Preamble
In 2014, Change as a newly discovered word entered the political lexicon of Nigerians. Everywhere you turned between 2014 and 2015 the word Change, boldly written on placards and on billboards, was all you see over the landscapes of Nigeria. After almost three years into the administration of the present government in the saddle of Horse Nigeria (the unfortunate horse everyone loves to ride/rape recklessly without any care for her well-being) we should be able to ask, How far is the change? Has Change truly come down to Nigeria? If it has not come, are there signs in the air that Change is on its way and soon to land in Nigeria?
We recall that a political party in Nigeria sold the propaganda of change to Nigerians during the 2015 electioneering charade. As it were many Nigerians believed and accepted the slogan since the party of Change eventually won the Presidential election.
Non-partisan and keen observers of human behaviour would have assumed that since Nigerians voted for change, Nigerians had duly acknowledged that the political and socio-economic status quo was a political system not fit for purpose; that the system symbolised by pernicious cultural practices and unethical national ethos ought to disappear; that the primitive prebendal political cultures, which have relentlessly and unabashedly pandered to ruinous corrupt practices, must be dismantled; and have acknowledged that the collective and individual primitive habits of self aggrandisement, gluttonous consumption, senseless exhibition of stolen wealth and insatiable greed for riches, are the human weaknesses sabotaging every effort of the few sincere patriots working for peace, progress and prosperity of the commonwealth.
Following the above assumptions, it was therefore expected that Nigerians were truly ready to change from the debilitating culture of corruption and that we were sincerely eager to opt out of the debilitating political system into a new deliberately and intelligently created good political system that is totally free from corruption. Hence, intelligent observers thought that was why Nigerians gave their massive support to the propagandist party of Change.
Philosophy of Change
Change, this newly acquired ubiquitous word in Nigeria can mean a slight turning away or a complete turning around from one position of beliefs, ideas, attitudes or general behaviours to another slightly different or a complete opposite. Change can be a deliberate and rational act of choosing/adopting an alternative habit/attitude in thinking or believing or doing or behaving.
In a nutshell, to accept the concept of change in a polity, it is to acknowledge there is a serious problem with the status quo. Such awareness will lead thinking members of the society to perform a mental comparative observation, intelligent study and critical analysis of several possibilities of some cogent issues in the society. This intellectual exercise should lead them to choose one possibility out of many options after a long process of deliberation on the pros and cons of all the opposing views. This is the path of common sense, reason and rationality.
With hindsight and noting the present situation of business as usual in the country, we can now conclude that the assumption that the people of Nigeria have had enough of corruption controlled/dominated life was unfounded. The overblown faith that Nigerian were ready to try a new socio-economic existence that is totally free from corrupt lifestyles and fraudulent economic practices was also misplaced.
We are forced to conclude thus because so far and from the assessment of the government formed by the political party that sold the change propaganda and that eventually won the election, it is obvious that this party only played a cruel game of deception on the people.
The party and the presidential candidate of change did not seem to have a clue about the ramification of the propaganda they promoted. Obviously, the slogan was chosen for them by the overpaid foreign consultants that served as the political propaganda experts and public relations agency
After almost three years, all the highfalutin promises of the Election Change Mantra have simply refused to emerge. Nigerian politicians and the accursed institutions of governance rooted and adorned in corruption are back in business as usual and even stronger and more formidable than before.
Many important members of the present government have been caught with their soiled hands in the cookie-jar of the commonwealth. We are yet to see a role model among the 2015 winners who is prepared to showcase a new culture of moderation in primitive acquisition that is clearly and cleanly free of corruption.
We have yet to see any member of the National/State Assembly that has courageously declared a non-participatory stance in the sharing of humongous booty that accrues ’legally’ but immorally to the members of the ‘hollowed’ assemblies as wages and allowances.
