#BringBackGoodluck2015: Nigeria’s shame revisited

by Joe Igbokwe

The moment the American newspaper, The Washington Post, hit the news stands, President Jonathan ordered his handlers and campaigners to dismantle the shameful campaign billboards across the country bearing the hashtag #BringBackGoodluck2015#.

On social media yesterday, angry Nigerians disparaged the presidency and the supporters of the president for making mockery of our kidnapped girls who have now spent 150 days in captivity.

Most contributors held the view that if Washington Post had not internationalized the ugly and dubious campaigns faking the #BringBackOurGirls project, the President would have not ordered the stoppage of the useless campaign.

First, it was the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) who are going about the zones in Nigeria, staging rallies even when INEC has not blown the whistle for campaign rallies and drumming support for President Jonathan’s 2015 agenda in the face of massive hunger, insecurity, lack of electricity, joblessness, decayed infrastructure, brazen corruption, impunity, an insurgency, and weak leadership. The TAN advocates have been blurring our line of vision and insulting our sensibilities but we have been silent believing that a time will come when a spade will be called a spade. We have left them believing that a time will come when the chicken will come home to roost. We have ignored their noise across the country knowing fully well that the time of reckoning is fast approaching. But these people have lost every sense of reasoning to realize when to say enough is enough. TAN is a resurrection of Abacha’s Youth Earnestly Ask For Abacha. Their mission and concept are the same and tallies with the decayed politics of our country.

How can a people with minds of their own forget that nearly 300 of our young girls have been in captivity for 150 days? How can they ignore the feelings of the parents? Do they know that some of these parents have died of heart break because of the missing girls? Are these people real parents? Do they think in terms of these parents? Why do they have to abuse the hash tag #BringBackOurGirls to campaign for a Commander-In-Chief who is not the real Commander-In-Chief? Are we still playing politics with the missing girls? Are these people not intelligent enough to find something else to use to sell their candidate than to steal the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag? How can a people who claim to possess good education indulge in this show of shame in the 21st century? A friend once told me that you cannot lead people if you do not love the people. You cannot save the people if you do not serve the people. Has the PDP led the people of Nigeria? Have these people served the people of Nigeria very well? No, they do not love us and they cannot save us.

Another learned friend of mine tells me that it is better to present a weak argument strongly than to present strong argument weakly. He told me that he cannot imagine a situation where a weak argument will be presented weakly. The campaigners of President Goodluck Jonathan are presenting a weak argument weakly. In their thinking, Nigerians cannot think or recall otherwise, they would have advised their candidate that he and his government have not done enough to justify the votes they got in 2011. They would have told him that the mounting state of insecurity, the unacceptable level of poverty, the state of total unemployment, the overwhelming state of corruption, the state of total infrastructural decay are not testimonials for re-election. Yes, they keep dividing Nigerians along ethnic and religious lines but these are not credible pedestals to power.

We live in interesting times in Nigeria where fake drugs are being presented to us as original drugs. They are giving us fake currencies for genuine ones. When it is 8 am in the morning the workers of iniquity tell us it is 6 pm. A weak President and a frightened Commander-In-Chief is being presented to us as the strongest president in Nigeria. Their campaign for re-election is structured on weak platforms. They are not structured on credible platforms of performance and integrity. They are not based on stellar performance. They are not based on facts. They are based on phantoms and fantasies. Now can this kite fly? It cannot.