Our country has been in the doldrums for decades, one
would be asking for too much to expect President Jonathan to correct the ills
of several decades. No matter how committed his administration is to the myriad
of challenges facing Nigeria, they’d only do enough for others to come after
them to continue to correct the failures of the past and build the bridges for
the successes of tomorrow. One government cannot fix Nigeria, but the process
of getting the nation started on the path of development can at least do just
that, start! We have not started.
A Joseph Gobbels wannabe in the Jonathan administration
asked Nigerians to pick the mid-term report of Mr. President to get them
acquainted with the wonders and successes of the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan
administration. It would be very easy to share such reports amongst well-fed
people who need some reassurance that things are indeed getting better. Such
people can get fooled by the so called impact of the Jonathan administration
because like Joseph Goebbels said “It would not be impossible to prove with
sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned
that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded
until they clothe ideas and disguise.” This is what the Jonathan administration
is doing, using Google adverts, NTA, newspapers, mid-term report,
Gobbels-wannabes and the likes to repeat the lies “in line with the
transformation agenda of Mr. President.” Truly if you are exposed to these lies
long enough without the counteracting effects of noise from civil society
organisations, journalists and active citizens, that the mess is actually getting
deeper, you’d be fooled to think that our current national mess is indeed the
best state we’ve ever been as a people.
All of these lies are very much in line with the Jonathan
transformation agenda. They will not be done until every right thinking Nigerian
continues to think inversely. At that point, we’d all join in celebrating the
award of contracts like they did with the award of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway
contract. These ones do not show off with the jobs they are able to get done
because those are few, far and in-between, they are then naturally forced to
brag about their intentions. “We plan to…” “Mr. President intends to…”
“Benin-Ore road has been awarded…” etc. have come to define our nation’s
neo-calibration of excellence. We are at a place where mediocrity is the new
boss! The pun is very much intended.
There is a chance we are able to convince ourselves
despite physical realities to the contrary that this is indeed the best
government Nigerians have ever known. The conviction will fail when it lands in
the angry hearts, frustrated minds and empty stomachs of our nation’s 112
million poor people and forgotten jobless graduates. The only time the poor will ever feel the
impact of the Jonathan government is when you drop the mid-term report in their
empty, dusty cooking pots.
We need to stop fooling ourselves and if we decide we
cannot stop fooling ourselves, we need not fool ourselves to the point where we
start to believe all of us are fools. May be all of us can be fooled but all of
us cannot be fooled by the same government at the same time. The time has come
for the Nigerian government to come clean. Stop lying about an imaginary
transformation agenda when of a truth things are only getting worse. The
mid-term report is simple enough; are Nigerians better off today than they were
in 2010 when Mr. President came to power via the protests of the average
Nigerian? If they are better off today, are they that better off they’d
proclaim, “this change is so extraordinary and all encompassing let’s call it a
transformation!” So then, let us cut the crap and say it as it is. We haven’t
started! This message is in line with the transformation agenda.
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the
writers only and do not represent the opinions of PoojaBlog.
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