State of the Nation Conversation (1)

Ejiro: I am baffled that fake news has become part of our national life! Fake news about religion. Fake news about life. Fake news about deaths. Fake news about the economy. Fake news about kidnappings. Fake news about EFCC. Fake news about the police. Fake news about the cost of PMS. Fake news about everything and anything!

Sowore: Can any news be fake in Nigeria when we have fake leadership? Fake leadership, fake people and fake news about fake people. The leaders of these people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed!

Ejiro: Well, I’m not talking about the leadership class. I refer to news about ordinary things and ordinary people. Why do we cook up things and make people believe that they are true? How could anybody generate news about the death of a businessman or politician without any attempt to confirm the news?

Sowore: Is the business of the businessman not fake? Is the politician not a beneficiary of fake votes?

Ejiro: Is the situation so hopeless?

Sarah: The only fake news I read are about politicians and people in power! And it suits them right if we read fake stories about fake people.

Ejiro: That’s logical in a sense. But does that not negate our moral authority as people who stand for truth, equity, and justice? Because the import of your argument is that evil carried against bad people is right. Evil is evil.

Sowore: In this battle, fair is foul, and foul is fair!

Ejiro: So said the immortal Shakespeare.

Sowore: But speaking seriously, do you think we should act like gentlemen to the clowns in power? The rules of engagement are redefined when in animal territory! Jungle behaviour requires jungle reaction. Our people are too docile. They are waiting for when the government will dash them their rights!

Calistus: This brings me to the bill currently tearing the National Assembly apart just as it is dividing the nation into north and south. The Bill proposes a new tax reform, which includes a shift to a consumption-based VAT distribution model.

Musa: Northern governors believe that if passed into law, the north will be disadvantaged. I have not studied the bill, but if a part of the country feels shortchanged, the federal authorities must have a rethink! The revenue sharing formula which is applicable to oil should also apply to VAT.

Advertisement

Ejiro: Hey! Stop this nonsense. The nation, especially we from the South-south have looked on in utmost chagrin how we have been shortchanged in the country. We produce the mainstay of the economy, yet we have nothing to show for it. Our homeland is decimated by decades of oil exploration. The oil industry is dominated by appointees from the north and southwest. You can hardly find a South-south name in the hierarchy of the oil industry. In the heartland of the Niger Delta, you will find a Musa or a Bankole calling the shots. Injustice. Oppression. Exploitation.

Sarah: Any state which cannot sustain itself should merge with viable states. Some states do nothing to generate revenue. They wait for the monthly allocation to pay salaries, rehabilitate roads, and service their girlfriends. The groundnut pyramids are gone. In Zamfara, they are prospecting for gold without recourse to the national purse. Zamfara government is cashing in on this. But when it comes to oil, all the monkeys in the federation descend on the Niger Delta with ferocious eyes!

Sowore: We need to restructure the country!

Sarah: It’s so easy to say. When they get to the seat of power, they begin to sing a new song!

Sowore: I beg your pardon! Have I been in power before?

Sarah: See your countryman who was so vocal about restructuring Nigeria. Now he occupies the powerful seat in Aso Rock, he has kept quiet about state police, creation of local governments!

Ejiro: There is something about power that blinds people from reality. Even President Goodluck Jonathan could not take a single step on restructuring. He couldn’t even implement the recommendations of the Confab which he set up.

Calistus: Their hands are tied!

Musa: They lack conviction. The quest for power is not a tea party!

Sarah: Some people use power to oppress others. See the way Farotimi was grabbed and thrown into jail because he defamed some big shot.

Musa: Why should he defame anybody by the way if he is a rights’ activist? He must mind his language at all times.

Sarah: But they should follow the law. Defamation is both criminal and civil I am told.

Sowore: Yes, defamation is both criminal and civil. He could have been invited by the police and interrogated. But the abduction is a different matter. If we do not cry out when things like this happen, they will be encouraged to do more havoc. They want to silence all of us.

Advertisement

ALSO READ: A conversation about hunger

Ejiro: That’s not possible. The military did not succeed; is it bloody civilians that can muzzle us? By the way ASUU has not gone on strike for some time now. Thank God.

Musa: They must be preparing for another one. Dictator Buhari gave them a bloodied nose and they have scampered off the scene tail between legs.

Calistus: Do you mean Buhari gave education a bloodied nose? The degree of apathy in university teaching can only be imagined. The wage structure of academics is humiliating.

Musa: The academics caused it. Rather concentrate on the salary regime of their colleagues, they were interested in idealistic nonsense such as stabilization fund, excess workload and hazard allowance. Your take-home pay is the real coco for a worker. That’s how they fought for TETFUND and the government-appointed bureaucracy hijacked it from them. TETFUND is now a cesspit of corruption!

Sarah: Look here young man. Can you prove that TETFUND is a cesspit of corruption? Don’t carry on like Farotimi ooo in his diatribe against Baba Afe!

Musa: By the way, what is the brouhaha between Baba Afe and Farotimi the rabblerouser?

Sarah: Is that what you call him? Rabblerouser? Ok o! I expect fireworks in the court. The matter is subjudice, so I will use the excuse of my rotten teeth to keep my mouth shut decently.

Calistus: What happens if Farotimi produces evidence to substantiate his allegations in the open court?

Ejiro: Breeze go blow and the anus of the fowl will become public property!

Musa: In a court run by men and women he has routinely derided? Do you expect justice?

Sarah: Enough of this matter. The judges will summon us for publishing a conversation about the matter before them.

Musa: It is not that bad yet! Remember that the President is a die-hard democrat! He entered the trenches for our sakes under Abacha!

Advertisement

Ejiro: Hmmmm! I reserve my comment!