Our leaders got talents! — Femi Adeoti Column

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FEMI ADEOTI COLUMN

Ours are intentional leaders. Always deliberate. Their body language,
actions and inactions showcase this. Lucky us, you would want to say.
Not really so. Why?
They’re usually conscious for the wrong reason. They are self-obsessed
in their weird calculations. Egocentrism and self-centredness! All of
these take the better part of them.
The reason they cherish with relish: Policy summersault, postponement,
derailment, abandonment, failure, renunciation, et al. They exhibit
these evil traits with bizarre audacity.
There’s no known policy of theirs that has not summersaulted! Others
postponed. Yet some others suffer outright derailment. None is spared.
Not one is free from their assault and onslaught.
This species of leaders! They blossom in the thick of serious crisis.
What they can’t attempt does not exist. They would make policy, at the
same speed work against it. With the same temerity. Can you beat that?
They would lay ambush for their own policy. Plant land mines for its
collapse. Imagine. That has become the norm. Their capability for the
devilish knows no bounds. It is the way our queer leaders are
structured. They are wrongly wired. It’s nauseating, disgusting. We
are at their mercy.
We have come to live with it. There’s no running away from the fact.
It is the stark reality. Dumped on our fragile laps. We must confront
the demon headlong.
In this clime, our clandestine leaders generate crisis. They fuel it.
They create problems they don’t intend to solve. Instead, they invent
more.
They wilfully make it to linger. Attracting immense wrecks in its
trail. We are perpetually at the receiving head. And visiting on us
negative multiplier effects.
Then, they reach for their strange template. It is there for their
asking. Shamelessly, they tell us in unserious terms: “We are on top
of the situation.”
Liars all! They never were for once. They allow the crisis to fester
out of control. They feign seriousness. In reality, the situation has
run them aground.
Every derailment leaves us with everlasting scars. On each policy
summersault: We lick our deep wounds in great pains. We mourn, moan,
groan and weep. That is our cruel cross.
Our rulers, nobody but them alone! They would be convinced within
themselves. That the policy would not work. That it wouldn’t be
feasible and viable.
Yet, they throw their heartless hearts into it. They pursue it with
all the crude strength in them. And deploy all resources. From the
kick-off, it was glaring it would hit the rocks, hard.
They remain adamant and defiant. They push on like never before. The
means justifies the end. In another odd breath, they work secretly to
discredit the same policy. Their ultimate goal is its monumental
crumble. These characters got talents!
The naira re-colouration is one outstanding sampler. Arguably, the
most spectacular.  It’s graphical in all its ramifications. And it is
on going without end.
Hail Godwin Emefiele, Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). He
remains the star of the show. You dare not take the shine off him. He
fights tooth and nail to retain the title.
See the enormous efforts he sinks into its colossal failure. The
policy he conceptualised and midwifed. He couldn’t nurture into it
maturity. His liver could not see him through.
He lost his courage. Pity, it failed him woefully. His will evaporated
into the whirled winds. He crumpled it by himself, to his own
detriment. We are glad he did what he did. They claim the cashless
policy is still alive, but grossly epileptic.
Naira renovation’s dreaded cousin is the fuel subsidy removal. It’s
also unending. The two have become our tormentors, terrible recurring
decimals.
The duo ought to touch our dear lives dearly, positively. The two
should be the pillars that hold our lives. But not with our rulers!
They would not let them be. They turned them against us. They used
them to torture us endlessly.
They redesigned our black gold. It became our trauma, misery. They
restructured the naira, it turned affliction for us. The injuries we
sustained have refused to heal. No respite in sight.
The truth is that they never prepared for policies. They never wanted
to implement them for our collective good. The reason none ever
worked. They are forever selfish and dastardly. They never cared a
hoot for us.
Their sinister template is the same shame. It’s equally permanent. It
changes not, yesterday, today and perhaps, tomorrow. They are
meticulous about it. They pay diligent attention to evil details.
With deliberate intention, they would stoke a crisis. They do it
through a policy statement. They would make it profitable. They would
harvest it and cart away their loots. That done.
The policy abandoned midway. They move on with their plunder.
Regardless of whatever becomes of our fate. We’re left in the cold as
usual. And that becomes a part of us.
That’s exactly what Emefiele and cohorts did to us. They literally
killed us dead. We are yet to comprehend the real reason for his
dastard acts.
One open fact we are convinced of: Our leaders are negatively endowed.
We can’t risk doubting that. Their recklessness is in huge abundance
and in all spheres.
The reason they are in perpetual free fall. They fumble, stumble,
bobble, boggle, falter and stagger all the way. Sure, our leaders got
talents. Testimonies are in leaps and bounds.
This testifier will shock you. Alhasan Ado-Doguwa, can you place him?
He trended again last week. Anyway, he is actually Alhassan Ado Garba,
Majority Leader, House of Representatives.
He represents Doguwa/Tudun Wada Federal Constituency, Kano State
(APC). His mission is to be the next Speaker.
And his approach demonstrates he’s got eerie talent. He believes
leadership begins at home. He may be right. Yes. In fact, he has his
undisputed proof.
He has fathered 28 children. He used four wives to perform this feat.
And still counting for both wives and children. What further evidence?
He wondered aloud.
He flaunted the hard stuff he thinks he is made of. He is more of a
comedian: “For those who refer to me as a high-level temperamental
person, they have misperceived Ado Doguwa, the man who has four wives
and 28 children.” The queer reason he thinks he must be Speaker.
Even more than that: “I have never had a divorce. That shows I have
what it takes to excel as the next Speaker.”
This is how he intends running his show: “I will be a carpet for
Nigerians to march or walk on.” Who else can be Speaker? Nobody but
Doguwa? He holds on tenaciously to his freaky credentials. They form
the bedrock of his pursuit.
