“His Excellency”, “The Honorable” and Nigerian politicians knack for the vain – Another moment at Elizade University

Yesterday, I’m was at a function in Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin, Ondo state, and the founder, Chief Michael Ade-ojo, while giving his welcome speech, greeted the Governor of Ondo state, Dr. Mimiko, by saying,
“His Excellency, the honorable Governor of Ondo state...”
Then also, the Vice-president, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, did the same thing while opening his lecture, “His Excellency, Executive Governor…yada yada yada”

This is a Governor, who despite sitting on a very naturally rich state for 8 years, has depended on Abuja allocation largely, and right now owes state workers for 6 months!

So much for political correctness!

We like to dey deceive ourselves sha, in fact, this self-deception amounts a lot to the neo-colonization we suffer in today’s Nigeria.

And, I was there, struck in that instant with a queryform thought, asking “what’s executive or ‘Excellency’ about this governor now“, and I extended my thought to most political office holders in Nigeria….for real.

This is why I so much love Fela, the one that was actually the normal one as he didn’t have time to caress crap in the name of social or political zombie-ism, but then, he got famed as “Abami Eda” (the abnormal one)

..and if you think most of these elected politicians and political appointees in Nigeria are plain proud and use misfitting accolades to prefix their names, then, you need to meet the average “grassroot politician”, those ones that are in the units and wards…Kai! You will know better!

So vain, so crass, so proud, so vain (again), so poor, yet so proud – despite the testament of what I can call “Stockholm poverty” written all over most of them, you dare not spill their names without prefixing it with the tag “Honourable”… chai! You dare not..

I saw it Lagos, now, seeing it in Ondo, their knack for vain-ness almost always seems like a fetish they employ to cover for their lack of true nous, and sadly, they are the ones that do the voting!!! They are the ones who vote! From the Primaries down to the main election, they are the delegates….these ones who don’t really care about policies or governance templates, or aspirants’ ability to truly govern; yes, these are the ones who make up 70% of votes cast…They don’t care about all that, most of them are either plainly nepotistic or highest-bidder-mongers, while making their choices…and yet, you must call them “Honourable” oh….”powerful honourable”…you must add that powerful sometimes oh, or else….

This is one of the root cause for Nigeria’s retrogression in the 21st century. I don’t have any issue with the structure, this political structure of work, yes, I don’t. But, the problem is just that this structure is wired with arrogant ignorance and fuelled with putrid shallowness. The structure is deliberately sustained with poverty as a bait to the peoples’ brains, hearts and souls…

Well, Viva Naija was just there sha…”doing something”, it was the 2nd inaugural lecture of the University, and we actually enjoyed VP Osinbajo’s lecture tilted “The Future: Here Earlier Than We Thought”.. ..he made sense…and he briefly mentioned the N-Power thing the FG launched recently (www.npower.gov.ng), from the look of things, it is actually huge-r than advertised oh…(we will do another post about it soon)

I digress quickly, I never knew that Deola Sagoe, the talented designer and budding actress, is a daughter to Chief Ade-ojo oh…but, I digress quickly.

Lastly, Elizade University is beautiful!