We call them kalokalo in Nigeria, but they are contemptuosly referred to as one-armed bandits.
When a person develops the habit of becoming a gambler, a professional one too, they are generally irredeemable. That’s because of their fervent belief that they will still win. The belief could sometimes become so irrational that they sell their belongings and stake the money they get from the transaction.
I want to very much believe the governments in Nigeria are using Nigerians, both rich and poor, like one armed bandits. And that’s why, except from the four-year ritual of bribery to be selected into political office, they arrogate all wisdom to themselves.
Some of us who read the story of ‘Ologbon Aye’, in J.F. Odunjo’s Alawiye Series will undoubtedly have a better understanding of where I’m coming from.
Could you believe that as far back as February 28, the major opposition leader had advised the Nigerian government on what to do against coronavirus?
So did a blogger.
If the government had been proactive, the spread could have been more than curtailed.
But apart from scamming people to go and vote for them, Nigerian politicians, once they are successful, hardly do any other thing.
Most of the people too believe a person will be killed by one ailment or the other. When people are in such a state, they too are irredeemable.
If the people didn’t believe that, would they have gathered in Ibadan yesterday for a campaign? Let’s agree the governor doesn’t care about people’s safety, are people so famished that they just had to be there?
The video clip of a Nigerian school probably having an excursion in a Nigerian airport in their hundreds is already viral. What a place to have an excursion at these unsafe times?
Those who have predicted the pandemic would affect Africa in a big way are being proved right by the state of unpreparedness in Nigeria.
Yet, the number one citizen is holed up in Aso Villa like a prisoner of guilty conscience!
‘A people will always deserve its ruling elites.’
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