Government by Cash gifts and palliatives: Ineffectual Tokenism to Citizens’ Miserys

As Nigeria Turns 63: No Quick Road To Nirvana

Media report has it that senate President Akpabio recently announced President Tinubu’s approval of 50,000 Naira monthly stipends for 10,000 youths in the Niger Delta area. I hope that news is not true, otherwise it would tone-deafness on steroid. It is a demeaning policy that reduces Nigerian youth to Pavlovian dogs in his classical conditioning experiments who can be taught compliance with food.   Nigerian youths do not need cashgifts, nor bribes, nor tokenisms or palliatives, call it what you like. It is an insult to them. They need an educational infrastructure fit for human learning, not the filthy chicken pens in which they are packed like animals called schools. They need a functioning economy with modern infrastructure that stimulates economic productivity and job creation.   As much as I am a supporter of President Tinubu, his alms-seekers’ pan-handling, hand-out tokenism palliative policy is like putting bandage on a cancerous bedsore. Sharing envelopes of bags of rice might work for vote harvesting during political campaign. It is not a sustainable model for governance. It is demeaning, belittling, insensitive, and an insult to us all.   If today’s protest falls apart like some hope it does because of the suspicion that it may be a misguided ethnic and political conceptualization and branding as “day of rage” as an alleged attempt at upturning the result of a failed presidential bid. It is hoped that President Tinubu and his team see that as a temporary reprieve to give him a chance for course correction and a massive restructuring and pruning down the huge bureaucracy that has become part and parcel of the culture of government by political patronage with layers upon layers of special assistants to special assistants, with no portfolio nor value addition to governance in Abuja and all over the states and local government capitals. It must stop now.   That is low hanging policy shift that does not need any legislative action, just executive order to send the signal to the populace of shared sacrifice and a listening presidency.   The bubbling explosive tension in the country is palpable. You cannot pack megaton of explosive TNT in a hot combustible room and hope and pray that one day it would not detonate and bring down the house.   The time for presidential action is now, not tomorrow. Like the explosion of the pile of ammonia fertilizer which eviscerated blocks upon blocks of Beirut taking with it the homes of the poor, the powerless the rich and powerful, will be a child’s play unless decisive action is taken is to avert the looming catastrophe.   Our country is siting on a huge pile of TNT that is on the verge of explosion. Only quick and decisive action by all layers of government, federal, state and local government can save the country.   May God bless Nigeria our country. May God bless our president Tinubu, our governors and all those who have willingly sought leadership positions of our country and have been honored with such huge responsibility. May He give them the wisdom, and prick their conscience and sensibilities if they still have any left, to do the right thing for the long suffering, long abused, long deprived Nigerian masses. If they fail to do so, they must be prepared for the spontaneous ire and rage of the people that is likely to sweep them off their exalted position of power.   A word they say is enough for the wise. The clock is ticking and the day of reckoning is literarily at hand.