Nigerian rulers lack empathy

By Tony Afejuku

This is perhaps the most dangerous time for anyone who is not in politics to be a Nigerian.

Perhaps. Yes, perhaps. Even if you are in politics, and do not belong to the groups or factions in power, you are just there as reeds floating endlessly nowhere. The ruling ones are tormenting us.

The rulers are leading Nigerians to a dangerous bend leading all of us to a dangerous destination more dangerous than danger.

The destination will not even favour them at the end of the day – after all is said and done. They do not yet know this even though they posit that the work they are doing or have done will take Nigerians into the world totally and positively different from the one we know now. This is wishful thinking. What they posit is a mere illusion. He who trusts them does so at his peril. Do not ask the glitterer why. Yet the evidence is all about us.

Let the glitterer be clear. All Nigerian politicians of the present time are the same. Those who are not firing the shots are of the same hue as those firing the shots. They are the same characters found in the manuscript of Nigerian politics. They are characters who are not characters in the manuscript of Nigerian politics carved in stone by a god, an invisible god, an invisible sculptor-god, whose efforts of flesh-and-blood human beings end up producing not flesh-and-blood human beings. In other words, they are characters carved into the manuscript of Nigerian politics by an invisible sculptor-god – an entity whose efforts to mold flesh-and-blood human beings end up producing something entirely unhuman.

Thus the characters cannot but be perceived by the glitterer as those who belong to the Nigerian political system. He is drawing attention to the illusion of choice as the next elections are approaching. The politicians currently in power in the respective parties and those in the opposition or on the sidelines exhibit no real difference.

They all belong to the same political class and share the same flaws. No matter who takes office, for example, as president next year, political events and behaviours are already written down like a predictable drama. No matter who is president of our country – or who takes office as the governor of this or that state – they follow the exact same pre-determined script.

Systematic dehumanisation has been our lot year in year out. The sculptor-god is not leaving Nigerians alone. This is the huge reason why, for instance, Emilokan has not kept any of his pre-2023 presidential election promises to us. The invisible, systemic force (the sculptor-god), inherent in the Nigerian political structure, and to whom our politicians probably made sacrifices – and with whom they share a symbiotic relationship thereafter – compels them to do as they please with us.

When normal, well-meaning people (“flesh-and-blood human beings”) enter this political system, the machinery of power deforms them. They lose their humanity, empathy, and individuality, turning into rigid, unyielding “stone” characters who perpetuate the status quo.

Recently, our senate president was reported to have said that anyone who fails to die in his or her suicide attempt should be prepared for the consequences of their failed attempts. To avoid the consequences of failed suicide attempts, in other words, the survivors must make sure they die in their attempts. What compelled victims to attempt to kill themselves is immaterial.

To quote the senate president: “As far as we are concerned, suicide is a crime for now; if you attempt it, you better succeed. If you do not succeed, we send you to prison.” By treating a suicide attempt purely as a legal infraction, the justice system treats the underlying catalysts–such as severe clinical depression, mental health crises or the crushing weight of Nigeria’s current economic hardships–as completely irrelevant. The law punishes the symptom while ignoring the crises.

The Nigerian political system itself is a factory that strips leaders of their humanity, making every politician ultimately identical and immune to real change.

All in all, what the glitterer sees is changeless deception of change in 2027. The oppression, exploitation, hunger, darkness and suffering and suffering, and supremely iniquitous iniquities that underscore the severe post-colonial under-development of Nigeria will continue. But something that is something will break. Human beings who are human beings will descend not with flowers, but with angelic sword-pens to re-write Nigeria’s fate and turn it into destiny – the destiny of development that is development.

What should this essay be called? A very compelling prophecy of a detached observer in his Glittering Heights – from which he sees parachutes of wretches descending from the sky at the appointed time with the wretches brandishing Swords of Angels in obedience to our divine destiny’s command. Join the Glitterer in his Glittering Heights.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.