There is always a butt!!!

Nigeria is good at “managing” any situation until bad becomes worse. They then “manage” worse until it becomes worst. Finally, they “manage” worst condition until it becomes a wash-out. Remember the story of the frog in the water over the fire burner? If you place the frog in boiling water, it jumps out of it one time fai! But if you place the frog in water that progressively gets hotter and hottest, it would manage and manage until the water is boiling and the frog with it. The energy to jump out of the water had gone into its management and the frog is boiled and gone. That’s Nigeria and Nigerians, expert “managers”!

Four regimes lasting longer than any other regimes in Nigerian political history mark out the periods of managing bad to worse to worst to wash-out of Nigeria. The first is the military regime from 1966 to 1999. We simmered in mediocrity with moments and even seconds of possibility of jumping out of the boiling water.

The second regime of “suffering and smiling” because we were “managing” was the Babangida regime from 1985 to 1993. We permanently devalued our currency, with little help from the greatest benefactors from such decisions. We enthroned corruption and gave the twins immunity a nd impunity freeness in both our public and private spaces. And we dribbled ourselves to immobility where stepping aside was the only possibility.

The third regime of wallowing in worst is the Obasanjo regime of 1999 to 2007. Too late, the realization that if a Lee Kuan Yew tactics of limited democracy could be applied we could in fact quit this worse condition. But then it was too late for a third term of office to jump out of the roiling mess.

The fourth and lasting wash-out began in 2015. It is still on-going. It is marked by mature boko-haramism, which we had “managed” from mere shariahrism to islamism. Other children have followed the twins Taiwo-Immunity and Kehinde-Impunity with the Yoruba sequential naming rites of Idowu-Looting and Alaba-Kidnapping. We are now permanently in a static condition of insecurity. It is almost too late to wake up and lift ourselves out of the wash-out. We have so “managed” so successfully that what Taiwo and Kehinde could not achieve, Idowu and Alaba have produced. We can now die in peace.

The road to this point has been smooth because of our “management” skills. The first stop on this side road was the discovery that if the minority tribes joined together, they could overwhelm the majority wazobian tripartite danger. To this end we decided to resolve the matter of the minorities after independence. The British colonial government agreed with the tripartite and nothing was to be done until the minorities could help solve our management challenges. And the challenge? The Bia element of the tripartite thought it was time to spring out of the condition that was getting worse than colonialism itself. Give the minorities their own regions but ensure that one-third will always be larger than two-thirds. In this way, the minorities got lost in the majorities. They have not been heard from since Dr. Goodluck Jonathan who was not a good doctor, and although he had a lot of patience he had no luck in getting a second term.

The second stop on the road side was the issue of fractions. After all a fractious society must be good in fractions. The first fraction problem is the one where one-third is bigger than two-thirds. In a federation we agreed theoretically that all parts must be equal never mind their sizes and population figures. We can “manage” and God will help us.

Every year thereafter we helped the one-third to get bigger and to sit more comfortably on the two-thirds. Ass it was at the beginning, ass it will be, world without.

The next stop, the third stop on the side road is the generalized accepted poverty of the bigger one-third. To the shrine of poverty more sacrifices must pour from the common pool. So, there must be special education, long distance and moving all the time. The infrastructure must also be long distance and moving. All of which take time. And time as we all know is money. More and more money. May Allah reward the logic of Nigeria!

The fourth stop on the road side is the moment of truth when the peasant radicals of the one-third discovered that they had nothing in common with the labourer radicals of the two-third. Radicalism could not unite the tripartite radicals. They could not work together never mind Marx and Engels, Lenin and Mao, Fanon and Nkrumah and so on and so forth.

The fifth stop on the road side is the political formula of a little to the right and a little to the left. All we need are two political parties in the country. One must be left leaning while the other must be right wing. It would suit the country fine since already the one-third is mainly right wing while the two-third is left leaning. But, (there is always a ‘butt’ in Nigeria), by the time the two parties arrived the same people are who are members are also both left leaning and right wing. Every good idea is butted out of existence in this country through our management expertise.

The last stop on this side road is the wisdom that the two-third must not conspire against the one third and through superior argument put the country on the right path once and for all time. In the first place, it is not ethical to conspire. Conspire is a bad word. There were times when the two-thirds almost thought the unthinkable. They could include the children of the one-third in their radical development programmes of education and health and general welfare. But the part of the two-third rejected such thinking. And so, ass it was in the beginning, ass it is, and ass it will be, world without. Amin and thanks to Soyinkese!
bankole.omotoso@elizadeuniversity.edu.ng