“So in the Libyan fable it is told
That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
‘With our own feathers, not by others’ hands,
Are we now smitten.’ ”
-Aeschylus

Fellow Nigerians, let me start by sending you
compliments of this special Season. As writers,
our readers don’t expect us to go on break. And
so the ardent followers of my column have
indicated that I must script Pendulum even as
we celebrate Christmas. As your humble servant,
I have obeyed your instructions without any
hesitation and here we go again, as I do not
ascribe my obeisance to divine calling as our
political leaders are wont to want us to believe.

I decided to start this piece with one of my
favourite quotes from that Greek Poet,
Aeschylus, a man of monumental achievement.
We read a lot of Greek Tragedies in those days
at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife) as students of Literature-in-
English. I don’t know what is being taught these
days but I remember with nostalgia the great
works of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. I
also recollect a few adaptations of Greek plays
by Wole Soyinka and Ola Rotimi, who wrote The
Bacchae of Euripides and The Gods Are Not To
Blame respectively. The latter title is probably
one of the most popular plays ever written by a
Nigerian author.
My mind flashed back to Ola Rotimi’s
spectacular work as I began this weekly epistle
to you. We are only days to the beginning of a
New Year. And the year 2015 promises to be a
watershed in our dear country. The reason is
obvious. We are likely to have one of our hottest
elections ever. It is the first time that a strong
opposition party will attempt to unseat a very
entrenched political party as well as an
incumbent President who appears to have been
popularly elected in 2011.

It is not common for the people to get an
opportunity or indeed have the ability to sack a
sit-in President in Africa. It is even more difficult
in Nigeria where the President wields the power
of life and death. It would have been impossible
for the ruling PDP to remain in power these past
15 years if not for the fact that politics in Nigeria
is a game of sharing the booty or what is usually
referred to as the ‘national cake’. The bulk of
this cake, the knife needed to slice it and the
portions to be distributed are all controlled by
the President. And different interest groups
really don’t give a damn if majority of the people
live below poverty level as long as the President
is persuaded to give them a pitiable slice of the
cake.

The amount of money already budgeted and
squandered on frivolous, white elephant and
sometimes phantom projects since our return to
Democracy should have fixed most of our terrible
problems but the reverse has been the case. The
more we spent the less we achieved. And the
ruling party in its supposed wisdom assumed
that Nigerians were foolish and too docile to
think and kick against their servitude. They
studiously ignored the lessons of history as well
as the popular adage that whatever has a
beginning must have an end. Nigerians are
patient and resilient. They may also be lethargic
but they are neither foolish nor docile. At the
appropriate time, they are forced to react
decisively.

Nothing has been more frustrating than the
miraculous ascension of a man from the Niger
Delta as the President of Nigeria who seems to
have mismanaged the great opportunity. Dr.
Goodluck Jonathan achieved what the gifted Ken
Saro-Wiwas couldn’t. Many had paid the
supreme price for what he got on a platter of
gold. It is so ironic that a man who was
expected to understand the plight of the poor
soon became even more elitist in disposition. I
won’t join those who said our President has
done nothing as that would be too uncharitable
but I would like to submit that there was much
more he could have done to make the country
better. But the biggest undoing is the unbridled
profligacy attached to this government.

A country that bears our kind of heavy
challenges needed a sober and frugal leader who
was ready to downgrade his personal comfort in
order to rescue his people from want and
deprivation. Unfortunately, our President was
quickly and cleverly hijacked by those who know
how to stage bloodless coups along corridors of
power. I think the end of the beginning started
on January 1, 2012, when our President on God-
knows-whose advice removed the full subsidy on
petrol and all hell broke loose. Nigerians trooped
out in large numbers all over the country to
stage demonstrations against such a bizarrely
insensitive gift on the first day of the year. The
protests almost became our own Arab spring but
the biggest of them was forcefully crushed in
Lagos as soldiers rolled out the tanks.
The government, and its IMF/World Bank
sponsored economists were so rattled that it had
to eat humble pie and make promises it never
intended to keep when the people graciously
agreed to some increase in the price of petrol.
All manner of committees were hurriedly
packaged to assuage the feeling of the people.
For example, buses were supposed to have been
bought nationwide to convey commuters to
different destinations at next to nothing. Till this
day, I don’t know how many buses were ever
bought and who boarded them. We read about
SURE-P and its activities but I don’t know how
widespread its impact was felt simply because I
cannot see what it has done. The committees
wrote tons upon tons of reports that are
gathering dust wherever they are right now.
The price of oil has collapsed and the real
Nemesis has arrived. While government is trying
to paint a picture that all is well, it is becoming
increasingly clear that we have landed in big
trouble. It is disheartening that the dividend of
crashing international oil prices, which should
have been the lot of Nigerians through reduced
petroleum product prices, will not even be
allowed to them. As the Chief Economist to the
Government has said, Nigerians must wait until
oil prices stabilise before the benefit of these
prices can be spared to them. When government
will subjectively decide that such time has
arrived is left for the imagination given that
prices have been crashing for almost 2 months
now. Not even the normal Christmas spirit and
traditional New year’s benevolence can bend the
unrelenting spirit of our ‘dream’ Economic Team
as this Government continues to pile economic
woes on its citizenry.

