GEJ: Between A Shambolic Nation And A Shameless Leader

The political stint oozing out of the presidency since GEJ crept into the political arena can suffocate the combine record of Jean Bokassa of CAR, Idi Amin of Uganda and Mubutu Sese Sekou of former Zaire now Congo DR. 'Plus ça change, plus c'est pire'(the more it changes, the more it becomes worst) with this assertion, for me, the French captured the blamable, regrettable and pitiable situation we find ourselves ever since the once shoeless Otuoke fisherman made it to Aso Rock Villa. For majority of Nigerians, GEJ is a weed.

For many more, he is a disease that is crippling the health status of our socio-political cum economic life. For a 'President' who claims to have a Doctorate degree and yet don't know that the business of governance is 'to ensure the greatest happiness of the greatest number'-(Jeremy Bentham) speaks volume. Pitiably, as if to confirm the saying that the person the gods wish to destroy they first make king, GEJ have refused to relief critics of their job with his one week, one trouble miasma. Till date, I have not be proved wrong that the centenary celebration apart from being a conduit pipe for siphoning the treasury, it is also a show of a miserable sense of history from a miserable conclave of kleptocrats.

If his calling for a fiesta of shame in the name of centenary was a political venial sin, his dishing out of honour to midday criminals, tyrants and monsters for cheap political patronage is nothing but a political mortal sin. With corruption which spread like the bush fire in harmattan ravaging the entirety of our national life, one wonders what kingmakers are waiting for to crown GEJ the Emir of Chopchop Emirate, Oba of thief thief kingdom, Igwe of wuruwuru and the Obi of magomago.

I owe no one any iota of apology for saying that there is no atom of 'presidentialness' in 'President' GEJ . In fact, the only respect sane Nigerians and patriots had for him melted away like the pyramid of salt in rain the moment he made mention of Late General Sani Abacha and Ibrahim Babagida in his list of National heroes. If Nigerians will pardon IBB for making nonsense of June 12 1993, I doubt if the Late General Sani Abacha; an indefinable monster that held Nigerians hostage under the water of impunity, terror and murder will get same.

A tyrant that presided over a kleptocracy that swallowed more than 20 billion dollars of the national wealth of which no sooner than later the GEJ led chochop government may dwarf with 2.3 trillion dollar petroleum subsidy scam, the near trillion pension fund scam and other monumental scam romancing his 'administration' Even as a kind I knew that the name Abacha represented everything smelly, ugly and messy. Never again have I heard of the thunder of joy that greeted his death in Lafia the Nasarawa State capital. It was something similar to the joy that greeted the emergrncy of Barrack Obama as the US President across Africa.

For GEJ to open his unpresidential mouth and vomit the name of late Nigerian terror General Sani Abacha as a heroe speaks volume about the man OBJ imposed on the most popular black nation in the planet as a president. It is yet another clear indication that he is not ready to change for good after submerging Nigeria hobbesian state of nature were life is short, nasty and brutish since he rigged himself to power. For GEJ and his conclave of mischief makers and pathological liars in the presidency the Nobel laurel Professor Wole Soyinka broke the Emmaus bread in a most vocal and articulate way: 'under that ruler, torture, and other forms of barbarism were enthroned as the norm of governance. To round up nine Nigerian citizens including the writer Ken Saro-wiwa were hanged after a trail that was stomach churning even by the most primitive standards of judicial trial, and in defiance of the intervention of world leadership'

As GEJ and his college of kleptocrats continues to dish out a menu of falsehood in a puny bid to get re-elected even after a zero performance for six years, it becomes paramount to remind him that you can tell a blind man that there is no oil in the soup but not that there is no salt in the soup. It is monsters like Abacha and shameless leaders like GEJ that have continued to oil the wheel of corruption, poverty and penury that have left Nigeria in shambles. After over 54 years of nationhood, our school are in state of total decay, our roads, air, railway and waterways are all death traps, the power sector supplies more darkness than light, no good and affordable accommodation, our hospitals are glorified mortuaries, the civil service is suffering from poor management, half baked and insufficient personnel and our economy sky rockets only in the mouth of GEJ attack dogs and the pages of newspapers.

The worst of all is that life in Nigeria doesn't even worth a miserable kobo. Yet, someone had the effrontery to name a near beast champion of 'unity and development'. Thank God the world is not blind. I nearly danced myself lame when I heard the editorial reflecting the view of US over the shameful and smelly rubbish from the 'presidency'. Like in every sane society, the acting Assistant Attorney General of USA Mythili Raman while announcing the seizure of Abacha's loot described it as 'largest civil forfeiture'. She equally gave Abacha a cap that fits him well. 'General Abacha was one of the most notorious kleptocrats in memory, who embezzled billion from the people of Nigeria, while millions lived in poverty'.

Now that GEJ have continued to serve the unpardonable interest of select few by wasting our resources on a fiesta of sham, and now that it has come and gone, what impart did it make in the lives of over 140 million Nigerians living in poverty and penury? For GEJ dance of shame, the answer is simple. Like father like son, equals to like Abacha like GEJ. After all dogs don't eat dogs.

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Articles by Eze Martins-hassan Esomchi