Nigeria: A Great Government vs An Ungrateful People

In the final analysis, Nigerians are a bunch of ungrateful people, full of vitriolic, waxed by insane criticisms and simply buoyed by their ignorance. In an alternative universe or in a saner clime, we should be thankful for the government of the day. Each day, our leaders are toiling away, burning their fingers at work, making local and foreign trips, and finding ways to make our lives liveable. But what do they get, torrents of vile comments, in all its richness.

Recently, there was a hullabaloo about the House of Reps members procuring for themselves about 360 Toyota Camry 2020 exotic cars. The angry children of Twitter jumped on this, falling to understand that these leaders need this tool to do their jobs effectively. How do we expect them to move around town? How do we expect them to go to their constituencies? Our roads are bad and require such quality of cars to absorb the shock. And just before you go off criticising them for not fixing our roads, remember that it is not them that made it bad in the first place. To put this in perspective, they hardly ply these roads in the first place. Afterall, their preferred means of transport is via aircrafts; and no one can accuse them of causing potholes there. We must always be circumspect as we judge our loving leaders.

More recently, the resentful children of social media were criticising the burial rites of the late Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, accusing the organizers of not maintaining social distance and failing to abide by the other COVID 19 guidelines. Truly, we Nigerians are ungrateful. A statesman has just died and someone is ranting about an alien disease. To even attempt to compare that event to that of Funke Akindele for which the latter was publicly lampooned and legally dealt with, is to lack a good sense of reason. Someone of olympian calibre has just died for crying out loud. This was a difficult time for all the staff in Aso Rock. He doesn't just belong to his family. Abba Kyari, like his boss, is for everyone. Let him be given a State burial, COVID or no COVID. 

Finally, it is true that the lockdown imposed by the Federal government is difficult for many, but then, this is a difficult time for everyone. Times are hard. Even the president is managing himself. Every two weeks he comes on to address us on the situation of things, yet, some mischievous Nigerians want him to do this more often. Do you know what it takes to stand in front of the cameras in this COVID 19 era? Do you know the steel, sagacity and guts required to read through lots of pages without even taking a sip of water in our harsh climate? We underestimate the efforts of our sterling leaders. We should be thankful for our leaders. We don't deserve them. And each time we say a prayer every night, we should always make that point.