They are blood brothers. One is powerful and rich, the other is poor and powerless. The rich lives in a country and the poor live in another. These countries are different but the nations are one. They have one flag, one national anthem, one soccer team, one location and here ends the similarities. The countries are called Nigeria. The rich represent a few but their power is huge. They are rulers, they are aristocrats, they are politicians, they are bureaucrats, they are government contractors, they are businessmen, they are pastors, they imams, they are Abuja-connect and they have their Nigeria.
The powerless are the masses and they have their own Nigeria. The powerful and the powerless are neighbours with no visible borders. This is the tale of two countries in one. The head and the tail of a nation. Nigeria for the rich and powerful and Nigeria for the poor and powerless. Nigeria can be good, bad and ugly. To the some, there can be no better place and to some, there is no worse place to live. To the rich and powerful, it is a country of unending possibilities. It is a cow that must be milked to death. To the poor, it is a place a little worse than hell but full of hope for the future. The rich have a monopoly over common wealth and there is no way it should go round. It’s just for me, my family and a few acquaintances. It’s live and let die. The poor want to live and let live.
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The powerless love the powerful, they love their brothers and neighbours but the powerful abhor the masses. The masses suffer yet they smile, the rich enjoy and complain. The poor loves his country, he lives there and ready to die for her, trains his children there and makes endless sacrifice while the powerful get the reward. He despise his country, his family lives abroad. He lives there as long as there is a deal to cut and a position to be occupied. His children are trained in Eton, Oxford and Harvard. He owns houses and current accounts in South Africa, UAE, the US and UK. The powerful taught the powerless to takes a little cut of ‘family support’ or egunje while he loots the entire treasury and inflates contracts by 200%. The powerful is self-righteous, he calls himself a born-again Christian but hates his neighbour, he calls himself a committed Muslim but would not allow his neighbour share in the common riches. He must live and his brother must die. It’s survival of the fittest. The powerless walks freely while the rich builds a China-wall of fence around himself.
The powerless votes, the powerful rigs. The powerless must obey the law and pays whenever he breaks it. He pays and serve time. The powerful is above the law. He makes the law. He makes it for the masses and he is free to break it. The powerful has today, he is sceptical of tomorrow. He has his chance and he is squandering it. His future is now and he knows that his days are numbered. The powerless is hopeful of the future and know that tomorrow is his. The poor knows that his people are good people and his nation is a great nation yet the powerful wants to teach him what he already knows.
They want to rebrand him. ‘Teacher no teach me nonsense’. Please teach yourself! The hypocritical teacher wants to teach me to love the country he despises which I already loved. He wants to teach me to be patriotic even though he is far from it. He wants to teach me to obey the laws that he breaks. He wants to tell the world that he is good and his country is great when he is not good and he is impeding the greatness of his country. He wants to teach me to be a good ambassador to a bad system. No way! Don’t rebrand me, rebrand yourself. Are you not the one who makes law yet breaks them? Are you not the one who fail to empower the youth who soils your image abroad? You are the one who fails to provide infrastructure and you cripple economic activities. You are the one who recruit and equip thugs from my country. You are the one who embezzles and launders. You are the one who assassinate your political enemies. Your are the one who kill the innocent children by failing to provide good healthcare. You fail to pay and appreciate the meritorious services of the pensioners, you fail to equip the schools, you fail to pay the teachers well and fail to build roads. You wield power but you fail to generate it.
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You leave our hospital in shambles and you go abroad to treat headache. You make our children to flee through the Sahara desert in pursuit of the often elusive greener pasture when life is unliveable at home. They risk all and countless died while travelling. You tap and drain the Niger Delta of her God-given oil without giving back to them. You have to rebranded. She was the power to the powerless, the hope of the hopeless, the heroine of the masses. She became the face of the new Nigeria. She epitomised the bright future. She fought the fake drug makers, she wrestled expired drug importers. She fought a good fight. She saved many children from “My Pikin”. She was appropriately applauded. She won the heart of the globe. She received laurels everywhere. She sat with emperors and ate with rulers. She was all over the place and suddenly she died.
The champion was gone. And then she resurrected. She became Madam Rebrand! She is now the voice of the powerful, the face of the oppressors, the one to say white is black and call black white. Madam! Rebrand is no talk, it is no noise, it is no celebration and fun fare, it is not about launching, it is not about paid advertisement, it is not about my good people, it is not about my great nation, it is from within, it is about action, it is about your people, it is about change in your country, it is about change in the governance, it is about transparency, it is about sincerity, it is about responsibility and accountability, it is about the rule of law. And then I remembered the old saying that the best time for an actor to leave the stage is when ovation is loudest. May God help us. Which Nigeria you dey? Nigeria go better!
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