I got to watch a lot of British television shows as a child
courtesy of the Nigerian Television Authority. We got a steady dose of shows
like Pigeon Street, Terrahawks, Tom Grattan’s War, The Prince and the Pauper,
Yes Prime Minister, ‘Allo ‘Allo, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, Jane Eyre, Dempsey
and Makepeace, Rentaghost and many others. One show was a source of science
fiction entertainment and it starred Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor
Who. The 13th series of this show aired in 1975 and it had ‘Terror
of the Zygons’ as its first serial.
Zygons were an alien race capable of shape-shifting; they
captured humans and used them as templates to take up human forms in order to
infiltrate and conquer earth. Another serial from this season of Doctor Who was
‘The Android Invasion’ where another alien race [Kraals] attempted to use 'androids' to take
the place of humans.
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| Zygon (wikipedia) |
Nigeria has recently become a source of comic material for some
TV show hosts like Jimmy Kimmel and Trevor Noah, with both men making time to
talk about Mr. President being a clone. This kite was first flown by the secession
advocate and Jew, Nnamdi Kanu who had previously promised to deliver the head
of Muhammadu Buhari to his followers. Mr. President was sick and away for a
while prompting many to wish and pray death for him. Kanu said the real Buhari wasn’t
the one who returned after his convalescence; a doppelgänger deployed from Sudan
returned in his place.
It makes a lot of sense that thousands of Kanu’s acolytes
believe this theory; they made sense of his directives “to burn down the zoo”
and found nothing wrong with his requests for financial aid to buy weapons to
ensure Biafra’s sun rose again. They have used laterally inverted images of Buhari
writing with both hands and his seemingly defective left ear lobe as evidence. They have also claimed his palm and finger prints have changed. These
people cannot be helped; I am tempted to infer that it is not the country that failed
them, I do not know what or who did. Kanu soliciting for funds
There are those intellectual ones on social media who are delighted
that Buhari has become the butt of the joke on the international scene; they
have posted about how his ‘failure’ to respond to suggestions that he was
either cloned or replaced by a body double has brought embarrassment to the
country. These individuals are probably fans of the orange-tanned tweeting
president but they expect their president to respond to an inane subject the
way they want to hear it. It is these technology savvy people who have been
broadcasting daft theories about cloning and Jubril from Sudan while tagging
international news media outfits, developed nations and the United Nations to their
posts but it is the man who doesn’t bother about kindergarten matters raised by a
certain Jew who has caused us embarrassment. There are also those who try to
sound brainy regarding this matter. They say stuff like, “the stories are most likely
not true but Buhari should speak to dispel the rumours.” It is either one believes
that the President is the original or a double; there are no buts. What is
apparent is that certain individuals have found it difficult to separate their
reasoning from their prejudices; their attempt to mask their bigotry with grammar
fools no one.
I could publish a fictional article in a newspaper tomorrow
and title it “Aliens from Pluto take Aisha hostage, Replace Buhari in Aso rock”
and I will rest assured that some preachers will in no time use the manuscript
to preach sermons to tens of thousands. This is what present day Nigeria has
become where certain men will tell tales of how Zygons and Kraals are involved
in plundering Nigeria, striking fear and sowing seeds of discord in the hearts of the people. We have
heard calls to Christians to spill blood, offer heads to God as offerings and open
Hades but some people want us to embrace the bearers of these messages and
continue to lift holy hands. No sir/ ma! No one is perfect, but I don’t
subscribe to any brand of supremacist ideology or stereotyping of any group. Fake
news thrives in the land and even the more established media outfits are not
spared. How does one explain a Channels TV news editor inserting an unrelated
image of Ibrahim Magu into a story about an APC event which was broadcast
across the country? The owner issued an apology and Premium times that ran a
story based on this news report retracted their hurriedly written tale about Magu attending a party event he was no where near. Are we
supposed to believe that what the Channels TV editor did was simply an error
like his boss explained? Channels and Magu
Some Nigerians want us to be like developed countries. They want
our politics to be about issues, but they become febrile when they hear campaign
is about roads, rail, primary health care, empowering small business etc. They
always demand that we step up to the global terrain but what they forget is
that these so-called developed countries didn’t become what they are now
overnight. Their past politicians once campaigned to build roads and provide
basic healthcare, things modern Nigerians scoff at now. Do we have the infrastructure
required to move on to greater talking points?
