Psalm 23 of Nigerian Politics

To start your reading attempt of this article, you may have to switch your mind to the popular Psalm 23 in The Holy Bible because the verses below are readable in the same rhythm.

Democracy is my shepherd, I shall always loot.

It makes me richer than the voters; it places me above the law.

It restores my position. It gives me right to oppress for oligarchy’s sake.

Even though I campaign in the valleys and ghettos of hardship, I fear no opposition; for all results of elections shall comfort me.

It prepares a vault of dollars on my table in the presence of the people’s cry; it anoints my foreign accounts with euro, pounds, dollars, and yen; my milk overflows.

Surely, self-interest and wealth shall follow me all the days of my terms. And I shall dwell in the house of failure-politics, forever. Amen!

This is the imperfect inspiration that rings without end in the minds of all failure-politicians in Nigeria. Every day, every minute, everywhere and anyhow, they recite the psalm in different ways. In their manifestoes, it is visible for the intelligent; in their speeches, it is clearly used; and in their policies, it is rarely hidden from the understanding of individuals with analytical minds. The irony of the matter is that their supporters can’t see the actual axe, bullets and time bombs in their political promises that certainly lead to immeasurable failures and deliberately implemented hardship. Such negatives are beautifully painted as successes by failure-politicians in Nigeria.

With the presently existing crippled infrastructures that are below what Europeans experienced in the early 1940s (almost 70 years ago), occupiers of the legislative and executive arms of government at all levels in Nigeria sing the loudest songs that they are all achievers of positive failures in their efforts to run down the economy in better ways.

When the failure-politicians in power at the moment in Nigeria took offices on May 29, 2015, the electorate were naively hopeful that electricity supply shall be restored to 100% from its coma of 40%. They also had faith that prepaid meters shall be made available to all homes, offices and other customers of the electricity distribution companies within a year. In fact, there was a speculation (a façade) that the so-called minister of power, Babatunde Fashola, was on the neck of the distribution companies to ensure that electricity supply becomes 100% within two years.

It is now two years and two months since the London-hospitalised president of Nigeria was given the power of the office of the president; yet constant electricity supply remains one of the strangest things in Nigeria. That is a great negative achievement.

Go anywhere in Lagos and some parts of Nigeria, especially where pre-paid metres have not been deliberately supplied/installed for customers, the weight of electricity bills would break your heart. Despite the fact that the rate of electricity supply is so poor, erratic and unreliable, the monthly bills of users on post-paid metres are as expensive as the cost of flight tickets for Lagos to Amsterdam.  Consequently, electricity users without any metre are now ready-made victims of exploitation and deliberate miscalculations in the Machiavellian billing system of the electricity distribution companies.

If anyone ever dreams that 24-hour electricity supply would ever be a reality in Nigeria, then such an individual should wake up. Nigeria is not Neverland! With the failure-politicians in power, it would never be a reality, not even in the next three decades. Why? Those who presently run the shows, actions and dramas of politics in Nigeria are the owners of the electricity distribution companies. In fact, most of them, if not all, fund the election campaign of the present London-hospitalised man of Aso Rock.

Akinlolú-Prime Samuelo

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