Communication collision, phariseesm and change management   

One man visited a native doctor (NDr)  and while trying to sit down, he embarrassingly farted, and loudly too. When the baffled NDr asked him which kin business be dis, he responded: well, it happened in your very before; that is why I am here. On 26/11/13, a group of rebel governors, led other nPDP members to join the APC and the great Lai Mohammed described the defection as a strategic merger that would give Nigeria and Nigerians a new lease of life. Five years down the line,  the same group of rebels formed the rAPC and decamped mostly to PDP and the same Lai declared: Today is a special day. God has answered our prayers by exposing our political traitors. God has removed stones from our rice. The first act of political harlotry was strategic while the second was divinely ordained to de-stone the APC rice.  About the same time, his Imperial Majesty, the  Chairman and Chief Executive  of APC and former Comrade,  Adams Oshiomhole,  threatened to sack Ngige from  APC and from the government. Ngige immediately gave it back to him: you ere because you do not know!( Mt, 22:29; Hosea, 4:2). As an aside, if Adams had inquired about the fate of the hen that perches on an ngige, (the rope used to hang clothes) he would have been more careful! Anyway, that is what this treatise is all about; the tendency to say opposing things depending on the time and circumstances or political brethren contradicting each other in the market square.

Communication collision occurs when what one said previously collides with what the same person says presently or when two people, supposedly in the same camp publicly contradict or lambast each other. It involves one contradicting himself, contradicting his comrade or contradicting the past with the present. Phariseesm is the height of holier than thou tendency, when somebody with a beam in his eyes is worrying about the speck in the eyes of another ( Mt., 7:5) or says one thing and does another ( Mt, 23:3).  Phariseesm is the same thing with hypocrisy and as Chia had warned, a hypocrite is more dangerous than a dishonest man because a dishonest man just deceives and cheats while a hypocrite betrays and swindles. In Nigeria, these are in the character of our politicians, but we have not seen this tendency at the level we have witnessed it in the past three years of change.

I will start  as the spirit directs. On 7/6/16, the President was jetting out on his usual medical tourism. He had heard so much groaning from Nigerians that his ears became troubled and he decided to seek medical attention abroad.  At the departure lounge,  President Muhammadu Buhari  told Nigerians that there was nothing wrong in a president being sick because he was human. But  at the same airport and at the same time, Femi Adesina, told a bewildered world that Buhari was not sick! In any case,  Candidate Buhari had decried medical tourism and swore that he would  patronize our general hospitals with us!  He had also outlawed  foreign medical treatment for government officials and despite the pledge of transparency refused to tell us what his medical treatment costs because it was/is a security issue.

On 26/4/17, Mohammed, who used social media with disastrous consequences against Jonathan publicly complained that his job was  being frustrated by these same social media operatives, who serve the people with incredible menu and unbelievable tales.  He further discovered that fake news and misinformation were the biggest obstacles to 2019 elections (25/10/17) and before long, the Federal Government started clamping down on the social media  because they were threats to national security while legislations against hate speech and false news surfaced. If only he had thought  along these lines four years ago!

In terms of lambasting and contradicting each other, we still recall the war between Kachikwu and Amaechi  on the issue of Maritime University, the same subject matter on which Shehu Sani reminded Amaechi that a town hall meeting was not a meeting of illiterates.  Sani later told the triple minister that Nigeria had moved from power epilepsy to power paralysis and that same minister had said that  a serious government would fix the power conundrum in a matter of weeks. Sani, an APC senator had also made the famous statement that while those enmeshed in corruption in the executive arm of APC government are refreshed with deodorant, others are treated with insecticides.  But it was on the issue of subsidy that government officials really spoke in tongues. As at now, we are told that there is no petroleum subsidy, even though there is under-recovery, or something like that, amounting to billions of Naira. But before now the communication on fuel subsidy has been nothing short of disastrous. When the APC government increased the price of fuel by 70%,  Kachikwu, who had declared that subsidy removal was unrealistic at his confirmation hearing, boldly  said that subsidy has been removed (11/5/16) while Amaechi  said we are not saying that subsidy has been removed (15/1/18)  and Lai added that removal of subsidy would create 200,000 jobs (14/5/16) and that fuel price was hiked because Nigeria was broke while Tinubu described removal of subsidy as a bold move (13/5/16) while Osinbajo  professorially declared that subsidy has not been removed, that what we had was just a price hike (14/5/16). PMB had earlier washed his hands off the matter when he declared before all this cacophony of voices that he did not understand what subsidy meant (24/5/15). And these are people that nearly  capsized the Nigerian boat over the issue of subsidy a few years ago! In 2011, Mohammed had described the removal of fuel subsidy is a great misadventure,  and declared  that  his party would provide good governance without removing fuel subsidy  but when it happened in 2016, Rufai pleaded for patience and calm.

To be continued tomorrow.
Muo wrote from Department of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye.