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BURNING POT BY PRINCE CHARLES DICKSON
Al-Mustapha, And Rumour Nigeriastani
A Tiv adage, says, a lizard that views a python with disregard will find itself in the belly of the snake. (Whoever disdains obvious danger will suffer dire consequences)
In recent weeks some one million Nigerians
have been treated to the Lagos Mexican soap in one small court room in
Igbosere. Yes barely a million because the other real one hundred
million plus cannot seem to understand what the noise is about. The man at the centre of attraction is once upon a strong man called Al-Mustapha, after 12 years incarceration, we are being treated to what I called Nigeriastani.
Nigeriastani is a situation that comes
about as a result of lies, half-truths, propaganda, misinformation,
disinformation, revelation, all sorts of vines and grapevine, gist,
rumours, gossips and whether you like it or not truth. In Nigeriastani, whether you have the FOI Bill, or it is the BOI bill, we are still a far away off the mark in knowing the truth about so many issues about the Nigerian state.
Too many secrets of nationhood, yet they are not classified. In Nigeriastani, you never reveal anything until the actors are dead.
Nigeriastani is the place where Abiola
died, how, and why, remains part of the soap. Despite all the
revelations, breaking news and new- breaking, we never will know the
real truth. Rumours aplenty about the man Abiola, himself, his past and
his rise and even in death will continue to mean different things to
different people. Like did Abiola pay to have a truckload of Bibles sunk in the high or is it low sea...only in Nigeriastani!
In Nigeriastani, a man called IBB 'allegedly' killed Dele Giwa, until the man IBB dies we will never know what really transpired, who really whacked the gulf billions, does the man have properties in Israel, Rome, Paris and even in hell. What exactly the truth is, we never may know.
Did he kill the junior officers in Ejigbo crash, how about Vatsa...?
On several occasions, we have been treated to the gist that Obasanjo is originally Igbo, with so much debate, who really cares about who he slept with and who he did not, if not the people of Nigeriastani?
In Nigeriastani, we hear, we gathered, according to reliable sources, yet chances are that it may just be one big beer parlour induced contraption, for all the efforts, years after we are still treated to several versions of the gospels of Bola Ige, Harry Marshal, Dikibo, Funsho Williams, the list is endless, add that to the Rewanes, Kudirats, you just wonder what a people.
In Nigeriastani, you get to hear that one former vice president is a homosexual and even the present one too, you don’t need proof, just go to the market and you are guaranteed consumers for your stories.
I recall the hot story of how the late Abacha killed his first son in a plane crash because X did not follow Y but choose C.
Only recently we heard a lot of stories about Turai Yar'adua and how she was in charge, to the point even our own ex-minister Dora was cooking for her.
Today we are treated to how Patient abi na Patience is doing a repeat, if she is not buying an oil well, she is controlling the rest of us. That is when she is not fighting Mr. President's 'girlfriend'...
Talking of Mr. President, the amiable man without shoes, so many gist about him, for example, that those kids in the family portrait belong to some other woman, or that he is being controlled by 'you all know'.
Is it true that the President was being affected by juju?
How did Yar'adua die, who spoke to BBC, all those Jeddah information and signatures, how did they come about, is it true that his elder brother was injected, by whom, for what purposes?
I do not know if it is true that there is an agenda to Islamize Nigeria, and funds are coming from A, B and F...same time Jonathan is Christianizing the power bloc and poverty is on the rampage dealing with Muslims, Christians and pagans alike.
In Nigeriastani, we elevate gossip to national discuss, fight ethnic wars based on unverifiable facts. In our national life, there are very thin lines between the fact and the truth. It may 6pm, but not 6th of August, and it may 6billion naira but not 6 persons. It’s often all muddled up.
Can anyone confirm that Tinubu smokes weed, I hear that Fashola also takes small too, and after all our generals and top shots also take Benelyn with codeine cough syrup to stay ‘high’ to the whims and caprice of an impoverished populace.
Death threats and brown envelopes won’t allow journalists get the job done, and then ethnic agenda and bias keep others mute, others are stifled because the thief is practicing their religion.
Security operatives can’t do much because
of officialdom. They beat cats until the cats accept to be leopards.
In Nigeriastani, once you become a selected public official, you naturally have to start an affair, its public gist who is sleeping with who, ig its not that former fair minister of that sleeping with the handsome former head of state, it is the governor in some middle belt state losing his belt with a commissioner.
As the Al-Mustapha episode continues we are just doing the familiar dance. Nothing really is new, only more questions even when the old ones are still begging for answers
The popular Oputa panel came and went with
all its intrigues, as is the case every circumstance in Nigeriastani is
situated to benefit a group of persons, a section, a faith and we keep
living on falsehoods. Fact is that behind every rumour there is an element of truth, our case as Nigerians defies this statement, because for us, for every truth there is an element of lies.
For issues that are true, we have refuse to tackle them, we are threatened by the phenomena called Boko Haram, we are harassed by the conglomeration called PDP, we fight ourselves over type of banking, who it benefits, and who should be the next this, his faith and ethnic group.
Meanwhile the sad truth is that in July 2011 quoting the Economic Confidential magazine there was a ‘triple allocations’ that was disbursed to the three tiers of government during the monthly meeting of the Federation account Allocation Committee (FAAC). The total sum from the allocations was N1.5 Trillion. The allocations came from Statutory and VAT disbursement, Budget Differential Bonus and from Excess Crude Account.
From the three allocations oil producing states have the highest allocations: Akwa Ibom State received a total sum of N53.2bn, followed by Rivers N52.1bn, Delta N44.3bn and Bayelsa N33.5bn. Lagos and Kano states received N22.6 and N22.8bn respectively.
The lowest recipients from the triple allocations are Ekiti State N9.6bn, Gombe N9.2bn, Nasarawa N8.9bn and Ebonyi N8.5bn. On the other hand the federal government received a total sum of N480billion from the triple allocation.
Where all these monies are...rumour has it that, in the hands of few while the majority suffers. N1.5 Trillion spent on rumour...
Gossip has it that they really don’t care how we feel, so they go appointing aides and squandering our collective wealth while we continue to live an existence of falsehood and rumours.
NB. As this was going to press, there were rumours of the death of Dim, Ojukwu, the former Biafran walord and rallying point for the Igbos... |