we witnessed while the exercise lasted, many elites still hail the outcome. To some, it would not matter how it happened “as long as Governor Obaseki did not produce his successor from his own political party.” To many, the election was about settling age-long personal scores and how the winner emerged is immaterial. I asked a hitherto old ‘human rights activist’, who played a major role in the electioneering, how he felt about the outcome. In all sincerity, he said that he was “personally scandalised”. Then he added a caveat: “But I am happy that Obaseki has been taught a lesson he will never forget.” I probed further if his being “scandalised” and being “happy” are not too sharp opposites. He simply said: “My brother, this is politics.” Yeah, it is all about politics. I learnt long ago that an average Nigerian keeps his morality and decency in a locked safe while venturing into politics, those virtues are not needed in that sector! Little wonder our Eniayéndàmú is still crawling at 64. No nation with the mentality of “anything goes in politics” can ever develop.
Because “anything goes in politics”, our leaders steal us blind and give us palliatives to assuage our hunger. A friend, on his Facebook page, while summing up the Edo governorship election, said that prostitutes are far ahead of an average Nigerian voter in intelligence. He explained that while a prostitute charges her customers each time they come knocking at her door, the Nigerian voters charge politicians only once in four years. This is why people collect as low as N10,000 to vote for a particular candidate or political party. How do we explain a man who bought fuel at N1,200 per litre, drove his car to a voting centre on the election day and changed his mind about the party and candidate he had left his house to vote for because another political party handed him N10,000. The money he collected can only fetch him 8.3 litres of fuel at N1, 200/litre! Who would he blame if the one he voted for did not perform in office?
On July 29, 2024, Sokoto-based Islamic scholar, Sheik Bello Yabo, stunned the entire nation when he announced that at a meeting with President Tinubu, the President told his audience that he bought the presidential seat in 2023. Sheik Yabo, who met with the president alongside other traditional rulers, when Tinubu made the disclosure, said this of the President: “Tinubu has really impressed me. He invited all the traditional rulers from the North, West and East and told them humbly that ‘I bought this seat I’m on with money’.” The clergyman described what the President said as “naked truth” and descended on those who sold their votes in the 2023 presidential election as those who “have eaten the spaghetti and macaroni you have been given to vote, and now it is finished; it is all over. So, what next?”. He has no kind advice for the vote sellers as he counsels them to wait for 2027 to, if they like, “collect his money again and vote for him, and I assure you, you will remain in pain, that’s all.”
It is only in Nigeria that a President could come out to say that he bought the Presidency, and nothing would happen to him. “Naked”, as the ‘truth’ in President Tinubu’s statement might appear to be, how many of us have the courage to tell him that vote buying, or “seat buying” is not part of our electoral law; that it is purely criminal to engage in that kind of a venture? Can’t we all now see why this government is transactional in all ramifications? The elders of my place say whatever wares one spends money to procure must equally fetch one money (Ojà tí a bá fi owó rà, owó la fi ńpa).
If Tinubu bought the seat, would he be wrong if he tries to recoup his investment? And who is that businessman who would not want good ROI (Return-On-Investment)? This is another reason why Eniayéndàmú has refused to take his first wobbling steps. When voters sell their votes, they should not expect anything good from the buyers they assisted to get to power.
Nigeria is in a mess today; that is a fact. It is not even a new one for that matter. The world has indeed troubled us through the locusts who took over after we got rid of the founding fathers of the nation either by killing them or preventing the best of them from attaining the highest office in the land. A nation which writes the epitaph: “The Best President Nigeria Never Had”, on the tombstone of its best cannot but crawl at 64! The world has indeed troubled us; hence we lament: Eniayéndàmú. Who do we turn to for help? My native intelligence tells me that the solution lies in the full complement of the name, Eniayéndàmú. It says: Eniayéndàmú ò ye kí ò dàmú ara è (He whom the world is troubling should endeavour not to trouble himself).
May the masses one day borrow themselves sense!
