When a politician that we
have chosen to support makes a mistake, we cannot summon the courage and wisdom
to accept that simple truth and call him to order, so we cook up absurd
defenses and comparisons and justifications or keep mute. Now, many of us may
look at this attitude as nothing serious, but it is a great disservice to our
nation, it is an equivalent of treason. It is a disservice to that politician
we support to always create the impression that he is always right. People who
are made to believe that they are perfect and their every move is right will
surely fail.
It has been a problem with
our people for a very long time, they mistake loyalty or support for slavery
and sycophancy. Educated men soon become praise singers mediocres and
sycophants and make very shameful and illogical statements all in a bid to
support a politician who in most cases is not even as educated or informed as
they are. These are the people that are killing our nation, those who cannot
look evil in the eye and call it what it is because of politics and party
loyalty as they call it or in a bid not to look like they may have made a
mistake.
I believe the ultimate
goal of every Nigerian should be the progress of Nigeria and not a party or a
person and any person or party who stands in the way of that progress must be
called to order. I and others like me, heavily criticized GEJ’s supporters who
displayed this attitude and still do. Now the progressives whom we were so
proud of as been rational and logical, have been suddenly infected with this
virus. The infected Crowd is so large, that some few who would prefer to air
out this obvious blunders, but for fear of being tagged by the multitude as “sell
outs” or “people of little faith” or “wailers” choose to play along or again keep
mute. It bothers me that this group of people may end up leading us to the same
destination the sycophants of GEJ did, and greatly limit our rate of
development and progress.
It gives me hope however,
that a few Nigerians like me do not have this virus, we are born resistant, we
possess that rare courage and wisdom to tell even our most loved friends or
family or leaders the truth when they mess up. We possess the rare humility to
accept that we or our favored candidate have made mistakes, when we do. We know
where our loyalty should lie and we know that regardless of who is involved we
must always, first and foremost stand with Nigeria.
In the days to come i
will break many hearts and loose many friends, because i cannot like them,
pretend like all is well, when in fact there is fire on the mountain. President
Muhammadu Buhari has too many people defending his mistakes and covering up and
lying for him, but like all things these too will run out. He also has a thick
skin and does not seem to take critics seriously.
In view of this I believe,
it will do our nation great good if some of us constantly highlight the many unfolding
short comings of the president, in other to balance the scales with the army of
praise singers he has. This is even more necessary because the man opposition
party which is made up mostly of very unreasonable and uncoordinated people has
gone into a state of coma, having most of its members standing trial for
stealing public funds, their trade mark for 16 years. This has left the nation
technically in the hands of one party with millions of praise singers and
expert propagandist as spokes men. If we will reap the benefits of this change
we voted for, Buhari must be kept on his toes at all times, and no mistake of
his left to die without criticism. He must be held responsible for his utterances
and his promises, some of which he has already dismissed, he did not make.
The popular song is that change
is a slow or gradual process, but we all
know there are changes that can be effected in very short time frames, that can
resonate all over the nation. We also know that by the way a man spends his
days, one can tell how his months and years will look like, by the utterances
of a man, one can tell how his actions may look like, by the direction a man chooses to travel one can tell his destination. Nigerians do not want to wake up
one day and say we would have done better. Nigerians will not allow sycophants spoil
what they suffered to put in place.