Neither have we seen a cabinet member, after witnessing the established irresistible and immovable tradition of institutional corruption that quietly or publicly opts out of the machinery of ‘Chop-I-Chop’ institutions of governance in Nigeria.
Nor has the government made one example of any high calibre thief/embezzler caught in the possession of stolen public properties and funds with appropriate sanction and punishment to teach other Nigerians a lesson about probity in leadership position.
These and many other such examples are what we were expecting from a political class and political party that bulldozed their way into power with a holier-than-thou attitude and extraordinary promises to clean and make Nigeria safe for decent human life and free of corruption.
The Consequences of Misinformation and Miseducation
At the present time, the people of Nigeria are at the basest level of human existence, when suicide seems to be a better choice for most of the people than to continue with their very difficult lives. The large number of able-bodied young men and women, who are putting their lives at risk to cross the deadly and inhospitable Sahara desert in order to seek a new life in Europe, exemplifies the unparalleled high level of despondency.
It is therefore understandable why Nigerians were stridently clamouring for a change of the political status quo in 2015. But rather than for Nigerians to first look within their individual selves to discover the reasons for the alarming wretchedness in the land, Nigerians focused all their attention on one individual entity and a military-politician for that matter.
Although and to be fair on the people, for more than five generations Nigerians have had their spirits broken and their minds totally messed up after our forefathers were swamped with alien philosophy of life, of beliefs and of worship that have no relevance or meaning to the African psyche, culture, mentality and spirituality.
Naively, the ancestors of the present day Nigerians accepted and swallowed up all the fictitious stories and fables sold to them as the path of truth and deliverance without any intuitive or intellectual vetting. The fabulous stories made up by a clever “Chosen People” who were seeking slaves to conquer, to control and to dominate till eternity, have since turned the lives of Nigerians upside down.
Since the propagation of the soul-killing seeds of lies on the truth of life were deceptively sowed and have since germinated in Nigeria and Africa, Africans have been, figuratively and literally, remade and turned into baying “flock of sheep”. Nigerians have since been cleverly consigned into a very degrading form of physical and spiritual bondage. Africans are now, daily and weekly, being fed and prepped up with more and more of the soul-killing lies for easy political picking, psychological abuse and economic slaughter.
Unfortunately today, these lies are now locally and culturally embellished, cooked and spiced up by African themselves through their priests and imams. The African religious leaders are now the appointed local custodians of the religious institutions. They have become so well-trained as teachers of the original religious philosophies that were designed principally for the enslavement and the control of the minds of mankind.
Through the adulterated religious philosophies that are being profusely circulated and propagated around, Nigerians have been taught to believe, to have only faith and to look forward to the coming of a messiah/mahdi who will solve every self-inflicted earthly problem that is bedevilling their lives.
Carelessly and due to a prolonged religious brainwashing and educational indoctrination, Nigerians were indeed and wholeheartedly looking for a messiah like the type found in the ‘holy books’ who is coming to lead them out of a self-inflicted political ruin into a miraculous life of material abundance without exacting any effort.
The False Hope of 2015
Hence in 2015, Nigerians focussed and placed every hope they can muster, and religiously too, on a “saintly” stalwart from the tribe of the political gangsters to bring them peace, harmony and socio-economic deliverance on a platter.
As a result of paucity of knowledge in the land, Nigerians could not think beyond the Change of replacing one political figurehead with another political figurehead. Having being persuaded and swayed by scurrilous propaganda and buffeted with relevant “stomach infrastructure” as applicable, Nigerians went to the 2015 polls to pick a choice out of two equally unfit personalities.
In a sane society, the two personages that fronted for the two political parties should never have been put forward to contest for leadership position in the first place. The two presidential candidates, based on their biodata, personality, and political track records, were glaringly unfit for the job they applied for. Yet the people of Nigeria put all their hopes, emotions and energy on either of the two blind men to lead them into the salvation of change.
We cannot blame Nigerians for their short-sightedness because this is one of the consequences of the game of democracy of our time.
