POLITICIANS' BEAUTIFUL LIES. FEMI OJO
We
are yet in another season of politics, a season characterized with political
promises and declarations from all manner of political characters and their
political parties. This is a season of campaign where politicians speak
beautifully with packaged lies in order to sway votes from the electorates. Our
dear country Nigeria is paradoxically, a country blessed with such political
animals who speak beautifully with branded lies of what they would do if given
the opportunity to govern us if they get to power. Their lies are beautifully
packaged in such a way that many young, old, women, men and adult sell their
gullible souls, bodies and spirits to these politicians. This is a season when politicians speak with forked tongues.
I
have been following and monitoring political developments and electioneering
campaigns across major political parties for long and I have noticed one common
vein of beautiful lies that our politicians have continued to dish out to the
polity. All of them want to transform our polity to a better one, they want to
change the way things are, they want to tackle corruption, and one particular
political party’s presidential candidate even said he would use technology to
tackle corruption but would not jail the big thieves who have been stealing our
country blind in billions of dollars. The other political party has been hyping
beautifully, the political message of change, riding on the abysmal political
image of the ruling party though this party is yet to convince me on which
ideological spectrum such change will come.
Indeed,
ours is a country of paradox, a country of plethora raiders in democratic
portico and a few near saints surrounded by self-indulgent politicians. I have
listened and watched our impractical President talk about his achievements and
what he has in stock to offer if re-elected again. The man seems to me to be
the most unviable President in our recent democratic history and believe me, we
do not need another inept President to govern us for another next four
years. There is one thing about his recent campaigns and political image that
is not political enough, the man’s beautiful lies are not beautiful to common
sense and his beautifully hyped achievements are characterized with venality
this which the main opposition has been horsey on.
Moreover,
the main opposition politicians and their many candidates are no saints too but
it seems to me that their beautiful lies have gained more attention by using
media hype in a grand way. Their lies are beautiful to our gullible souls that
we are all taking the lies as the next democratic hope without thinking deeply
about significant individual character that promotes, packages and sponsors
these packaged beautiful lies in our contemporary democratic project. The
opposition political party’s beautiful lies is currently working and
seems to be the only political slyness that many electorates are deeming
on…though too ruinous!
The
task before us all as patriotic Nigerians is to colander comparatively the
beautiful lies of our politicians and their political parties before the March
28th, 2015 elections which is barely two weeks to go. The poser therefore is
how do we shipshape these beautiful lies? To shipshape these beautiful lies therefore,
we must subject each political aspirant to rigorous study irrespective of
political party such candidate comes from, this is because we have the good and
the bad across major political parties. The bad political party has poached few
fairly good politicians and the good political party has also filched many bad
politicians to its fold for hard-nosed affinities… Therefore, the task before
us is to filter out for the good of our polity the fairly good politicians
whose beautiful lies are packaged and wrapped with some elements of truism.
After all, Heroes are not saints! Our people need not to accept gullibly
the political jargon called messages being dished out without logically
subjecting such to common sense. For instance, one needs to ask the “Transformers”
transformation from what to what? And the noisy advocates of “Change” what type
of change are we expecting? This is because we have witnessed across board
different transformation brands…Chibok girls have been transformed from the
custody of their parents to God knows place in the hands of Boko Haram and
equally, we have witnessed change in the escalation of imposition and political
client ism in the camp of those who promote “ the change” mantra.
I always like your objectivity. Please help us focus in your forth coming write ups on what we need to do as a nation politically, regardless of who wins. I personally suspect, it will be a close call and I personally remain indifferent to winner at this point, but am more concerned about our citizen role going into the future.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how we became a people without conscience, who look on and allow innocent or even guilty children rot in the hands of very evil terrorists, and as a nation we see people steal the future of the nation and rub us of our God given wealth in a country they reside in at least 10 months in the year, while they give out crumbs to the owners of the wealth. And the owners look on and thank their prisoners and destroyers of their potential leaders for an evil job Well done. I really don't know ....
ReplyDeleteU spoke well my comrade, lies are over nation from all quaters. Even, we hear lies from religion, music industry to politics. Many atimes, u hardly hear truth again. So we shall wait again for some years to know who are the real liars. Or we use our intuition to decipher which could be the basic near truths are so many lies we read daily on newpapers pages
ReplyDeleteI know for sure that any new government will try to convince her pple that she is not a liar but eventually, the truth will emanate at their second term in office. So any second term seeker must be subjected to forensic examination b4 casting vote for her. Experiences are best teachers for nigerians
I appreciate you as a hushed writer that emphasises the use of pen to change your world. I wish our people can be good readers. Our problem in this country is always well analysed by you. However, I believe that our collective dogmatism in following a leader is dangerous. We don't want opposition which is a good element of democracy. A leader chosen out of dogmatism will never rule well. Leaders should be subjected to strict scrutiny to know the worth of the seat and stand out. I so much believe we will overcome our political challenges with time especially when we are learning from experience - hope we read histories to learn.
ReplyDelete