Why This Change Must Start from the Top
The APC Change Mantra is akin to a child brutally smacked by his father, and at the same time asked not to cry. As the consequences for crying is a fresh and more severe beating. The change mantra is nothing short of an arrogant and inconsiderate shortchanging of the poor electorates by the politicians.
A change amongst other meanings, is the transformation, conversion or substitution from one state to another. If so, one is yet to see that wind of change from our current political leaders. More often than not, we’ve lately been overwhelmed with requests from politicians and political pundits to change our acts and mindsets in other that, we all can have a Nigeria we all truly deserve.
We often hear these politicians stating that this change must come from all of us.
What an insult to our collective intelligence and frustration.
Within the last six months or so, I’ve had the misfortune of being invited by Presidential, Senatorial and the House of Representatives aspirants to an ‘Open Questions and Answers session’, the sole purpose of which in my opinion is the solicitation for financial or moral support from us in the Diaspora.
And I have been asking myself, who is supposed to change?
In all of these ‘mind boggling’ political meetings, these people (politicians) have a thing in common: the believe and conviction that they are the Messiah that every Nigerian needs. Each and every one of the aspirants believe, and above all, assert that they are the one that can change the country with a little help from us.
However, to the educated and well informed mind, their political manifesto and programmes are exactly the same as those of the past politicians since Independence. These are some of their thoughts : ‘If you vote for me, I’ll do this and that’. ‘I’ll transform your life’. ’I’ll reinvent the wheel’. and so on and so forth.
‘If voted, I will transform the face of our capital’. My party will create 1, 000,000 jobs within the first six months of our administration’.
Strangely enough, they and possibly the gullible majority, believe in doing the same thing year in and year out while expecting a different and new result. Of course, Nigerians have been hearing such promises from the early days of politics.
‘The Change Must Begin With You’ is the new song of the APC government, and this song in my mind, is as obnoxious as the jockey asking his horse to change his temperament.
It is as illogical as the ‘Whale preaching to Jonah who’s trapped in it’s stomach to change his attitude.
Now to appreciate, and fully understand the inconsiderate nature of such requests by these politicians to the poor shortchanged electorates, we need to look at the disparity of earnings by them in relation to those they’re representing. The overwhelmingly poor masses of Nigerians.
According to a one time Nigerian Minister of Finance Dr Ngozi OkonjoIweala in her latest book ‘Fighting Corruption is Dangerous ‘, a Nigerian Senator earns a total of $1,684,961 (N611,640,843) annually (2015), excluding allocation in the capital budget for constituency projects. When converted to the local currency, this amounts to a whopping N50,970,070 monthly using the exchange rate of N363 per United States $1. The same goes for an elected member of the House of Representatives who pockets a mouth-watering $1,666,739 (N605,026,257) annually. This works out at N50,418,854.80 monthly.
Now, for the same period we are on about, the monthly minimum wage of the overwhelming numbers of these ‘shortchanged’ electorates who voted for these politicians, is a paltry N18,000. In many instances, this miserable amount, remain unpaid by the majority of states for mind boggling reasons. It is not uncommon to hear these arrears go back for upward of six months or more.
The question therefore is, ‘Who Should Make That Change’ to usher in a New Nigeria we all deserve folks?
Is it the politician who earns a mind blowing N51 million monthly salary?
Or the poor wretched and shortchanged worker who in most cases is lucky to receive his miserable N18,000 monthly salary.
That’s the question folks.