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| Some Nigerian Leaders |
By Rufus Kayode Oteniya (oteniyark@hotmail.com)
“All
gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the
power to pull ours.” - Aldous Huxley
They are superhuman. That’s what we’ve made them to believe.
Some even live with the illusion that they are gods. They didn’t make
themselves so but we did. On ascension to office, we worship them; make them
untouchable, unreachable and unquestionable; and expect them to lord over us while
they live above the law, at least, for as long as they last in their offices
and worst of all, we celebrate them in their mediocrity.
Others are human being, they are not. They are superhuman if
not gods. We have made them forget that they are mere mortals who would give
accounts for their deeds.
They cannot tread, where we walk; they cannot shop in the
same market with us; dine in the same eatery with us and live in the same
neighbourhood with us. We are worlds apart.
We allow them absolute power forgetting that it corrupts
absolutely. They plunder our commonwealth without any restraints; yet, we
celebrate them and beg for crumbs of what is ours.
Whenever they intrude our world, they leave behind bitter
memories and pains. Whenever they come to town, we must be kept in traffic for
them to move freely; whenever they visit our hotels, their armies of aids
security details and entourage relegate us to the background. Whenever they are
‘guests of honour’ at our functions, we are treated with little honour.
We build shield around them, follow them like zombies.
Everyone calls them Chairman, Excellency, Rt Honourable, Senator…. We dare not
call them by their names even if we had grown up together. And they call us
with little respect.
Lo! Those who suppose to serve us are lords over us. They
didn’t make themselves so, but we did.
We sell our birthrights for their pots of porridge whenever
we look up to them for our daily bread. We give up our rights to ask for their
stewardship whenever we queue for the remnants from their ‘unholy’ tables. We
become their slaves and they, our godfathers while we wait for them to turn the
tides in our favour on the queue for the national looting. We made them so,
they didn’t make themselves.
A Nigerian ceases to be a ‘normal human’ as soon as he
ascends to the position of leadership and authority. He instantly becomes a god.
He forgets so easily that he was human just moments he came to office. We give
him all the privileges of a deity. His words become orders. Abruptly, he swells
in wealth and power becoming drunk with the latter forgetting that it is transient.
We made them so.
We make ourselves available at their beck and call and ready
to do any bad for them so that we can be in their good books. We praise them as
if they are the best things to have happened to mankind. We also re-write their
sad pasts.
We praise them to high heaven and everything about them
becomes first. Their wives become first ladies; their children, first children;
their parents, first parents; their in-laws, first in-laws; and their dogs,
first dogs. We call them so.
This is not new. It has always been! Ogun was a man here
ages ago but his people turned him to a god. They bowed to him and made him the
god of iron. Shango, no doubt was a great warrior in his days just like
Alexander the Great , Julius Caesar and many others in history. While no one
worships the European warriors, without soliciting, Some turned to worshipping Shango
as the god of thunder. Nyame, Ala,
Yemoja, Osun were people whom others made their gods and goddesses. Every oba
was a god. He could kill, take possession of another man’s wife and children;
and in a nutshell he practically owned the land and the ‘fullness’ of it. The
people made them so.
That was then! And this is now! We are here today claiming to be done with
the idolatory as we openly profess our faiths in Christianity and Islam. But
behold, we worship our leaders as if they are gods. We exalt the officials above
their offices and place politicians above the laws of the land in the same way
that we sometimes reverence the clergies more than God.
We praise their mediocrity in the name of being friends of
‘Any Government In Power – AGIP. We collaborate with them to steal what belongs
to all of us while they use and dump us and further weaken our strength by using
religious and tribal divide.
The privilege to serve in an office does not make anyone
bigger than another. There are no superhuman talk less of being gods.
We should hold this self-evident truth that all men are
created equal and they are also equal before the law.
We have to respect those in the positions of authority, not
worship them. We must understand that
respect is mutual and reciprocal. We must also demand respect from them the
same way we give.
We do not only have the right, but we are also duty bound as
the electorate (who are the employers) to say to those whom we have elected to
give the accounts of their stewardship. The power to hire and fire lies with us. We
must know that it is human nature to stray if unchecked and go out of control
if not controlled. The highest form of check in a democracy is the electorate.
We are!
We must resist the oppression that we have hitherto
accommodated from the political class. If anyone is a god, it is the
electorate. We are! And greater is the power in our hand.
