BETWEEN SAINTS AND SINNERS.

Between saints and sinners. By Comrade Adekunle Samson. It is to the credit of the saints and the sinners that we now rank as one of the chronic poverty capitals of the world “They say if Buhari wins election, they will all go to prison. That is why they are running from APC to form a formidable force against us. Most of them hid money in latrines, we don’t need thieves in APC; they should go. If they don’t go, we will pursue them out as two good men are better than 10 and 10 good men are better than thousands.” (Oshiomole, 2018) There is no best time to see the hypocrisy of Nigerian leaders than now when politicians are hiding under the camouflage of ‘massism’ to pitch their tents where the interests of their inner caucus can be best served, protected and entrenched. While Nigerians suffer economic crunch, elevated unemployment, heightened poverty and uncertain tomorrow owing to untamed insecurity, both the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and the seeming opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) opened their windows to party switching. Each party is busy scavenging for individuals with the requisite political capital that can make victory happen in 2019. The ultimate concern is the political worth calculated in terms of the number of votes the new ‘player’ can bring to the club to win the champions league in 2019. In all this, it is immaterial whether the individual switching camp is of questionable character or not. Funny enough we are inundated with name calling: the defectors have been reconstructed by the ruling APC as ‘bad eggs’, ‘thieves’ and ‘corrupt’. The question is how come a ‘good person’ of three years relationship while in APC suddenly becomes labelled as ‘thieves’? In the richly oral tradition of the Yoruba people of southwest Nigeria it is rightly observed that the outpouring of vituperations in social relationships must have been laced with discord (ìjà lódé ni orín dí òwe). Peter and Paul Okoye (P-Square) provides insight into the importance of the presentation of the self in anticipation of the evaluation of others. In their song ‘Nobody Ugly’, P-Square presents to us those ‘not beautiful’ but who utilise technology to enhance beauty. With technology-enhanced beauty, people are deceived by the presentation of the self as against the real person. For instance, a black person could use image modifier to become light skinned thereby deceiving viewers. Using this analogy therefore, nobody is ugly until we say the person is ugly. Those who defected have become ‘ugly’ from their beautiful old-self. But the ugly can also be painted as beautiful (if a PDP member defects to APC) depending on the motive behind such remarks. Complimentary and uncomplimentary remarks are therefore not entirely objective but subjective. The same thing happened to the incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari when he was presented as ‘dictator’, ‘anarchist’, and someone who will Islamise Nigeria. By 2014, Buhari was repackaged from a ‘sinner’ into sainthood wearing a messianic robe. Even Buhari in his Chatham House speech said he had become a converted democrat. This transformation affirms the ‘nobody is ugly’ thesis. It shows the hypocrisy of the APC national chairman who never saw the need to invite the police to prosecute the defectors before leaving APC since he was sure they are ‘thieves’. The ruling APC has sufficiently demonstrated its ability to perfume those loyal to it while fumigating those found opposed to it. The comrade senator, Shehu Sanni rightly observed this when he asserted that the anti-corruption fight of the ruling party is fraught with jaundiced considerations. He opined that while the presidency de-odorises friends of the executive, it deploys toxic spray on perceived enemies and labels them as anti-people and corrupt in order to pitch them against Nigerians. The social construction of what is criminal, who is criminal and who is not deviant are all a function of power. Those who hold the lever of power determine those to be labelled as criminals and those to be prosecuted or not. This has played out in cases such as those involving Babashir Lawal, the backdoor entrance of Abdulrasheed Maina, the construction of Fulani-herdsmen by the presidency, and the ongoing allegation of forgery against Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun among others.