Political ‘vuvuzelas’ and the 2027 poll; sympathisers of terrorism; and Nigeria’s governance rigmarole

The political temperature is getting hotter. Many political actors have started to get the services of ‘vuvuzelas’ to trumpet their ambitions. There is a cacophony of voices everywhere.

The federal government is yet to get serious with the war against terrorism. Its inability to bring to book the sympathisers has remained its undoing.

The crudity of the nation’s politics has not moved governance in the right direction. But who will bell the cat?

Vuvuzela is a roughly 65-centimetre (2 ft) plastic horn that produces a loud, monotone note, famously associated with soccer. It is popular in South Africa.

It is known for its intense, buzzing sound and used by fans to show support. But its annoying nature, sometimes, has led to bans in certain stadia.

In Nigeria, there are human “vuvuzelas”, who also make intense, and most times, annoying sounds that many citizens wonder why they are allowed to carry on without consequences.

These human vuvuzelas have fouled the Nigerian political air, turning politics, which, ordinarily, was supposed to be a happy game, into mortal combat.

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These political vuvuzelas are on the increase in Nigeria. They are political jobbers. Their stock-in-trade is to twist facts and turn truth on its head. They are after the opponents of their paymasters. They engage in character assassination and campaigns of calumny just to make quick money. Credibility and integrity are alien to them.

As Nigeria inches closer to the 2027 general election, many hirelings will be elected to do some hatchet man’s job.

Like the hangman who is at his best in the grim hours between midnight and dawn when the human spirit is at its lowest ebb, these political vuvuzelas stay awake to craft dangerous and malicious lines to discredit dignitaries.

These political jobbers are not all necessarily card-carrying members of any political party. They operate on an “Earn As You Abuse” (EAYA) basis. The more they employ damaging words against opponents of their financiers, the fatter their earnings.

The media, particularly the social media space, are awash with the vituperations that ooze out from their bile. Their driving force is to satisfy their filthy lucre. The dangerous rhetoric in the media space has even begun to cause apprehension in society. They are daily heating up the polity in a way that many observers are wondering what would happen when the real campaigns begin.

Many of these human vuvuzelas have also perfected their plans to employ the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to misinform and disinform the public about targeted opponents.

Outright false information, including photos that lack originality, would be served to the public, aimed at demarketing opponents. It is going to be a dog-eat-dog exercise.

These vuvuzelas will be so cacophonous as to distract prospective voters from sifting truth from lies from the array of manifestoes that would be presented.

Far ahead of the next round of elections, there are endorsements and counter endorsements. Carrots are being dangled before some citizens to speak in particular ways – to sell or demarket – depending on the objectives.

But must elections follow this pattern if the real essence is to seek the best hands among the interested politicians to pilot the affairs of the country?  We are, simply, our own enemy!

For so long, the federal government has said it would name and shame terrorism financiers and sympathisers, even to prosecute them. Nigerians have waited endlessly without seeing any of such. Rather, those being alleged to be sympathetic to the activities of terrorists are being pampered by the same government that issued ‘naming and shaming’ threats.

Many Nigerians, for instance, have wondered in secret and open places why the likes of Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi are running afoul with their defence of terrorists. It is no secret that Gumi has continued to defend the Boko Haram insurgents and other assorted terrorists, saying that they were reacting to certain injustice done to them by the Nigerian government. He has also severely harped on amnesty for the insurgents after the manner of the one granted to the militants of the Niger Delta by the administration of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2009, even when the reasons for the agitations and the genuineness were not the same.

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While the Niger Delta militancy arose out of genuine agitation over resource control and the injustice meted out to the region over time, terrorism in some parts of the North is not a “misunderstanding requiring reconciliation”.

Many Nigerians believe that it is absurd to pamper individuals who are brazenly sympathetic to the heinous activities of the terrorists.

Onyedinma Ndu, a psychologist, said: “That a band of armed robbers swooped on a bank and carted away money, leaving several staff and customers dead and injured, cannot be simply justified because the government has not provided enough jobs for all citizens. That is what the likes of Gumi are justifying. It is absurd.”

For the fight against insurgents and bandits to be seen to be transparent, the Federal Government must match its words with actions. The high level of trust deficit may be negatively impacting the efforts of the government. What seems like “doublespeak” by the government is not helping the fight. While the government is openly verbalising and trumpeting “no ransom deal with terrorists”, there are indications that victims are being released through ‘settlements’ other than the non-kinetic method being fronted, the scope of which is not explained. The federal government must come clean with the true situation of things.

Katsina State has presented a bad example of treating terrorists with kid gloves. Communities in the state are going into a peace agreement with the criminals all in the name of protecting their people. Even at that, about 20 people were killed in one of the communities the other day.

Recently, the state government moved to free 70 detained bandits in exchange for about 1,000 abducted individuals in the state. The move was interpreted by some groups to mean a reward for criminality and a wrong impression that kidnapping pays.

With the collaboration reportedly entered into with the United States, the federal government should take some decisive steps to reduce to the barest minimum the threat of terrorists in the country.

Where to start is by showing transparency and communicating effectively. There should be zero tolerance for any citizen who openly canvasses support for the terrorists, no matter how highly placed.

One pathetic story about Nigeria is that things never get better. Every successive government and administration has proven to be worse than the ones before it.

The ruling class, in its pretence to show that something is going on, has always mounted activities to hoodwink unsuspecting citizens. But it is all about motion without movement!

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Many Nigerians believe that their lives are not better even with different administrations in power since 1999.

At a point while in office, the late President Muhammadu Buhari had scorned at wailing Nigerians, telling them, “You will miss me when I leave office.”

Femi Adesina, his special adviser, echoed the same sentiment, saying, “Nigerians will appreciate the president after he leaves office on May 29, 2023.”

Adesina said that beyond those who seek to rewrite history and remember the Buhari administration for all the wrong reasons, Buhari would be remembered for many achievements by fair Nigerians.

But despite what Buhari and Adesina said, the verdict, even by members of his party and the actors in the current administration, has said severally that it was a dark part of Nigerian history that must not be remembered in terms of the rot he (Buhari) left behind.

Today, despite the efforts of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration in righting the wrongs of the Buhari administration, the sing-song in many quarters is that the stench of misgovernance is still very much in the atmosphere, fouling the air for the citizens.

The National Assembly is being accused as the weakest link in the current administration, as the bicameral legislature has abdicated its oversight functions to settle for the status of a rubber stamp in the hands of the executive.

The failings of today’s federal legislature daily remind many Nigerians of the vibrant legislative days of Chuba Okadigbo (the Oyi of Oyi) and also the robust lawmaking era of Ken Nnamani (Onwa) as leaders of the Senate.

At the state level, except for a few states across the country where governors have been intentional, real governance has largely been in declining mode.

Observers believe that the major reason for the decline can be located in the faulty recruitment methods that allow the incompetent but moneybags to buy their way onto the power tool.

It is certain that the Tinubu administration, whenever it is its time to exit power, will beat its chest. It would also say that Nigerians would miss it, regardless of the views of the ordinary man on the street.

That has been the sad reality of Nigeria.

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