BURNING POT BY PRICE CHARLES DIC

BURNING POT BY PRICE CHARLES DICKSON

Nigerians And That Tinted Glass Mentality

Where there are two/three/four and more rich Nigerian politicians/leaders there is laughter in their midst, and often it is a tinted atmosphere. #amebo#

For purpose of this essay, let me quickly say irrespective of all that the traffic acts stipulates, what the police says and police did not say on the tinted glass matter, in summary, a layman's definition of a tint--a tint is a chemical or nylon put in or on a glass that makes it unable for you to see those inside, and in cases guarantees the privacy of those inside, in other words, there's often a blurred picture of what one sees.

Over the week, a friend of mine brought to my knowledge again the farce called leadership in Africa's biggest nation. He said to me "Mallam, have you seen the federal executive council (FEC) meeting pictures, imagine the way they are laughing, and exchanging banters?"

I quickly looked it up on my NAN Wednesday picture schedule. I saw it, I understood it, not that it was new, but it is the focus of my admonition this week. A collection of ministers and aides all laughing and exchanging banters. After all, contracts have been awarded...to friends and associates, you don't expect them to cry.

Beyond tinted and veiled condemnation on Baga, other killings and kidnap cases nationwide, our leaders simply live a tinted existence. They just laugh and make comedy of the serious issues bedeviling the nation.

I further looked up more pictures on the newspapers and watched events on television for the week, it only further confirmed that while Nigerians complain, suffer, groan under all forms of hardship. Our leaders are inside a tinted vehicle, inside tinted offices and get to homes with tint.

We cannot see them, and when they manage to see us, they really careless. When we see them, we really can do nothing. We are victims of the tint, a psychological state that make Nigerians behave normal in the light of crass abnormality. Between the led and leaders is a tragic case of blurred vision.

A nation of politicians with tinted hearts, lacking in focus, consistent in inconsistency, versed in policy somersaults and a people in dire need of visionary leaders but too tinted we cannot differentiate.

With tints, a whole nation lives a rumor, just a matter regarding the future status of NECO/JAMB is left as a dark matter. A minister for education, a junior minister, two education committees at the National Assembly, scores of aides and assistants yet we are all rabble-rousing in a nation that spends less than 5% on education.

In Anambra 23 illegal refineries were discovered, 23 excluding those that have not been discovered. Excludes those in Bayelsa, Rivers, Edo and other core oil areas. These are tints, with all these bunkering and stealing, we pay N97, and behind the tint they steal billions in subsidy.

While the South sympathizes with the North on Boko Haram, the Southwest is tinting itself with notoriety in kidnappings, fulani herdsmen at war with farmers in Delta, in Benue, in Kogi, and we can't see each other because we wear tinted shades.

Tinted people that negotiate with ghosts, arrest ghosts, prosecute ghosts...one marvels, but really, it should not be surprising as they see things we can't see.

When a Minister is never owed, has water running from taps in his/her high brow home, barbed security wired high walls, domestic help and best of education for his/her ward--He/she simply suffers a wide disconnect, his/her reasoning is defect and in his/her tinted existence believes his/her doing well translates to everything being fine--Nigerians don't see well so we just nag and complain.

On the other hand because we can't see the inside, we make tinted comments, he can steal as long as he's from my side of the wood. She can mismanage funds as long as its our money. Those muslims, the christians, its the ibos fault, crazy hausas, foolish yorubas and many more veiled comments that only expose our ignorance and tinted nature and victimology.

The Federal Government within the week said it is looking beyond Nigerian banks to raise $3.4bn needed to fund power projects in the country "because of high interest rates being charged on loans by local banks." The effect of the tint, the rates are high, small scale business people are on their own while government goes abroad for funds yet the collective wealth of the poor services the interests both low and high.

On the little matter of tinted glasses on cars--does a goat eat bone, and in local parlance 'who dash monkey banana'. Of the several million plus cars plying our roads, how many 'poor people' that can manage a car, have cars with real tinted glasses?

Victims of the tint, N-Delta oil bunkerers tell FG they want amnesty, in Abia kidnappers say they deserve a feel of the tint, and in Edo new militants decry non-inclusion in the tint called amnesty. Rather than solve pressing security issues we are sharing monies.

The Yorubas say Bí ekòló bá kọ ebè, ara-a rẹ̀ ni yó gbìn sí i. Literally if a worm makes a heap, it is itself that it will plant in it. (The consequences of a person's actions will fall on the person's own head.) There's need for us as a people to eliminate bottlenecks like the traffic acts tint rule and face the issues, the world is moving and would not wait for Nigeria.

It is when the snail wants to invite death that it lays eggs. (A person who knows an action will be disastrous but carries it our anyway deserves what he gets.) Government must and by encouraging private participation invest in infrastructure, education, healthcare and importantly remove tints that block participatory governance or else, Boko in the haram is just letter B after A, there will be coko, doko, eoko, and down to zoko haram.

If fish sleeps, fish will devour fish.(If one does not wish to be taken advantage of, one must be ever watchful.) Do we sleep and remain victims only to be eaten because of those that laugh at our woes--only time will tell.