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By Mideno Bayagbon
The old man, who shared a ride with me from the airport into the city of Abuja, could not hide his confusion; infact, incredulity. He had never been to Abuja in all his 73 years as a native Nigerian. He has, however, seen a bit of the world, and worked in some of the cities in the south. He is educated.
At least he went to Ahmadu Bello University at a time there was nothing called Abuja in the national lexicon. “Is this Abuja?” he kept asking. And for the umpteenth time, i quietly tell him it is. Each time, he keeps repeating to himself: “Abuja is not Nigeria.”
At first i was confused. He was almost convinced, that by some unexplained chance he has landed in Dubai or Cape town in South Africa, the finest city he has ever been to, all his life. Abuja, however, holds him spell bound.
There is something delightfully enthralling about Abuja, a charm uncharacteristically Nigerian. It bewitches with its allure. it envelops one in a love grip. Abuja appears, on face value, to encapsulate the failed dreams of Nigeria’s many cities.
Before now, it was Lagos that entraps and refuses to vomit, to ever let you go. it kolobis you! You live in Lagos for a few years, settle in, and nowhere else seems to compare. You get sucked in by the hurly burly, the peculiar madness unique to Lagos, the city of dreams. From its slums, bank executives, governors, great athletes and musicians spring up and blossom.
Lagos was Nigeria’s God’s own state! The place where dreams are transformed to reality. The place where all who desired a good, fulfilling life found abode. It was and still is the economic capital of Nigeria. The main city, if you are not a politician, to make it big, if you have your head correctly screwed to your neck and shoulders and are not afraid to work hard and smart. Lagos is it; or, gradually becoming, was it.
Lagos is not it anymore, it seems. Lagos is becoming a dream killer; a frustrating city to live and work in. Lagos is stewing in refuse and in a hellish canister of traffic jams, in untold federal and state neglect. It is evolving into an Orwellian Animal Farm.
Slums are springing all over, sharing fences with once opulent mansions and estates; choking the comfort out of dreams. The soon to be third economy in Africa hides a deep seated, brutish, short and nasty existence. Yet it didn’t just happen over night. It had it coming.
Abuja is a breath of fresh air. A seeming oasis from the federated underdevelopment, nationwide. It is planned, ringed round with a cobweb of well paved roads. Abuja is green with a soothing touch of gardens. But nothing compares with the scenic mountains, or rocks if you like, which ring it round, undulating, inviting and captivating.
You come face to face with opulence that stuns in Abuja. The mansions are truly big and legion. The estates are tastefully expensive and mouth watering. There appears to be a conscious effort to distant Abuja from the Nigeria we all know and live in.
But beautiful Abuja is a lady whose luscious looks are fed with booties from our collective shrine. For Abuja hides its own contradictions, truth be told. Abuja is a civil service town. it is also the political headquarters of our thieftricians who wallow in unearned affluence and influence.
That perhaps explains why ninety percent of the opulent homes and estates belong to thieftricians of the political and civil service hue. In Abuja, corruption sits in eye popping mansions and estates.
So sad President Muhammadu Buhari, has become the ostrich, in his claimed fight against corruption. For in Abuja alone, he has his work cut out for him.
BUHARI DOES NOT NEED WAEC TO BE PRESIDENT
President Muhammadu Buhari and his handlers self inflicted a gory injury on the president recently when they caused an unnecessary attestation to be the most detested news of the week. And the national uproar, instigated by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the legion of dissatisfied Nigerians who cannot wait to see the back of the most nepotistic, divisive and incompetent president, was expected.
By that singular action of getting the head of the WAEC office in Nigeria to go to the villa to present the attestation, the president and his handlers, seem to be telling Nigerians that there is something still left unsaid, a truth yet untold.
People are beginning to say, that in good conscience the president cannot claim to have written the 1961 school certificate leaving examinations. If he did, they say, there sure must be record in the military to show that the president got a leave of absence to go write the examinations. if attestations from his then principal and others are still kept intact in the records of the military, why not record of the leave of absence?
But like most interested people know, legally, the WAEC certificate brouhaha, is an unnecessary distraction, a pull him down tactics learnt from the then hard fighting All Progressives Congress, APC, when the game was to do all and everything to demonise President Jonathan and make him unelectable. The tables have turned and the heat is on the major beneficiary of that strategy.
Nevertheless, constitutionally, given his well recorded military service record, and the various trainings he went through to qualify to be a major general in the Nigerian Army, it is a no issue, whether he presents a WAEC certificate or not. What should qualify him now is his record of service as president of Nigeria since 2015.
How has he impacted the lives of the average Nigerian? Are they better off now than they were four years ago? It is his ability or inability to meet up to expectations of Nigerians that should determine whether he should be voted in again or not. As for me and my household, our red card is ready.
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