By Douglas Anele

Hypocrisy by the elite is also manifest in the differential manner they judge actions based on one’s socio-economic standing. TakeYusuf Buhari, son of the President, who had a very extravagant wedding recently during which guests danced to Naira Marley’s songs containing salacious lyrics.

Apart from scores of government officials and politicians from different parties that attended the event, the number of chattered and private jets that brought big men and thick madams to the occasion can be used to establish several independent airlines. Moreover takeaway packs given to attendees contain customised latest IPhone 12 Pro Max, IPad and other items valued at over one million naira.

Because both the bride and groom are among the pigs in the animal farm called Nigeria, overzealous hisbah police in Kano looked the other way just as self-styled guardians of public morality did not respond to the ostentatious wedding with the same level of vitriolic dubious indignation as they did to the burial at Oba. That said, the opulence of Yusuf’s wedding is in bad taste and condemnable.

To begin with, he is the son of a President who wears the mask of an ascetic disciplinarian not given to ribaldry and ostentatiousness, although his government has democratised poverty nationwide. Thus either Buhari failed to inculcate in his son his so-called Spartan lifestyle or Nigerians who think of him as someone with a healthy disdain for materialism have been deceived all along.

Again the lavish wedding shows utter contempt, insensitivity, and disregard for Nigerians experiencing hardships worsened by a government headed by the groom’s father, especially those Frantz Fanon described as the “wretched of the earth,” since a sizeable quantum of public funds must have been spent on a private ceremony that adds nothing to the suffering masses in Kano State. At the wedding loquacious Femi Fani-Kayode fraternised with Isa Pantami, Buhari’s Minister for Communications and Digital Economy.

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Remember, the former aviation minister had, rightly, scathingly criticised Pantami publicly for his fanatic Islamist views and activities. But suddenly Pantami is now his friend and brother. Very convenient, indeed. In December 2017,Fani-Kayode claimed that Buhari’s severe ill-health and Yusuf’s power bike accident were warnings from God that Buhari should let Nigerians go.

Four years later he attends an event hosted by the very person that ignored his so-called divine warning. As usual, when people point out contradictions in his behaviour, Fani-Kayode, the big man with an infamous “short fuse,”instead of critical self-appraisal, attacks his critics with uncouth and violent language. Of course, he has a right to choose his friends and attend any event.

Yet he forgets that his erratic chameleonic attitude portrays him as a vulgar hypocrite who has no sound moral convictions about anything so long as it is beneficial to himself. Femi Fani-Kayode is notorious for his ideological flippancy.He attacked Obasanjo and Jonathan before the two men invited him to come and eat when they were in power, which was why Obasanjo reportedly claimed that if you give him food he will sing for you.

Nnamdi Kanu and members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) were mistaken in thinking that he is a dependable ally. Had they investigated Fani-Kayode’s antecedents thoroughly and read his putrid essays of August, 2013 entitled “The bitter truth about the Igbo,” they would have realised he is a foul mouthed Igbophobe who occasionally enjoys insulting Ndigbo.

Overall, the lesson from Yusuf Buhari’s wedding is crystal clear and unequivocal: the present generation of politicians are shameless agbataekee hypocrites who run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Only compound fools and useful idiots allow themselves to be used by such undesirable elements.

The pre-eightieth birthday event of retired military dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, which took place on Tuesday August 17, 2021 provided another opportunity for the elite to showcase their hypocritical skills. Some eulogised him as a kind-hearted and loyal statesman who never neglects or betrays his friends. Others hyperbolised his purported leadership qualities and extolled his economic programmes.

An objective assessment of Babangida’s defining decisions and actions as military president actually shows he was a mediocre who did more harm than good to the Nigerian people. Babangida is a wily Machiavellian who betrayed his friends, Chief M.K.O. Abiola and Gen. Mamman Vatsa, and his regime committed egregious mistakes. One of the most devastating is the notorious Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), the haphazard implementation of which exacerbated the economic problems his administration inherited from the draconian regime of Muhammadu Buhari.

On the political front, Babangida and his cohorts wasted billions of naira and human resources on a futile labyrinthine transition programme that eventually culminated in the utterly reprehensible cancellation of the June 12 presidential election results and collapse of the entire civilian edifice he built on quicksand. Although the passage of time has soothed the angst and trauma of that event, the annulment must rank as the greatest political misfortune that has befallen Nigeria since the end of the civil war.

In a recent television interview Babangida jeered at Buhari’s government for the elephantine corruption under his presidency. But one has not forgotten the epidemic of corruption between 1985 and 1993, which was complemented by the notorious crime of obtaining through false pretence known as 419. Now, not only was Babangida’s regime guilty of brute contempt for fundamental human rights by clamping down hard on dissent either by individuals or groups, it was generally a lawless junta which usurped adjudicatory powers of the courts through issuing several obnoxious decrees and refusal to obey court orders and rulings.

In short, the eight years Babangida ruled Nigeria were years of missed opportunities, financial rascality and incompetent management of the country’s resources, as well as poorly designed and implemented socio-political engineering that ultimately led to nowhere. Therefore those prominent Nigerians who eulogised him during his eightieth birthday ceremonies were deceiving themselves and the celebrant as well. The plaudits and highfaluting adjectives they used in characterising his personal attributes indicate pervasive hypocrisy and the low moral standard of the Nigerian elite.

Babangida is probably aware that most of those showering praises on him are insincere, that the eulogies far outstrip his modest achievements, and that history has already placed him in the category of Nigerian leaders who created more problems than they were able to solve. So, to all those who went to Minna to whitewash his record,you can fool some people all the time or all the people some of the time. But you cannot fool all the people all the time.

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Even in entertainment matters, the epidemic of hypocrisy among the elite is obvious. Take for example the ongoing television programme, Big Brother Naija, Shine Ya Eye. Self-styled hypocritical guardians of sexual virtue with antediluvian mindset have suggested that it should be banned because it displays nudity and sexual content.

Nevertheless pathological obsession with naked human bodies and sex is one of the neuroses generated by uncritical adherence to the absurd pronouncements of founders of religions (mostly men) who lived in prescientific communities thousands of years ago. Believers who ascribe religious or metaphysical significance to naked bodies should take an excursion to a mortuary and have their brains reformatted.

What is really the big deal about breasts, buttocks and genitalia that adults cannot see them for what they really are, namely, parts of the human body that perform specific functions just like the eyes, hands, legs etc.? In my view Big Brother Naija provides economic opportunities for talented young entrepreneurs, and insights distillable from the programme can be used as atool for social engineering and for understanding adult human behaviour in a very restricted artificial setting which can guide effective social policy in the larger society.

But hypocrites whose capacity for healthy attitude towards sex has been crippled from early childhood by religion can only see nudity. Still they continuously watch the programme privately and afterwards complain publicly. Rubbish!

Concluded.

Vanguard News Nigeria