The President promised to reduce his world tours
to most essential trips but it actually increased
in intensity as if with a vengeance. We became a
laughing stock as our Presidential entourage
invaded different countries on shopping sprees.
In the past year alone, our President and his
Pastors have been to Israel more than once. One
would have expected that more attention would
be devoted to nation-building than all the flights
of fancy. But we continued to live like a rich
nation when indeed our economy had taken a
nose-dive. We were continuously lied to about
the state of things. Even now that it has become
certain that we are broke, we are still pretending
that there is no problem.

The spate of terror attacks under this
government has become rather atrocious and
endless. All hope of containing it also seems to
have evaporated. The standing joke is that Boko
Haram has now carved out a different map of
Nigeria with huge chunks of Northern Nigeria
now excised from the control of our government.
The citizens don’t believe much is being done to
contain the menace especially when over 200
girls remain missing and the bombings and
killings continue unabated.

Unemployment has reached an all-time high with
Nigeria recording the largest army of angry
youths on the African continent. The government
and its cronies continue to publish fictitious
figures informing Nigerians that the level of
unemployment is falling when more school
leavers and graduates are being churned out
from our broken higher and tertiary institutions
and left to fend for themselves. It is little wonder
that our thieves, fraudsters and armed robbers
have suddenly achieved sophistication second to
none.

It is also believed that President Jonathan has
not encouraged the anti-corruption agencies to
do a good job by the manner he protects his
Ministers and other associates. These agencies
point to the fact that there have been more
prosecutions of high profile politicians under
these administration but whatever may be the
outcome of that debate is that the Presidential
pardons have severely undermined any
successes in that respect.

In the middle of these social and economic
issues, the unexpected also happened on the
political front. I had warned in several articles
that the President was being deceived and
misled into making too many political
miscalculations and mistakes. One of such
monumental mistakes was the attempt by the
President to force his candidate on the Nigeria
Governors’ Forum. It was a complete
misadventure as Governor Rotimi Amaechi
defeated Governor Jonah David Jang who was
favoured by the President’s camp by 19 to 16
votes. One would have expected the President to
accept the verdict but he went ahead to
recognise a smaller illegitimate faction of 16
Governors instead of embracing Amaechi warts
and all. That was the day I believe the PDP dug
its own grave by piling up corpses of political
liabilities.

The non-recognition of Amaechi as the Chairman
of the authentic Nigeria Governor’s Forum led
eventually to the fractionalisation of their party
into PDP1 and PDP2. Had the President acted
like the father of all, those five Governors who
eventually defected to what later
metamorphosed into APC would probably have
remained. When tomorrow comes, PDP will
regret the day APC came into existence. Despite
the initial braggadocio that APC would fall apart
as a result of clashing egos, the party seems to
have held tighter than even PDP.

In 2011, it would have been unthinkable that a
General Muhammadu Buhari would bounce back
so powerfully. Let no one deceive Mr President
that there is no cause for alarm, there is plenty
ahead. The mood of the nation does not favour
PDP or the President. Mood is always a key
factor in politics. The mood was right for Barack
Obama when he became the first Black
American President. I foresee the same
favourable mood playing out in 2015 for Buhari
and Osinbajo.

For the first time since PDP came into power,
the opposition is now so formidable that it would
be able to fight for substantial votes in every
zone. The choice of Osinbajo, as his Vice
Presidential candidate, by Buhari is a political
masterstroke which even most of us did not see
coming. It has all the hallmarks of divine
intervention and the advent of the answering of
the prayers of the multitude of Nigerians. The
amiable Professor Osinbajo provides devoutness,
erudition, compassion, simplicity and above all
integrity to the ticket. Both candidates share
fairness, simplicity and an anti-corruption stance
in common.

All manner of smart guys are warming up to eat
out of the billions of naira made available for the
Presidential campaign by friends of the President
and some of our supposedly broke State
Governments but PDP should pray for a miracle
this time. Too many costly mistakes have been
made. I don’t know how easy it would be to
correct those fatal errors in less than two
months. Writers are like prophets but no one
listens when we say the things we know. We
warned regularly about those around the
President but we were called names by those
who turned the Federal Government into their
personal property. Those who never lifted a
finger when others fought on the streets of
Abuja for Jonathan to be President suddenly
became Janitors at Aso Rock, blocking those
who may wish to tell the truth.

I hope the President knows that the die is now
cast and anything can happen in the next
election. My advice is that he should work hard
on leaving a legacy no matter what happens. Mr
President should organise a world class election
even if he won’t be the beneficiary at the end of
the day. And if he wins, at least no one would
accuse him of rigging. There is nothing more to
gain from politics. God has been too kind to him.
He should ignore all those throwing tantrums and
threatening to set Nigeria ablaze if their man is
not elected for the second term. They are
mostly pretenders. As we’ve seen in the past,
they are always the first to jump ship.

Let no one blame the gods for our personal
failings in life. We must bear our cross with
courage.

www.ekekeee.com/dele-momodu-gods-blame/

Nigeria- a place a clueless,indiscreet, dumb,pointless, coward,shallow,blind and stupid man rule over a lot of intelligent people

His biggest mistake was the day he took an uncivilised illiterate as a wife.

His mistakes started the day he took an uncivilised illiterate as a wife.