BUHARI: THE PIED PIPER AND THE YOUTH
By Michael John
If you are not inclined to literature, you would have missed the instructive story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Not to bother though, because good, old Mike can give you the story at no charge.
The story goes that there was this town called Hamelin, which had more rats than a town was meant to have. Rats, as you know (or your grandmother ought to have told you) are thieves, who live in houses without paying rent, and steal whatever their sneaky eyes could find and their sharp teeth can bite. The thieving rats became such a big problem to the town that no one had rest. The town rose up in arms and did everything to eradicate the rats; but all the rat poisons in the world could not take care of these brave little creatures. Life became unbearable.
One day, out of the woods, came a bizarre-looking piper and told the town elders that he could take care of the rats and drive all of them all of town. The town had a meeting with him and promised to pay him a certain amount of money, but they privately doubted his ability. They never thought he could live up to his words. Well the piper put his pipe to his mouth and as he blew the pipe, rats came tumbling out of doors and windows, from sieves and gutters, and from all over the town. The piper went around the town and more rats joined. Millions of rats, big and small, joined. He led the rats to the other side of the mountain. What he did with the rats, no one could tell. But he ridded the town of rats and came back for his fee. What a relief it was for the town.
However, the town acted smart and refused to pay him. This was the unkindest cut of all. After all entreaties failed, the Piper was resigned to his fate, but he did not want to take a ride without exacting a pound of flesh. He put his pipe to his mouth one more time and blew a soulful tune before the elders of the town. He stepped into the street and kept blowing his pipe. Then they heard patters of feet and more patters of feet. From everywhere children from all over the town came running gleefully after the Pied Piper of Hamelin. He went around the town with the giggling children in tow. Thousands of children giggling and screaming! He led them to the backside of the mountain… and that was the last the town ever saw of their children.
Well you should draw the lines and connect the dots now. In 2015, President Mohammadu Buhari played the part of the Pied Piper. Wherever he went tens of thousands of youth gleefully tumbled out of doors and windows and filled his campaigns, waving brooms. Youths went wild on social media and the Buhari fever burnt like wild bush fire in the Savannah. But things have “fallen apart and the centre cannot hold”; the falcon cannot bear the falconer. Or to put it mildly the Pied Piper has not taken the youths to any mountain, and, worse, he can no more bear or tolerate the “lazy” youths.
He does appear to find the youths repulsive and does not mind saying so before an international audience…even if that means washing dirty linens in public. “Nigerian youths are lazy and uneducated. Always wanting free oil money,” said the Pied Piper (sorry, I mean our dear President). Note that the presidency (as is usual after every faux pas by the president) has rushed to clarify the comment without attempting to attenuate the statement. The claim is that the President said “a lot of Nigerian youths” not “all Nigerian youths.” That was Femi Adeshina, a good man at heart and the Voltron (the defender of the universe of this administration), talking. He described those who have criticized the president for this statement as ignorant and mischievous.
“Adeshina obviously has a school certificate and went to a university where he would have done something called a research,” my pal and veteran soldier, Jumbo, intoned. “He should know that there is something called a representative sample which is used in research and which mirrors the presumed characteristics of the whole. So if the president said a lot of Nigerian youths, given his position as a leader of the country, ‘a lot of’ becomes a representative sample for ‘all of.’ This is sheer commonsense, when considered against the background that there are no absolutes in research. Even when the representative sample is taken you still have to work out the error margin knowing fully well that some in the whole may not share the characteristics of the representative sample. This is why in research you talk of error margins. Give and take, please tell Mr Adeshina, that ‘a lot of’ when uttered from the mouth of a president means ‘all of’ because the president considers reports from a multiplicity of intelligence and security sources and speaks from those briefings. What he says is taken literally by the international community as fact because of the authority and power invested in his office.”
However, I disagree with Jumbo. Buhari was right for once. We all see the world from our own eyes. Buhari did not speak from intelligence and security sources or their briefings, he spoke from experience. Buhari knows of and is close to a certain youth who rides power bikes and loves free oil money. He remembered how this youth rode the power bike on a needless trip and had a near fatal accident and had to be flown abroad for treatment with the oil money. The oil money the youth loves. He remembered that a jet had to be hired to fly this youth who is lazy and loves free oil money abroad for treatment. He sees the youth everyday.
Buhari is right. When he first ruled Nigeria as a military dictator, he was a youth. Then youths were not lazy and did not depend on oil money. Then youths were educated and had West African School Certificates. They depended on wearing khaki and seizing power in coups. But decades after, the youths are too lazy to challenge old men like him for leadership opportunities, but are busy filling campaign grounds and saying “we are loyal” to old men who give them “porridge” for them in exchange for their future. Youths who fill campaign grounds and wave brooms are lazy. Brooms were not meant to be used by youths; but maidens were to use them to sweep houses. So what would you call youths who carry and wave brooms which they never intend to use to sweep? Lazy youths of course.
How can youths not be lazy when a 75-year old man who spent over 200 days in a particular year in the hospital runs for a second term and youths line up with brooms again? If you know anything that is lazier than this then you are a much better man than Michael the son of John.
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