Some Nigerians have ridiculed the government’s policies to
grant loans to small business; the People’s Democratic Party have termed it
vote buying for 2019. Which one did the PDP give to the poorest Nigerians from
1999 to 2015? They have a problem with N10,000
to traders, school feeding and stipends for vulnerable people but they didn’t
find any issue with fewer people benefiting from the YouWin program initiated
by President Jonathan. They have called PMB a dictator and attacked all his
attempts to ensure that those who had not benefited anything significant from past governments now do so. They somehow prefer elitist private sector-controlled ventures. Saraki was heard in an audio recording assuring his supporters in Ilorin that an Atiku presidency would
restore their fortunes. He lamented that he could not get his people juicy
appointments where contracts of N1 or 2
million could have been signed for them to be able to get benefits to buy lands, build houses and buy
cars. These are the people complaining that there is no food in the land and
angry that APC is buying votes with TraderMoni. These same individuals have a
certain Dino Melaye in their camp, a fellow with many exotic vehicles in his
garage and they are egging on a man who moved about $40,000,000 dollars to the
United States of America through his wife. They have even said that he is more
Fulani than Muhammadu Buhari who cannot speak Fulfude. Atiku more Fulani
Atiku tweeted that Nigeria was better off under PDP from 1999
to 2015. This is a party he left twice after throwing many jabs at them. Nigeria was so
good in early 2007 that he had a knee surgery in London; he had it so great
that Obasanjo withdrew the presidential jet that was supposed to fly him to USA in
December 2006 because of their rift. I must have lost at least two years to Academic
Staff Union of Universities [ASUU] strikes during the PDP years. I travelled
back and forth on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway for seven years as a student of
the University of Ibadan and that road was not fixed; that is how good we had
it then. If we mention Yelwa, Langtang North, Jos, Ajegunle, Odi, Warri, Zaki
Biam, Dogo Nahawa, Tim-Tim, Kuru Karama, Zonkwa, Kafanchan, Matsirga etc, they
will ask if we are in a mortality census competition, so I won’t mention them. They
say more Nigerians have died in the past three years than ever before but that is a
fat lie. Human Rights Watch reported
that over 15,700 people were killed in just Kaduna state from inter-communal,
political and sectarian violence from 1999 to 2011. Should we mention the bomb
blasts or talk about what happened in Buni Yadi? Why do some people think they
can rewrite history and get away with it? In any case, Atiku Abubakar and his
Dubai squad are playing their politics, let us see if they will have the aces come
February. Human Rights Watch 2011
Some of our religious leaders have joined politicians to help
announce hunger in the land. I wonder how some of them know and what they have
done to truly help the people. What I have observed is mostly eye-service and self-preservation,
the breeze of poverty and hardship hardly blows in their direction. This is the
reason why gossip and newspaper satirical articles have now become scripture to
announce freedom from slavery. I am open to anyone joining politics and I think
everyone should be educated on this irrespective of religious or educational
backgrounds. I think one or two religious leaders should take the plunge into
full-blown politics, at least to show good and godly example. The least most
should do is to preach unity and encourage their people to aspire for political
offices in order to serve. There are a few church leaders that were part of
parliament in the First Republic so let’s not be too quick to disapprove. The
love of money has corrupted the landscape, perhaps we need to encourage more
men and women with updated self-control to help turn things around.
We say we want Nigeria to be like America, Canada, UK,
Scandinavia etc. but we don’t want to count the cost and pay the price. We want
to keep papering over our cracks and exploiting our weaknesses. Perhaps
Nigerians, especially our church leaders and politicians can learn a thing or
two from the man who was voted in a 2004 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation poll
as the Greatest Canadian.
