Nigerian politics in recent times has been unfolding in new developments like a hand unfolding wraps of fufu. It has graduated from the usual scenery of thuggery and ballot stealing to a more advanced franchise stealing. Victory is no longer decided by the legion of lies a man’s mouth can parade but how big and tasty his bags of rice are. Nigerians are now deaf to the lies; poverty has told us not to listen to their mouths again but our stomach, so we need rice!
Rice sharing is not new in the political arena of Nigeria. No. Great political gladiators from the first republic to the third have always canvassed with this strategy only that this strategy was not favourable in the last elections when the masses followed their brains – their little touch of humanness. But what did they get in return – a truck of disillusionmsent. Now, after feeding on those bags of raw disillusionment for the past three, four years, the masses seem to have turned to their old ways by listening to the murmurings of their stomachs. This was perfectly exemplified in the Ekiti gubernatorial election where the man with the biggest and most tasty rice won. The political gladiators, like entrepreneurs have rebranded their miserable products. Instead of the normal rice packed in polythene bags, they now pack it in bags with the names and logos of the party and contesting ignoramus boldly on display. They’ve also computerized themselves by posting this on various social media.
Since this strategy reaped good harvest for the party that exemplified it in the Ekiti gubernatorial elections, the Spartacus and Crixus of Nigerian politics, APC have also followed the trail to be VIPs (Vagabonds in Power) by sharing bags of rice. Just this past week, the APC in Osun state accused Omisore of planning to share expired rice. This saw Omisore fiercely point blaming fingers at Aregbesola and his Cohorts of planning to poison the Osun people with bags of expired rice in either ways aren’t the two trying to poison our minds?
As the politicians wise up to pack their rice in printed bags, we should applaud this intellectual development. But the question that pop up in my brain is why always rice? We need more than rice to cook rice. They should share beans, yams, palm-oil, vegetable-oil, magi, salt, plantain and even turkey, so that we will be well fed for the mal-nutrition and sufferings of the next four years! Why always rice? We need more than rice!
CAPTAIN NERUDA
