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When Not to Shade Crocodile Tears By Najeeb A. A. Gambo
In my 35 year sojourn on earth, I have seen the good, the bad and possibly the heartless, but my latest encounter with the people we have elected some few years back forced me to realize the intricacies of life and its vicissitude.
It sufficed to bring the issue to lime light so that the Nigerian populace should know how our elected representative from my constituency came to our ‘rescue’ at a critical period of our times.
It all began a day after Sallah (Eid il Fitr) on our way back from condolence at Gumel (a local Government in Jigawa state) to Dutse (Jigawa State capital) when an Okada (Going/Achaba) man in their usual manner tried to ‘kisses’ the front of our speeding car (Carina) carrying my junior brother and myself. In an attempt to avoid head on collision, our driver meandered but unfortunately for us, the car looses control and the next thing we were uttering was “Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un”.
After a minute or so, we all wake up to realize that our bodies were oozing out blood and I was the first person to regain my consciousness and struggled to come out from the car. Later on, I was able to help the two remaining passengers from the car.
As usual, the passers by came to offer helping hands and we were led under the shade of a tree before the return of our advance team whom I called to inform them about the ‘little’ hitch we had with our vehicle.
As people were struggling to mobilize an evacuation vehicle for us, a ‘respite’ came to our way when I noticed the arrival of the incumbent Chairman of my home town (Gumel) along with State House of Assembly Members representing Gumel and Gagarawa who stood to ‘offer’ a helping hand.
The Chairman came and looked at my younger brother and sympathizes with his condition and at the same time asked some people to call NURTW officials in nearby Gujungu to convey us to the nearest Jahun General Hospital.
On hearing that, I told him that the boy is the son of someone from his local government, but unfortunately the ‘honourable’ failed to intuitively realize his mandate of rescuing the victim with all means available at his disposal.
My astonishment was none of them (the Chairman and House of Assembly members) was willing to sacrifice his ‘Prestige’ (Peugeot) to rescue us from that situation for the fear of blood stains that will make caricature to their lavish interior of their ‘prestigious vehicles’. The highest support they gave was to ask some people to extend the message to NURTW in near by town with out even mobilizing the messengers.
Here are the people I believe we elected and acquired the ‘Prestige’ based on our mandate but are so heartless to offer a rapid response with their vehicles, I believe even if we are their staunch enemies, the most wisest thing they could do at our trying moments is to offer their support with the view of winning our hearts as their adversaries. But in Nigerian politics that wasn’t the order. With or without your votes they are sure of their seat provided they will do the bidding of their godfathers.
I am still levitating on the episode on how non honorificabilitudinitatibus their ‘rescue’ was! I believe morality entails helping both the one you know and the one you know not regardless of someone’s ethnicity, tribe, region or religion.
Alhamdulillah, as ‘honourables’ were busy finding someone to send to NURTW, our advance party team came on board and evacuated us to Jahun General Hospital where we received treatments.
At the moment I ‘m still at home nursing my lacerations and thanking Allah for sparing our lives without having fractured bones.
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