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By Peter Claver Oparah.
In our secondary school days, as we were reading the epic work of George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), Animal Farm, we were made to believe that the creative writer was capturing the shenanigans in communist Russia of the time he wrote. In our innocence, we believed that story and wondered how such absurd parody should succeed in any nation at all. We read the antics and guile of the fictional character, Napoleon and the array of animals he succeeded to manipulate as it pleased him and even as we read, there was this feeling that such can only happen in a country that cannot muster the strength to resist widespread tyranny and the obdurate tendencies that sustain such arbitrariness. In our innocence, we never even noticed that our country was then under the thumbs of rapacious jackboots or perhaps, we failed to notice these brasshats just fell short of the sly perfidies that marked life in Orwell’s Animal Farm.
As we grew on and experienced the pangs of militarism and its minimalist concepts, we struggled to break free the yoke of oppression and plain deception that formed the ground norm of dictatorial governments and the collective efforts at such task led to the grand routing of the military from the country’s political sphere in 1999, or so it seemed, as we have come to realize presently. But then, there was no doubting the impression sowed into our young minds that the Orwellian thesis, as contained in Animal Farm, targeted the contradictions of the then Soviet Union, as well as the inherent paradoxes that webbed life in that enclave. We believed that Orwell was writing for a land yonder, where we may not access and that the traits that made his palm-able book a must read exists far from us and would never migrate to our land as to hunt us.
However, looking at Nigeria at present, the wiles, guiles, dubiety and deception that are being brazenly promoted as principles of the weird democracy we were saddled with from 1999, one would only be a fool to think that Orwell captured the then Soviet government more than he does the present twenty-first century Nigerian government. The accuracy with which Orwell captured the present contraption in place in Nigeria several decades ago, invests on him the toga of an evergreen genius. With the Orwellian Soviet society retreating into the recesses of ancient history, the tendency to look for the next society that fits the imaginative genius of Orwell, as he demonstrated in Animal Farm, finds a very fitting case in Nigeria under Obasanjo and one holds that this is a far more accurate instance than a Soviet society that never went through the type of parody, deceit, manipulation and guile that is the order of the day in Obasanjo’s Nigeria.
Let us revisit the humble emergence of Comrade Napoleon from the anonymity of one of the co-dreamers of the golden era when animals will own the fruits and spaces of Manor Farm, his gradual transmutation into a maximum ruler whose words are law and whom the earth must tremble when he walks by. Let us even see how he approximated the state and any question of his scruples was deemed as heresy as he enjoyed the choice fruits of the freedom struggle leaving the rest of the animals to queue for the morsels from his prodigal feast table. Is there no similarity between this and the emergence of Obasanjo, from a humiliating dungeon to the presidency with a promise to launch a seamless paradise and his present status of a near god whose nuances and idiosyncrasies must form the law of the land? Our president came in 1999 with a promise to run a lean and compact government that would be a case study in prudence. Can we reconcile that pledge with the present situation where our president, who pledged to adopt 504 cars as official government car, as was done in the years past, now adopts helicopters as the least means of movement while the unwieldy cult of standpatters that go by the tag of ministers, advisers, assistants and other sundry appellations that bleed the presidency, adopts mind-bogging jeeps as the minimum means of movement? What of the fraudulent attempt to ban the use of siren but which ended up being liberalized to the felons, hustlers and money changers that have now desecrated the lofty space of Nigerian presidency and turned it a den for fraudsters? What of the promise of scrapping the first lady office but which translated into the most brazen promotion of that vain office and using it as a front for monumental public stealing by Obasanjo and his minions?
Meanwhile, the people that gobbled the false promise of redemption in 1999 are dying of preventable poverty and want while a providential oil boom that has refused to flag has only gone to feed the insatiable lust of Napoleon, sorry Obasanjo, and his minions, who are basking in the light of their seamless access to the national trough. They celebrate the epidemic they have launched on this country for the past eight years as ‘reforms’, which have been bearing surreal gains that are not different from the unholy bazaar they have mounted these past eight years. Eight years of a monumental oil boom has landed us in a land of permanent blackout, perennial fuel scarcity even as the commodity sells officially an N150 in many parts of the country, acute unemployment, unceasing layoff of the skeletal labour-force, industrial mortality, untamed hunger, irreparable roads, abandoned refineries, burgeoning corruption complex, wanton cronyism, influence peddling, a security situation that has launched the state of nature on Nigeria, and such other dreary visages of despair on a country that had earned close to N35 trillion from a providential oil windfall since 1999. Pray, what is the difference with the state of negative development, which Napoleon promoted in Animal Farm?
What of Napoleon’s promise of the abundant life in the years to come while he appropriated all the goodies of Animal Farm to the perpetual inclination of Obasanjo and his men to spin the inchoate yarn of a country that is growing at a fantastic rate and assures of abundant life in an indeterminate future while they milk the country dry of the available resources? Is there any difference between Comrade Squealer and the thick array of government spokesmen whose duties are to enfool the masses to think that the present government is doing something different from what we all know they are doing presently, which is looting? Pray, what is the difference between the sheep that urged Napoleon on and the fellows that now parade the streets as ministers? Pray, between this bunch and Abacha’s, which one is better? Did you watch the infantile shadow boxing of El-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu on the Atiku issue, where they were employed, Napoleonic-style, as ready cudgels in the hands of a malevolent president? Is there anything different from the scenes that tumbled from the Animal Farm? The duo, who feature prominently in the Byzantine rule of the present, wanted to employ that opportunity to do Obasanjo’s warped war when they have roundly been trounced in the public sphere by a certain Shehu Garba to the extent that they have employed the forces of coercion to help them in their unholy war, meant to cover their shady deals than fighting corruption.
