The Pharisees in Nigerian politics

Jesus Christ was an outstanding teacher during His ministry on earth. Though He was not the only teacher during his time, there were Pharisees and scribes who also taught people in law in the Synagogue. But His ministry was incomparable and a huge success. He made some cogent expressions about those that claimed to be teachers (Pharisees and scribes) but who failed to learn and practise what they taught.

A flowing voluminous attire otherwise known as ‘agbada or Babariga’ does not equate big man, but character does. Pharisees are deceivers who pretend loving people but putting heavy burden on them. Through lies, they seize power. They enjoy freedom freely but give conditions for others’ freedom. Today, who are the Pharisees in Nigeria? They are politicians who trade in lies by presenting them as truths in the eyes of the people in order to bulldoze their ways into their hearts. They mix lies with half truths and sell. It is not a new thing for politicians to lampoon the failure of their opponents and promise better deals. ‘Better than the other’ is not a new cliché in Nigerian politics since everyone strives to deceive the other. They have perfected the art of lying to conceal their thoughts. In the commerce of Nigeria politics today, flattery and lies are abundant commodities.

Unfortunately, we always open the city gate of our mind to welcome these fascinating enemies who delude us with their false mythology as friends. They perfume the atmosphere with scent of disappointments and frustration emerging from broken promises and untamed poverty.

Many are pummelled with contemptible slavish loads in their own country. People’s destinies have been wrongly placed in the hand of reprehensible beings that are happy to taint them with abject poverty.

Nigeria is a country created by God into abundance, yet people are burrowing like a rat to eke out a miserable existence, while its leaders gallivant all over the world to enjoy their loot. This is a pathetic reality that can only be changed by zeal and determination.

Beware of those who have perfected the art of “do what I say, but not as I do” as philosophy.  They are those that promised us better life before bedtime, but we woke up with a nightmare. They are men accused of all manner of illegalities including those who diverted billions of pension funds, reabsorbed into the system and rewarded with double promotion by an administration faking anti-corruption war. We are seriously fighting corruption but only on paper. Is this a paper tiger government? Time will tell.

Why wouldn’t corruption fight back since those fighting it do not come to equity with clean hands? If you must smear someone with mud, you will stain your own fingers first. The Pharisees in Nigerian politics are those that will instruct the people to patronise the locally made goods and encourage them to use the local hospital but they will jet out of the country for medical vacation even to treat toothache. They are unrepentant looters who operate in the corn-field of corruption like monstrous lizard with persistence weird regenerative ability that if you cut its tail, it grows a bigger one.

They are those that have seen the return of democracy as a leeway to power and blind looting of the treasury. They are governors who love playing to the gallery by erecting a statue of non-performing outsider in their domain while their people wallow in poverty and groan under unpaid salaries. That’s unfortunate. Many of them have turned to unquestionable and untouchable beings that can do what they want even when they are breaking laws known to men and God. They are men with poor sense of financial management, impoverished of good ideas and accountability. It’s an established fact. Whoever sowed good seeds shall reap harvest of goodness. Even if it came to pass that the world turned topsy-turvy and oil palm produced coconuts, God will not fail to reward every man according to his deeds.

As election year is fast approaching and many have been coming out with new lies, unscrupulous men with money who capitalise on ignorance people to bulldoze their ways to the corridors of power with their nefarious intention to kill, steal and destroy the hopeless, I call us to beware. Beware of leaders who infused sentiment into political atmosphere thereby regenerating a disintegrative polity. Beware of leaders who placed self and aggrandisement above national integration and development. This is evident in many unguided utterance, action and inaction of our political leaders which equally led us into religious violence, wanton destruction of lives and property as well as intensification of ethnocentrism.  Beware of a liar who has done nothing since the past two years in office but will still come out to tell you that one good term deserves another.

Those who ignore danger signs will suddenly be destroyed without remedy. What we have been through as a nation is enough to warn us of impending danger dangling like scrotum in-between man’s legs if we fail again to carefully look before we leap. We must look well as we take another decision on those that will lead us as another election year draws near.

Decisions are measured by the results they produce; good decisions meet our needs and value and jet us safely to our destination as a nation. Fire in our soul and passion in our bones provide impetus for success. I am warning us passionately to beware of the Pharisees in Nigerian politics.

Akinbule, an animal scientist, sent this piece from Ogun State.