A Disease Called Degenerative Sapa is Running Wild in Nigeria.

Bulabla Apologists, E shock you too, abi?

At the 2015 general election that produced Buhari as president, I supported Buhari against Jonathan.

Prior to this time, a slew of Jonathan's ministers were in the news constantly for one act of profligacy or the other.

That was also the season of the unending theatrics of a First Lady we found both entertaining and cringey- in all cases, unrepresentative of our best image.

It seemed also that the president at the time, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was more besotted with massaging the egos of northerners so as to earn him a second term, so much that he constantly seemed to be pandering to everybody.

I genuinely believed he was too indulgent to rule a country like Nigeria, and despite what my friends in university thought then, I was hoping the General would win.

I thought the sentiments of my friends were mostly tribal.

What is so scary about a General with a brutish public persona, who at least everyone agreed had a zero tolerance approach to corruption? Wasn't that what we needed? To save the nation's leaking treasury?

I was not alone in my reasoning. Many other well meaning Nigerians were bamboozled by the campaign theme of CHANGE.

When as we noticed just a few years into his tenure that this was not the resourceful, plan-ready government we'd imagined, we collectively licked our wounds.

That election, even if it was rigged, was done with the consent of the majority. Most people wanted Jonathan out.

In the final events that played out, it was Jonathan versus the entire nation, him shrugging at being vindicated, we shamefacedly acknowledging we had bought bad wares from the market, and now that the shiny shop lights were out, could not believe what we came home with.

Yes, there were those who took their chances with saying, "I told you guys. I knew it. When he was PTF Chairman, he did yada yada...wasn't perfect..rudbdbbrjsi...."

But largely, the unanimous response of Nigerians to his demo-autocratic government with equal weight of corruption and a sufficient dose of directionlessness, was, 'WE ADMIT WE DID NOT GET THIS ONE RIGHT.'

Hardly any stiff blame game. It was a legitimate government, at least, for the first tenure. But a bad decision, nonetheless.

With this current administration we have, this one that is poised to drag the last hair on the Nigerian skin until all that is left are scarred pores, it is complicated.

The most painful political thought to the average Nigerian now, is not just the thoughts of how to afford their daily bread, or how to combat the frightening inflation, or the exchange rate that is bolting at the speed of light.

It is the knowledge that they brought out their time. They brought out their energy. They did their own work. They threw their weight this time to get it right in 2023.

Igbo people say, Ka- ana achu aja. Ka ikpe n'amah ndi mmuo. It means; let us keep sacrificing. Let the gods take the blame.

That was the energy of 2023. We will give this our best shot. The majority had good plans to avoid another season of woes.

What is happening now is the grief of a barren woman whose husband escorted to the sacred river to request the river god for a child.
She is offered two babies to pick one. She notices that one is ungainly. He will not last. She picks the other.

Her husband uses his bravado to insist on the other baby. That one has the skin color of his late mother.

They disagree contentiously, but he wins. They walk back home with their new baby in a cot prepared by the river goddess.

Once they get home and settle down to unwrap their baby and bask in their new status as parents, the wife sees that the child who looked undesirable to her minutes ago, is cold dead in its carriage.

It was her only chance at being a mother.