Remember the choice puppies napoleon stole from their mothers to train as hunting dogs in his quest for maximum power; is there any difference between the role of Napoleon’s dogs and Obasanjo’s EFCC? One walks away with the impression that the idea that gave birth to the emergence of EFCC as the running dog of the Obasanjo regime was derived from Napoleon’s brilliant idea of training choice puppies into wild dogs that were set after his enemies. Let us revisit the roles of EFCC in the fight against Snowball (nay Atiku) as well as the enervating battle being relentlessly wedged by that lawless organ against all those that fought against Obasanjo’s perpetuity plot. Pray, is there any discernable difference between the hounding roles of Napoleon’s dog as he strived for unfettered power in Animal Kingdom and the present role of EFCC in subverting the laws of the land to please their master. Place the predilection of the EFCC to trample and make jest of the sacred laws of the land with the tendency of Napoleon’s dog to ride roughshod over the sacred canons of Animal Farm in a bid to hunt down an enemy of Comrade Napoleon. Meanwhile, you can launder money, steal as much as you can, vend impunity, kill, corner electoral materials, rig as much as you can, rape and commit any atrocity without reproach if you can as much as profess undying love for Comrade Napoleon, nay Baba.
What of Obasanjo’s Federal Executive Council where such palace jesters like Femi Fani Kayodes, the Bayo Ojos, the Nasir El-Rufais, and such other absurd creations of our local version of Animal Farm now question the suitability of an elected Vice President to sit in the FEC while they jest and fawn about in the name of governance? What of the members of Obasanjo’s kitchen cabinet such as Uba Sani, Andy Uba, Bode George and their whole ilk whose only stocks trade in are gossip, rumour peddling, mealtime jokes and such other little fancies that tickle the oversized ego of our modern day Napoleon? Let us quickly call to mind Napoleon’s own FEC where Snowball was expelled for daring to question the wisdom of Comrade Napoleon. Is there any difference? What of the dubious campaign for third term that our president childishly denied backing only when it was dead and buried, is the entire campaign different from the one that made Napoleon a Frankenstein?
The present show of shame in Ekiti, Anambra and Plateau, which is an extension of the macabre form of outlawry that was displayed in Bayelsa and Oyo and a foretaste of what would be generalized in many other states, couched in the laughable cloak of fighting corruption by a regime whose head is neck deep in steamy corruption charges it has refused to address, looks like a script lifted straight from Gorge Orwell’s incisive book. What of the many cases of the president shielding his yes-men from the searchlights of his so-called anti-corruption agencies, are they different from what happened in Animal Farm under Napoleon and his comrades? Is there any difference from the ancient acquisitive greed Obasanjo and his dogs are now ventilating different from what Napoleon did in Animal Farm? What of the deceptive attempts to cover them, are they not the same with what we have heard from the presidency concerning Transcorp shares, the Dariye donations, the presidential library, Bells University, buying cars for mistresses, Temperance Farms, dirty donations, NNPC accounts, the endless scams that riddle the oil industry, the Andy Uba money laundering case, the countless cases of corruption against Ibrahim Mantu and so many other cases of fraud that are being perpetrated at the highest level of the presidency? Have you heard the indecipherable lies that spew generously from Obasanjo and his men such as Akin Osuntokun, Remi Oyo, the Abuja land racketeer, Uba Sani, Fani Kayode, Nasir El-Rufai, Nuhu Ribadu, and the so many idlers that bleed the country dry in the name of speaking for the presidency, are they sounding different from the “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad” philosophy that girded the dubious reign of Napoleon in Animal Farm? You just need to read the unputdownable work of George Orwell and you need no further thesis in political philosophy to put in proper perspective the huge charade that is being enacted in our dear country at present in the name of government.
What can we say of the desperate attempt to hew unto himself a cult of economic parasites, predators, political thugs, money launderers, bedmates, swindlers, treasury raiders, his children and economic fronts as our ‘agents of development and economic bridge builders’ that are on oath to ensure the continue his wasp-ridden ‘reform programmes’? It is well in sync with Napoleon’s feeble attempt to equate himself with Animal Farm. It is in league with the attempt to manipulate our constitution so that Obasanjo will enjoy life presidency thereby circumventing an inquest into his many untoward dealings in the last eight years. The present would certainly stretch Orwell’s wits thin were he around to capture the developments in 1999-2007 Nigeria. Certainly, he would be sore grieved that some persons would render the imaginations of his fertile mind a kindergarten stuff in twenty-first century black Africa. But the point of difference will emerge when he failed to transmute to a life presidency and that is the X factor that would unlatch the door for a deep probe into the affairs of state in the last eight years.
All these inform why Obasanjo is a troubled man today, despite pretensions to the contrary and why he is desperately mounting futile road shows in an attempt to foist his favoured surrogate on Nigeria instead of sitting down as a fulfilled out-going president, preparing the hand over notes for his successor. . Obasanjo has started a race of his life and he must be helped to run for the rest of his life. Aso Rock is not comfortable for him again. He prefers to mount funny road shows, with all known felons all over the country in the name of political campaigns. He must be encouraged to run, and run, and run, as his friend and soulmate in graft, Babangida is presently doing.
This is the reason why he must fail, together with his surrogate and their rally called PDP. If not for anything, for Nigerians to find out how we descended so low as becoming George Orwell’s Animal Farm in the twenty-first century
Peter Claver Oparah
9, Bayo Shodipo Street,
Ikeja Lagos.
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Posted by Robot| 06.02.2007 23:10