In every country, hidden men, (aka Deep State) with money-power are selecting and presenting political candidates to the people for whom the people must cast their votes, or ‘place their bets’. To the secret selectors, it does not matter if the presented candidate has little or no aptitude, intelligence, competence, etc., for the job of governance.
What the godfathers are looking for is a servile candidate with a flair for showmanship and a presentable superficial personality that can act the role of the public relations front man for the Deep State. The modern scientific propaganda machine is ever ready to sanitise, whitewash, and deodorise the devil and turn it into an angel in order to make it eligible for political office.
It is therefore a forgone conclusion that the common people have no clue whatsoever about what they were getting themselves into when they troop out like sheep to cast the votes in the general elections.
Carelessly and without any thought, like mindless zombies, the common people of the world who have been thoroughly brainwashed to believe in the power of the ballot, are simply casting their precious votes as the hidden hands directed.
As part of their ‘patriotic’ duty, the masses have been indoctrinated to believe that merely casting the vote at an election is the epitome of civic responsibility in a democratic society. By this thoughtless act of the people who cast the vote without adequate knowledge and understanding, the political candidate who ‘won or rigged’ the election is given the constitutional power and legal authority to rule over the state. Albeit, as a mere puppet and front man for the hidden powerful moneymen that selected him/her for the job while the people were still slumbering.
This is the political parody of modern democracy in the Swindlers Paradise where the people of the world are being told incessantly not to look for alternative methods of governance because what is in place, which is called democracy — a one-size-fits-all adversarial political party system — is supposed to be perfect for every nation.
However, in the case of 2015 Change Mantra, it is almost six years and Nigerians are still waiting for the miracle of Change to deliver its bountiful promises. It will never happen because that was never the intention of the political gangsters.
The political gangsters merely changed batons like sentries on guard duty. All the men and women dominating our political space are unrepentant sinners. Their lives are designed to lead the innocent countrymen and women astray. They are not a people of any high or low ethical conviction, principle or belief. They are soulless psychopathic beings that have no conscience and are therefore devoid of mercy, compassion and love.
For the throng of starry-eyed Nigerians who are religiously expecting deliverance from these human wolves that need regular supply of human blood to survive, it is going to be a long agonising wait. And I am sorry to burst your bubbles; it is not going to happen.
Come 2023, this same scenario will play itself out again. Men and women of dubious characters will troop out asking for the people’s vote in 2022. Most enlightened observers by now know it does not really matter anymore. Whether the people cast their votes or do not cast their votes, the scientific rigging machines have been perfected to deliver on the pre-chosen candidate by the powers-that-be.
By now everyone in the world ought to know that the adversarial political party election process is a charade. All awakened people in the world know this and that’s why they no longer bother themselves with participating in the fudged process anymore.
Where do we go from here, Nigerians?
True Change is Repentance
The reason for the calamitous failure of the present government to take the driver seat of the Change Project, after almost six years, could be adduced to the fact that no-one in the polity was able to articulate properly, for the benefit of all and sundry, the true meaning of this wonderful concept called Change. Or, those who understand what change actually entails could not get the message out properly and clearly to fellow Nigerians.
With hindsight, it seems that every Nigerian who participated in the 2015 ’democratic’ election process based his/her decision on mere emotional sentiment.
All the participants merely joined the popular acclamation of the herds to profess the slogan of Change. Most of the participating people had neither adequate knowledge nor understanding of what it would entail to make a societal change to happen and to succeed.
Borrowing from the Judaic philosophy or religion, we discovered that during the biblical era, change was synonymous with repentance. It was recorded at many instances when the ancient “nation of Israel” was floundering under the muck of corruption and beastly lifestyles that poets, seers and prophets and men of conscience would call out to the people to repent from their sinful and foolish ways.
