Singer Etcetera in his new article today points out reasons why
president elect Muhammadu Buhari should not be celebrated.
Read highlights below:
1. Six bikers died while celebrating Buhari's victory : Why
are we dancing? Why do we keep rolling out the drums each
time we have a new government, only for us to start crying
few months down the line? Is it that we are too quick to
forget or we just love to dance?
Do you celebrate a child
who’s about to write his exams or the one who has written
and passed? What is this jubilation for? Because I really don’t
understand. Is it that the election of Buhari in itself has
suddenly alleviated our sufferings? I am really confused here,
hearing how six bikers lost their lives in Zaria celebrating
Buhari’s victory.
2. Buhari is not our messiah, the demons will always be
there: One would think that a people who have been
shortchanged for so long by past presidents will know better
to be calm and take every word of the new president with a
pinch of salt until he proves to be different. This process is
becoming an unending circle, again and again we’ve danced
and again and again, we’ve cursed and cried at the end. It is
still shocking to me that a lot of Nigerians fell for the story
that the president was born without shoes. Was anyone born
with shoes on? Buhari’s triumphant entry into the presidency
last Sunday which coincidentally was a palm Sunday doesn’t
yet prove he is the redeemer. Just like the second coming of
our supposed political messiah Obasanjo didn’t prove any
significant improvement in our lives.
We all thought he was the one anointed by the gods to take
us by the hands and lead us right straight into the promised
land, where we shall have no more gnashing of teeth. But
when he left office, the roads were still as bad as they were
before he took office. The hospitals were still without facilities
and most importantly, he failed to defeat the demon in the
power sector even with billions of dollars thrown at it. The
demons in the same power sector have claimed Jonathan just
like they did Yar’Adua, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Sanni Abacha,
Shonekan, IBB and Shagari. Even Buhari himself had already
been defeated by this demon before. So what says it is not
going to be the same this time around. Remember obasanjo
was defeated twice by this same demon.
3. Buhari just like our past leaders will take us for granted:
Why won’t our leaders take us for granted when they’ve
noticed that we are always ready to jump to our feet and
“jubilate” with the announcement of every new regime? When
Buhari overthrew the democratically elected government of
Shehu Shagari in 1983, many of you reading this took to the
streets to boogie down. When Babangida sent Buhari packing
a couple of months later, a lot more of you got drunk and
vomited all over the place. Even Abacha’s sudden death
brought smiles on the faces of most bar owners across the
country as they ran out of booze.
4. Something is wrong with Nigerians? : Is something wrong
with us as a people? We are forgetting a very important fact
that this election proves that we are and will still remain a
divided people. We are divided by our ideologies with no
realistic integration in sight. The election has also reinforced
the thinking that we are divided by regional, tribal and
religious interests and not national. These are some of the
significant issues that will define our tomorrow.
5. To hell with Optimism: Finally, some of you who are
reading this may be saying, oh Etcetera, can’t you be
optimistic for once? My brother, I can’t. Optimism and its
younger brother, hope have proven to be very dangerous
especially in Nigeria. They have sent millions of Nigerians to
their early graves. What is the point of being optimistic in a
system that has always left me in tears and heartache? Or is
it till I get arrested by Mr. Cardiac? Tufiakwa!