Two Weeks of Compulsive Hunger Strike, By Tunde Asaju
POLITICS DIGEST – If there is a right to be addressed by my president, I gave it up with the other rights in Chapter II of the constitution. They are mere wishes! Mr. President sir, you don’t have to address me. It’s a total negation of my right to isolation from executive harangue and my right to life devoid of mental torture.
But I am just a loner in a sea of 200 million sheeple constantly harassed by executive lawlessness and misled by religious idiocy. Truth is Nigerian citizens give up on their rights every day. Check Chapter II of the constitution and see that the abuse is legit. The best parts of the constitution unjusticiable whereas the perks reserved for the political class are guaranteed.
Nevertheless, Nigerians hate being told what they can or cannot do. They kept the heckling going even when Femi Adesina reminded them that direction from their leaders in times of crisis is not a right.
If Adesina were wrong, the president wouldn’t need conviction to address the issues impeding the smooth ride to the Next Level. The train’s tracks are clogged with peculiar problems ranging from insecurity to social disharmony and everything in-between that ought to have died with Change. I wish I could appeal to the courts to have my rights upheld against the wishes of the toothless children of anger calling the president to duty. Upon consultation, my liar told me to exercise my right not to tune in. That was pretty much what I did last Sunday along with keeping the Sabbath day holy.
But in 2020, even those who are not part of the global order are dragged along. Social media is anti- isolation. One ends up either being tagged with the president’s thesis or being inboxed with it. Reading the president’s ‘broadcast message’ reminded me of that time when he challenged a reporter questioning his health status to a three-mile run. Thank God the reporter didn’t take the bet.
Sunday’s 65-paragraph doctoral thesis delivered with the distinctive presidential diction enunciated two clear messages. We must welcome COVID-19 because we too, are in the world. Two, we are called to wash our hands as we embark on compulsory 14-day of fasting without nothing to break the fast.
It is great being a Nigerian. Since we have never succeeded in counting ourselves, we agree on 200 million plus or minus. Since we live under a boundary drawn by Lugard and his co-travellers and still answer to the baptismal name given us by his girlfriend, we think we are a democratic nation.
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What reinforces this illusion? Well, every four years, the political elite gang up and present to us a gang of ruiners for contrived endorsement. They induce us with money, nepotism and diversion to rubberstamp them so that we earn the rights to be called a democracy. If America or anyone else frowns at Kano’s magic poll numbers, we could remind them of Florida.
In America, Donald Trump frequently misleads his constituents but even that sort of assault is denied us. Trump interacts picks the reporters who would ask him the questions he doesn’t have to answer, the Villa expels; sorry socially distances those whose reports deviate from the preferred script. It is called social distancing! Trump speaks to his people while our president addresses us.
Nations impose lockdowns to curtail infection; our government imposed lockdown to increase the virus of poverty and its effects. Nations run soup kitchens to cater for the homeless – we provide nothing but uniformed thugs armed with guns and koboko. Other nations send social security cheques to their citizens affected by the stay-at-home order, ours distribute new cars to lawmakers most of whom live in breach of the Fifth Schedule. Some nations placed a moratorium on rents until the siege is over, we’re feeding children with no known address. Other nations have placed moratorium on mortgages, loans and dues – Nigerians would pay more for gas and the electricity that’s not supplied.
I am still perusing the 65-paragraph order for inherent orders aimed at cushioning the effect of the stay at home order for 80% of Nigerians who live from hand to mouth. They must become visible when I receive my pair of Next Level goggles.
Real nations on lockdown have staffed hospitals equipped to deal with health emergencies. For once, the fact that COVID-19 could infect and kill them have forced them to build temporary emergency shelters conscious that we won’t add to our mental health challenges by asking for costs. When global airports are locked against kleptocrats repentance is instantaneous.
According to the NMA, we still have nearly 50,000 medical personnel for a population of 200 million. Thank God we’re mostly maths illiterates. In peacetime, some parts of our country have an average of one doctor for 10,000. A lockdown without electricity and food is a prison sentence.
To my president, I say sir, this is not a forced isolation lockdown, it is a curfew designed to force the poor, hungry, helpless and hapless Nigerians into a non-remunerative fast. God perhaps rewards fasting, he doesn’t reward compulsory mass hunger strike.
Corrigendum:
In last week’s column, I inadvertently credited a statement made on the floor of the Senate to Senator Kashim Shettima. It was Senator Danjuma Goje that baptised Covid-19 as coronavasis. The error is regretted and I apologise to Senator Shettima.