Thomas (Tommy) Douglas [1904-1986] was Premier of
Saskatchewan from 1944-1961. He was a Baptist preacher who ventured into
politics in 1935 after witnessing firsthand what Canadians had to face during
the Great depression of the 1930s. The nation had economic trouble, the people
lacked but there was money to fund a war. He buried young people who died because
of causes that could have been prevented and he didn’t complete his Sociology PhD
program because of the painful realities before him. He embraced a Socialist ideology
and joined a party with same. He started with the House of Commons before
leading his party to defy all odds and take control of the province. He was
opposed by the top capitalists of that era; those from the Oil and Mining
industries were against him, the top retail business also did. Some likened his
ideology to Hitler’s and the people were warned that he would become
dictatorial. Mortgage companies threatened farmers with foreclosures because he
promised to protect them. The media also turned against him all to prevent his
party’s win.
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| Tommy Douglas |
Douglas pushed for free medical and Hospital care for
pensioners, cancer patients and those who were on government support. Although his
Masters thesis favored eugenics and how only mentally certified people alone should
be permitted to marry, his time as premier contrasted his younger years. He
protected the physically and mentally challenged instead. He pressed for Universal
medical insurance to remove the divide between the healthcare providers and the
people. This was met with resistance especially from the doctors who thought
they would be financially shortchanged. A strike ensued but the program became reality in
1962 after he had stepped down. In other words, Douglas’ proposal on healthcare
is a template that spread across Canada and got copied across the globe. The man
is credited with many other feats such as Employment Insurance, Paid Vacation, Minimum Wage, Pensions and the Charter of Rights which was a first in North
America. Electricity and paved roads were some of the things he did to stimulate
agriculture in his province and improve the economy. If we want to be like these developed countries,
should we not adopt some of the things they did and still do? These countries
have all sorts of benefits for the elderly, children, indigenous people and
immigrants. They ensure taxes are collected and nobody shouts, “witch hunt.”
Douglas ran for the Country’s top job; he was not successful but his
perseverance and authenticity reverberated through a country he adopted as his
home and he was deemed worthy to be crowned the greatest Canadian ever edging out people
like Alexander Graham Bell [telephone], Terry Fox [ran across Canada with one
leg], David Suzuki [Professor of Genetics], Frederick Banting [ensured Insulin is not beyond the reach
of those who need it after co-discovering it] and Pierre Trudeau [15th Prime Minister] among others. He may not have any National
monument or heavyweight title in his honor, but the man lived and did his best.
We may not be too familiar with the name Tommy Douglas but I’m certain we know
his grandson, President Thomas Kirkman of the Netflix series ‘Designated
Survivor’ a.k.a Jack Bauer [Kiefer Sutherland].
| Pierre Trudeau |
Pierre Trudeau had to deal with what can be regarded as one
of the toughest periods in Canada’s existence. He was Prime Minister at a time
Quebec which was also his province of origin threatened to break away from the
Union because of carried over animosity from the French-British war. By 1970,
The Quebec Liberation Front [FLQ] had already morphed into a terrorism group to
force the issue. A British diplomat and Pierre Laporte [the Minister of Labour
in Quebec] were kidnapped with Laporte getting killed days later. Trudeau invoked the War
Measures Act and the Police had powers to arrest and detain without bail while soldiers
were deployed. When people tell you, certain things cannot happen in developed
climes, please pay no attention to them. No serious government will watch on as
arsonists destroy the land. I think the interests of the majority on certain
issues such as security, healthcare and economy should be protected despite
what the fat cats think.
There are those who secretly support those who divide us as
Nigerians because of their pride or selfish interests. There are those who
previously hated any old Fulani Muslim man but who now dance to the tunes of one who fits this profile. There are those who still run with the cloning theory, 'Islamization' agenda and no WAEC certificate theories because they think they know better. You all are entitled to your positions but all I am interested in
is the final retirement of those whose wealth we cannot explain and the silencing
of their diviners. If you insist on believing tales by moonlight like Doctor Who
fighting against androids and shape-shifting aliens that have replaced humans, against sound logic and commonsense, your religion and your background have
failed you. I believe the decluttering process is yet to be complete after which the
playing field will be made level for serious folks to lead us from where Buhari
stops. If there is a major wound with dead tissue and all sorts of foreign
bodies, a debridement is required before any type of dressing or management can
progress. We are in the final debridement phase, it’s not going to be by
sorcery but sheer hard work.
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria and all Nigerians. Don't let hate and bigotry destroy the humanity in you.
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| What is your genuine reason for hating this man? |
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