The seers would often call on the people to change or repent from unrighteousness to righteousness; from ungodliness to godliness; from immorality to morality; from merciless oppression of the poor to merciful charity to the poor; from unjust, mindless acquisition of riches to a just, mindful redistribution of the commonwealth to the less privileged, etc.
From time immemorial and in societies that have attained a high level of spiritual consciousness, it has been the duty of selfless poets, sages and seers, to connect the dots of seemly unconnected activities in the socio-political and economic realms. Based on their acquired intellectual and spiritual perspectives, these unique men/women who are filled and moved by the spirit of truth, were able to see a logical connection between the reckless impunity of the political and economic leaders and the consequent societal widespread of hardship and suffering of the people.
These men and women of conscience would singly or collectively raised their voices to condemn societal evil practices and to admonish the perpetrators to seek repentance, to make reparation and to atone for forgiveness.
The men/women of conscience would stringently call, using every method at their disposal, particularly, “Thus says the Lord”, to attract the attention of both the leaders and the people. They would advise the people to repent sincerely from their perverted ways which, they have discovered, were the true causes of the community distresses and national calamities.
In a nutshell, change has often been a spiritual call for community awakening; and a call to the people to seek and to embrace higher ethical and lofty moral values that would eventually make the society fit for human existence and purpose. When change or repentance is truly embraced and sincerely pursued by the people, it has the spiritual capability to turn a society inside-out.
True Change coming from within the citizens has the transformative power to turn the country into a fit and beneficial land that can easily provide for the physical need, happiness and progress of all the citizens regardless of political, social or economic status in the polity.
Hence, when a clarion call goes out to the people asking them to change or repent from an ungodly, chaotic, ruinous and retrogressive way of life to a godly, harmonious, prosperous and progressive way of life, it is often as a result of the unsavoury shared and lived experiences of the people.
While the majority of the suffering masses would often have no awareness as to the reasons behind their hardship and difficult life, the few thinking men and women are compelled and are expected to use their brain power to figure out the social and spiritual problems of their society.
Similarly, people of conscience who are like social and spiritual barometers are very sensitive to the two contiguous extremes of the swings of good and evil. When the few-gifted men/women of conscience see their society in distress, they feel and share the pain of the intense suffering of the people around them. At that instance, they are moved or inspired to raise their voices as they call and advise the people to change or to repent from their wayward ways.
When peace, progress and prosperity are lacking in the community/nation, they will also advise the people to consider making a detour from their present unwholesome, irrational way of life to an alternative (suggested) wholesome and more rational way of life that will surely bring benefit to all.
In the ancient times, “Thus says the Lord” was the weapon of fear used by seers and poets as the alarm bell to wake up a community that is sleep walking into perdition. In the modern time, facts and figures derived through scientific investigations and researches are the weapon of reason available to prick the conscience of the leaders and to awaken the consciousness of the people and nations facing the imminent danger of existential risks.
Are Nigerians Ready for True Change?
Nigeria is in such a dire situation as she is speedily trending towards the extinction level. At this juncture of national paralysis and confusion, Nigerians ought to listen to the voice of reason and be receptive to the truth being told about our wretched human existence. Nigerians must be prepared to jettison the prevailing inhuman cultural practices that are totally permissive and self-serving with no room for love, mercy and compassion.
There is an urgent need for Nigerians, individually and collectively, to re-examine our philosophy of life. What are the governing principles that dictate political, economic and social actions and non-actions in our societies? We need to update our individual morality and national ethics based solely on reason and rational principles. In fact, the total gamut of the local and national cultural practices, particularly our soul-killer religious beliefs, must be turned inside out if we intend to avoid the Sword of Damocles hovering over the country.
The question is still hanging in the sky, Are Nigerians, individually and collectively really ready for True Change? The next few months will tell how strongly serious we are about a True Change.
In The Spirit of Truth
SAM ABBD ISRAEL
samabbdisrael@msn.com
SAM ABBD ISRAEL 