In
his usual style of taking a swipe at the government, award winning,
satiric poet and writer has condemned the activities of the out-going
government and urged the incoming government led by General Muhammadu
Buhari (retd) to be transparent in their dealing with Nigerians.....more
He
made this known at the distinguished alumni lecture organised by
Christ’s School (Ado-Ekiti), Lagos Branch, which held at Nigerian
Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos.
In
his lecture entitled “No More Business as Usual: Nigeria’s New-found
‘Change’ and the Lesson from the Past”, Prof. Niyi Osundare said: “The
outgoing government gave us transformation without change, motion
without movement, sermon without self reflection, and it happened that
way, because its functionaries tried to transform the country without
first transforming themselves. Their efforts bottomed out as fast and
errant hypocrisy. The change promised by the new government must not be
another buzz word, mouths to titillate the lips and caressing the ears
of people.
Osundare, who is a Professor of English at University of
New Orleans, United States of America, recalled that, before the recent
elections in the country, two women who were interviewed by one of the
television station was seen holding their Permanent Voters cards (PVCs)
and declared with our PVC, they voted out the outgoing government and,
if the incoming government would not perform better, they would also
vote them out. “Holding their voters card, they declared, Never Again!”
he recalled.
For Osundare, “Impunity is the vilest enemy to the rule
of law faced by implication which is actually tantamount to the rule of
lawlessness”. Besides, he said,“ No empire has ever risen and fallen
without the active agency of impunity. No powerful institution has ever
fallen into the pit without its affliction. Those women will like us to
bury impunity in a grave of once upon a time. They are itching to hear
something from Nigeria, and the incoming government.
Recalling the
Chibok disastrous kidnapping, he said never again would what happened on
April 14, 2014, the Chibok recur, when “a bunch of happy girls were
preparing for their final examinations, their hearts struggled with the
hope burning in their eyes”, but their dreams failed an emphatic
upright, as an insurgency crashed in with guns and bombs, soiled the
hope and pronounced a Fatwa on knowledge; while the security agencies
did nothing.
Dissatisfied with the ruling class, Professor Osundare
called for a review of remuneration and allowances to public servants,
which has made Nigeria to spend over 60% of its earnings on the
maintenance of a unproductive parasitic public officials whose aversion
to morals has turned our country into a moral wilderness.”
With the
incoming government, he said Nigerians would like to demand a full
disclosure of remunerations and allowances of all public office holders
and the reintroduction of fiscal regulations and fiscal discipline in
all public offices. In addition, with the drastic reductions of all
public office holders, he demanded a new mentality that “public service
is not a bonanza”.
He sought a break from the former National
Electric Power Authority (NEPA), now Power Holding Company of Nigeria
(PHCN). He would also want Nigeria to put the horn back in our
factories, put an end to our age long archeology as a brainless
effective society that consumes without producing.
For a change, he
called for a knowledge-driven government, make our government friendly
to positive ideas and surround it with people who are not afraid of
thinking or asking questions.
“This is the change we seek,” he
emphasised. “Nigeria has enough resources to make life reasonably
comfortable for all its citizens, if our leaders will steal less and
think more of the rest of us. No country can ever be happy if it has 10
millionaires and 100,000 paupers, and that is what Nigeria is and has
been.”
The change we seek, he said, would never come until we start
holding those who rule us to account for what they do. “Until we start
holding their feet to the fire in a manner of speaking, this may sound
plain or too simple, but we can only choose the way that we want to be
ruled. When a ruler commands you to burn for no good reason, and all you
ask is how far? Next time, he or she will ask you to sink below the
surface of the earth,” he added.
Urging the populace to rediscover
the power in their voters’ card, he said Nigerians should tell the
incoming government and its entourage that “we have swept off the
perverse government that has held us down for so many years; if you do
not want us to do the same to you, kill corruption before corruption
kills Nigeria; start building with us a just and egalitarian society in
which leaders lead by following conscientious and following it by
insisting on their rights and their duty to the irredeemable damage that
the People Democratic party (PDP) and its predecessors have done to
this country. Let us join those women by saying, never again!”
Pastor
Tunde Bakare of Latter Rain Assembly, Lagos said: We are not flattering
Prof. Osundare; he has been consistent over the years. He made me
aspire to keep reading his books especially, Dialogue with the
Nation.
Yemi Akeju, chairman of the occasion said, “We chose to
communicate to the society through our alumni association; while Ayo
Adebanjo added: “If we have more of Prof. Osundare in this country,
change would have taken place a long time ago. Osundare has been
preaching what Nigerians should be through his literature. This present
generation should try to create a name or reputation that people would
get to know and respect.”
Some of the dignitaries in attendance included
Prof. Duro Oni, Yinka Odimakin, Eniola Fadayomi, Odia Ofeimun, Taiwo
Ajai-Lycett, among others.