Doguwa has his controversial past. Some of the issues involved are
still lingering. They are actually hanging on his neck. He is
currently on trial. He faces criminal conspiracy, culpable homicide,
unlawful possession of firearm, mischief and public disturbance.
As a matter of fact, he was arrested on February 28, 2023. A stark
reality he cannot wilfully wish away. It haunts and hunts him. His
arrest was effected at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport,
Kano.
He was trying to board a flight to Abuja. Trust a federal lawmaker of
his awkward status. He secured his release through bail.
Will that derail his ambition? He bothers not. Why he’s got the
talent! And he vaunts it for whoever cares to listen. He seals it this
manner:
“At one point, I was distressed knowing that a guilty man who was
charged for a case like this would not have gone for a supplementary
election and won the way and manner I did.”
Our leaders’ talents spread indiscriminately. And the population
census fell for it. It became a prey. We were convinced it couldn’t
have escaped our leaders’ talent. It couldn’t have survived. It must
go the way of old. And it went unchallenged, unchecked.
After going back and forth many times, it did the expected. It came,
saw and crashed. Our rulers collapsed it after reaping it open and
milking it dry. They cashed in bountifully from its bloated
“planlessness.”
The drivers of the census were in sincerely insincere. They were
grossly ill-prepared for the job. Nothing practical was put on ground
to demonstrate their seriousness.
And they knew it. Yet, they pretended to forge ahead. In outright
blindness! That showcased they got curious talents inside of them.
So? When President Muhammadu Buhari applied his big hammer. Even,
Nasir Isa Kwarra, applauded. He’s chairman, National Population Census
(NPC). He supervises the body that couldn’t simply count us.
Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, came
calling, March 2022. He made some startling revelations. We chose to
ignore him to our peril.
He did a recap in Abuja: “So far, the government has committed
N291.5billion ($632 million) to the census, making it 46 per cent of
the total funding for the census. An additional (immediate) sum of
N327.2 billion ($709.9 million) is required to complete the census.”
In case we forgot: “The last census in Nigeria was conducted in 2006.
In 2014, the previous government proposed another census for 2016 in
line with the UN recommendation for decennial census.
“That administration exited in 2015 without accomplishing the wish.
From 2015 to 2016, the country slipped into recession. In 2020,
COVID-19 disrupted plans for the exercise.
“The census was rescheduled for March 2023, but now recommended to
hold in May 2023. The census was initially planned for 2022, but was
moved to 2023 after the election.” Agba was on spot.
The census was eventually shifted to May 3-5, 2023. Buhari shifted it
twice in eight years. This third time, he nailed it indefinitely.
He didn’t care to appropriate a date to it. Just like his unending
fuel subsidy removal. As usual, he passed the buck to the in-coming
government.
Even in Hadi Sirika, Minister of Aviation, our leaders got talent.
Remember his boast? In August 2021, he beat his fleshy chest. He vowed
Nigeria would manufacture a plane before Buhari’s regime expires.
His exact words: “I think the first one or two aircraft will happen
here in Nigeria and to fly them within the remaining four months that
we have as a government.”
Sirika ended it in mere rhetoric. It was not meant to be a reality.
That was as far as his talent could carry him. The aircraft was
manufactured and it flew. All in his delusion and illusion.
Our leaders’ talents are legion and limitless. You can’t comprehend
their uncanny impudence. You keep on admiring them the negative way.
On a silver platter, the National Assembly landed a whopping N22.7
trillion on Buhari’s laps. They did that a few days to his anticipated
departure for Daura.
Senate Leader, Ibrahim Gobir laboured hard to persuade us: “Part of
the Ways and Means (WAM) monies were given to state governments as
loans to augment budgetary shortfall.”
His breakdown is more nauseating than convincing. A report: “The
Senate Leader said the panel (Special Committee) discovered that the
Ways and Means balance was initially N19.3 trillion as of June 30,
2022 but later grew to N22.7 trillion as of December 19, 2022 as a
result of financial obligations to on going capital projects and
additional expenditures including domestic debt service gaps and
interest rate.
“He noted that the Senate, on Wednesday, December 28, 2022, approved
N819.53 billion from the N1trillion additional request made by the
President, leaving an outstanding balance of N180.4 billion, being the
accrued interest on the sum.”
As hard as Gobir tried, he couldn’t cajole us. We refused to be swayed
from our firm conviction. He rather got us deeply confused. The
lawmakers called it Ways and Means provision. We called it take-away
package.
This flashback is extremely germane: Simon Cowell once had a dream. As
time went by, the vision became clearer. He conceptualised a strange
idea. In 2005, it became a reality. He mooted it. Got Talent is it! It
became an instant success. It caught fire across the globe.
Our own fashion, Nigeria’s Got Talent, berthed in 2012. The  debut was
a huge smash hit on AIT and NTA, sponsored by Airtel.
Cowell couldn’t have seen tomorrow. Only God can. When he was mooting
his Got Talent. He never knew what he was stirring in our generation
of odd leaders. It never occurred to him Nigerians would mess it up
this deep. Courtesy: our erratic leaders.
This is not what Cowell thought. This is not what he had in mind. Our
leaders were not in his reckoning. We have got to be eternally
grateful to him. From him, they drew their strange talents. He gave
them the needed inspiration.
See what our rulers have made out of an ordinary television reality
show. Our leaders really got quack talents. Confirmed. They have
bastardised a global franchise.
They went more than extra miles. They improved on what Cowell dumped
on us. In short, they decentralized it. They took it to their infamous
“next level.”
They hijacked it. And tore it into dirty shreds. Reason: Our leaders
got dubious talents. It’s given!