Wole Olabanji: When the Oga at the top says “Go and die!”

There is a popular faith inspiring song that folks sing in church where the song leader asks the congregation; “who has the final say” to which they enthusiastically chorus, “Jehovah has the final say”.

It appears though, going by the body language, and many times the actual spoken words of Nigerian ‘leaders’, a deal may have been reached with ‘Jehovah’ to surrender jurisdiction and hand over the final say over Nigerians to their ‘leaders’.

I suspect that this might have been what that kind man, Mr Shem Obafaye of the #OgaAtTheTop fame was trying to communicate to us a few months ago. Apparently, he must have stumbled on some video where this deal was reached and he therefore knew there was no point for a mere underling to say anything substantive seeing as the right to the final say has been irrevocably ceded to some #OgaAtTheTop.

Unfortunately, while we succeeded in having a national carnival at his expense as the gaffe went viral and became an internet, fashion and even sermon meme, we failed to realize that what he had so cheaply handed us was a fundamental philosophical summation of the Nigerian situation: a universal prefix that can be put before some of the famous statements that Nigerian ‘leaders’ have the uncanny ability to utter.

While going by Nigerian standards of leadership, I would put the ‘dear comrade’ in the top 5 percentile of public officers, it will still require a certain level of grace (I mean graciousness) to simply ascribe to human imperfection his instruction to that widow to “go and die”. Why do Nigerian public officers feel they have received license to talk to citizens and tax payers as though they were talking to purchased slaves?

 I of course expect the token outrage on social media; somehow, we Nigerians and our public officials have worked out a fine balance with everyone doing his bit. Rather than anyone doing anything as drastic and irrational as resign over the collapse of the roof of a shopping mall as the Latvian Prime Minister just did, it is sufficient here to offer the usual sound bites about “leaving no stone unturned” etcetera etcetera. If on the other hand someone puts his foot in the mouth, the citizens do the reasonable thing by making some noise for a few days and things are good again between us and them till another disaster or another gaffe.

Not being particularly interested in upsetting that fine balance myself, I say let’s play merge the memes. Here’s my top 5 list. You can add yours afterwards. If you put it on a T-shirt and it sells, remember to send my cheque.

No 5. #OgaAtTheTopSays:Our ProblemIsHowToSpendTheMoney  - Yakubu Gowon

No 4. #OgaAtTheTopSays:AbujaIsNotForEverybody   - Nasir elRufai

No 3. #OgaAtTheTopSays:TelephoneIsNotForPoorPeople  - David Mark

No 2. #OgaAtTheTopSays:IDontGiveADamn – Goodluck Jonathan

No 1. #OgaAtTheTopSays:GoAndDie – Adams Oshiomole

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The author tweets @woleolabanji

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