CRYING MORE THAN THE BEREAVED

When public officers turn on the waterworks in public for whatever reason, an alarmed public usually seeks the interpretation of those tears in line with the occasion on which they flowed as tears coming from a breed which power has made impervious and who are in a position to wipe the tears of their people would almost always be suspect.

Tears are as old as humanity and as humanity has mastered the many subtleties of self-expression, tears have come to assume a language and symbol of pain, sorrow, compassion and even joy. Indeed, in the watery language of tears, a thousand words find the symmetry of a flood.

Thus it recently happened that during a public prayer for Nigeria`s President, Muhammadu Buhari, whose continued absence from the country ostensibly on vacation has continued to stoke uncertainty and anxiety in the country, a very public officer was reduced to tears. While it is okay to cry when our hearts are so prodded by pain or sympathy, there is nothing wrong with our public officers sharing crucial puzzles of information with a public mostly famished for credible information from the highest corridors of power.

No sooner had President Buhari departed the country ostensibly on an 18-day vacation, that has now become interminable, than some quarters of Nigerians began to engage their now fabled proclivity for necromancy, and propensity for death wishes. So many different theories and stories energetically took wings and spread like wild fire. An alarmed presidency has since been forced to release a flurry of press statements seeking to assure a country that its first citizen lives and is only subject to the natural ravages of illness.

The futility of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted is an art perfected by the current government. Where ordinary Nigerians seek information and enlightenment, they are mostly left in the dark and being a people of storied enterprise and industry, they waste no time in concocting their own stories and theories, some elaborate to the point of hilarity.

A lot has been said and speculated about the president`s state of health even after reassurances and titbit of information from an increasingly suspect media team. Yet, many Nigerians remain in stark ignorance about the state and health of a man they euphorically ushered into power and branded their messiah two years ago.

Nigeria is a country of poor information management and even poorer image management.

Kenechukwu Obiezu, Abuja