Nigeria’s farewell to bad leadership

Congratulations Nigeria. Three weeks ago, when the idea of permanently ending bad governance via street protests was first mooted, it looked like another pipe dream. How could a mob achieve on the streets what 67 million voters could not achieve by votes? That was the question and the seemingly insurmountable task. But we have made […]

Congratulations Nigeria. Three weeks ago, when the idea of permanently ending bad governance via street protests was first mooted, it looked like another pipe dream. How could a mob achieve on the streets what 67 million voters could not achieve by votes? That was the question and the seemingly insurmountable task. But we have made it. After gathering on the streets for 10 days, burning and looting, sacrificing the lives of innocent people and disrupting the businesses of scores of others, we have ended bad governance in Nigeria.

This is something that even the almighty America should envy us for, and not vaunting their premiership on the Olympics medal table. Nigeria might be absent on that medals’ table, we have achieved something greater at home. Henceforth, other countries would be looking at Nigerians with envy. Whenever a Nigerian appears at any port of entry, customs and immigration officers would be smiling with envy as they stamp our beloved green passports, welcoming us to all the privileges granted to a holy people.

Of course, the exception would be those nations averse to this insurmountable democratic ideal of ending bad governance via street protests. Those that have entrenched dictatorship and bad governance as a modus vivendi should not be expected to welcome the new Nigerians with open arms. Neither would those countries where protests are classified as treasonous action against the State.

The last list would force me to bite my thumb at Russia and China. As a reformed Nigerian, if I had the privilege of going to North Korea; I’d stand on the highest podium in Pyongyang shouting Rocket Man Kim to release his people. If I get to Thailand, I’d ask King Maha Vajiralongkorn to allow his people decide how they should be governed.

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Whenever I step my feet on Myanmar, they would get a bit of my anointed tongue lashing at them for killing democracy and imprisoning Aung San Suu Kyi and other ‘pro-democracy activists’.

Yes, having ended the battle against bad governance in Nigeria, Nigerians now owe it a duty to other nations not as privileged as we are to embrace the power of street dissent.

Forget about what happened in Kaduna and Kano where misguided youths, obviously sponsored by the Kremlin raised Russian flags and called on Vladimir Putin take a break from his war with NATO and help raise the flag Almajirai Arewa Republic. We would forgive these enemies of democracy, for they do not know what they are doing. We know that northerners are the least people likely to travel anywhere except on holy pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

If misguided northern Russian apologists fail to change their minds; we could deport them to Siberia to taste the difference between winter and harmattan. There is no need prosecuting them except President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wants to send a message to those disgruntled Nigerians living abroad.

Let me enumerate some of the successes of the last protest. The pump price of petroleum products is now cheaper than the price of pure water. President Tinubu opened the windows of heaven and rained on Nigeria more rice than the Israelis got gathering quails or manna on their silly journey to the Promised Land.

After ending bad governance Nigerians now drive through roadblocks without security agents asking them – ‘wetin you carry’. On their return from trips to Ghana, Sierra Leone, or other West African countries, Customs and Immigration officers would no longer ask – ‘anything for the boys’.  Those breaking from the claws of hitherto corrupt police officers would no longer be asked to ‘show appreciation’.

As the days go by, Nigerians would know the true meaning of the slogan – bail is free! No officer would dare ask for money before releasing a suspect and women would be finally allowed to bail their husbands and sons. All that nonsense ended with bad governance.

For those with businesses to transact at government offices, whose files suddenly disappear, they know that all they need to do to get it back is call the End Bad Governance office. In weeks to come, billboards would appear at street corners directing aggrieved Nigerians to those places where they could get reprieve for bad governance.

Canadians often complain that Montreal City wastes most of its summer with signs purporting to fix potholes that reappear after winter. On August 10 when bad governance ended in Nigeria, work started in earnest on the most important superhighway in Nigeria, the Kabba-Ilorin superhighway. The Abuja-Lokoja road, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Benin-Ore road in that order would follow.  Nigerians will finally have reasons to see change all that achieved in our 10-day protest to end all bad governance.

If only yours sincerely had known that these things could be achieved this easily on the altar of protests, he would have invested his 2023 tax returns on sponsoring the protests like other abroadians. Now he has missed a golden chance of making history and would have to live the rest of his miserable abroad life regretting not supporting a worthy cause for once.

Thank heavens as they say, every disappointment has a silver lining. For not sponsoring this change, this writer now earns the right to approach any Nigerian port of entry with a ‘Welcome home worthy son’ smile from Madam Kemi Nandap’s boys. They have nothing on me.

The lovely digital head of the Nigeria Immigration Service has taken the veil off one of Nigeria’s best-kept secret – that it places critics and supporters of change on a government watch-list that opens them up to persecution, arrest, and indefinite detention if not absolute disappearance. Last week, after meeting with the President, Madam Nandap gleefully announced, that the NIS would henceforth send returnees to other security agencies for clearance whenever they show up at airports.

Before we worked so hard to end bad governance, only journalists and critics were subjected to this type of harassment, now those sending money back home to build mansions could finally join the list and feel the heat. Unfortunately, this revelation now arms refugee and asylum claimants to enjoy freedom abroad. Who sends back a refugee likely to be harmed by his home country? Who says Nigeria is not moving forward?

If we had known that the power to end bad governance was this simple, Nigeria could have saved the N313.4 billion it wasted organising sham elections and proclaiming a winner endorsed by its equally corrupt judisharing.

Except President Bola Ahmed Tinubu reneges on this hard-won battle to end bad governance, he should remain beyond 2027 a reward for making Nigeria the paradise he promised. If he behaves well, the End Bad Governance protest leaders agree, could make him their accidental hero. If you are broke, approach any government office and demand to be enrolled into those bad governance-ending projects enumerated in the president’s soporific address to a nation in distress. That way, all your troubles would have been addressed – it is that easy.