So, What Has Changed?
Ihave been waiting and been in search, but it keeps looking elusive. Don’t know when I’d find it. What is it you are looking for? Perhaps I can help you find it.
Em, em, it is not an object per se. It is an experience. Not an object? So what is that experience? Is it without name?
I am not in the mood for rapid rounds of questions. I am in a frantic search for the new dawn promised by this government. It has been a very long night.The more the new dawn beckons, the more the dark night envelopes us all. It looks like the waiting will be forever, as if we are waiting for Godot.
(bursts out in loud laughter). New dawn! You mean you are still in darkness? You have not seen the new dawn?
You don’t need binoculars to see that the misty dawn is already here. You should be able to observe the features of a new dawn, made less clear by the thick mist. Soon, the sun will rise and it will become all very bright and clear.
It looks like you are speaking in parables. What do you mean by misty dawn?
You must understand that not every break of day comes bright and shiny. This is one of them. But with the rise of the sun, the mist will clear and everything will be bright and fair.
I still feel we are in thick darkness. We are still groping for direction in this government. That is what I am saying. We cannot feel the misty dawn you are talking about. All we see and hear is a very long night of Babellian dialogue moderated by confused leaders.The features of the promised dawn are still miles away. We only imagine their reality and hope we touch it while we yet breathe.
The things we see are not cheering. Or did you not hear that about N400 billion is paid as bribe every year in Nigeria? This is from a government institution, Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Did you not hear that the Nigeria Police and the Nigerian judiciary are the worst culprits? Does this not worry you? Are these not the things this government said would change? Those are the two organs of dispensing justice—police and judiciary. And if they are deeply imperiled by bribe taking, are we not all doomed? Did you not hear the allegation of Senator Hamman Missau on the corruption of the Police? Have we not been assailed by the mess in the judiciary? With that huge sum offered as bribe every year, where is the misty dawn you are talking about? Is it not the continuation of the status quo ante, in another style and by new characters? So what has changed?
Hmmmmm, you have raised a lot of issues. You do not understand the depth from which the present government is struggling to pull Nigeria from. Look, it was really very bad before this government came for this rescue mission. We probably would have been all doomed. You are struggling to see the misty dawn because of the thick and sticky darkness we were plunged into by the previous government. That is why the sun is taking time to rise to clear the mist so we can experience brightness. But soon, very soon, you will see what I am saying.
You are still rambling. What are the signs that the new dawn will be here soon?
You are looking for sign? Just this week, did you not hear that the EFCC recovered, within the first eight months of this year alone, the sum of N409 billion, $69,501156.67; 231,118 British Pounds; 610,816.20 Euros; Dirham 443,400 and 70,500.00 Saudi Riyal? And that N329 Billion was also recovered from a group of oil marketers for the NNPC, just as the anti-graft agency has secured 137 convictions within the period? Did you also not hear that the Ministry of Agri…
(cuts in) Oh, please, please, spare me those dry and opaque statistics that do not help our course. Of what use are those fabled recoveries when people are dying of hunger and poverty? Where are all the monies they claim to have recovered all these years? We keep hearing of huge recovered loot. Where are they? Have they been re-looted? Why is this government behaving like Chukwuemeka Ezeife, former governor of Anambra State who saved up so much money in the treasury while the state and its people languished in lack and squalor until the military seized power and threw him out of office?
And talking about 137 convictions, why have the big thieves of the land not been convicted? Why is the EFCC elated about convicting bread and goat thieves while the mega thieves are left alone?
As I said, you will begin to see all the changes on board, just a little patience. You must realise that corruption has been struggling to fight back.
It remains mere illusion. As long as Mr President still leads the pack of medical tourists, Babachir Lawal remains unpunished for unholy grass-cutting deal, the big men of the land still send their children to schools abroad, university teachers and medical doctors still embark on indefinite and incessant strikes, appointments sacrifice merit and ethnocentric, terrorists and kidnappers still harass us, I will continue to search for the promised change.
Don’t be a pessimist. Rome was not built in a day.