Public officials do not owe Nigerians an explanation for making statements that undermine democracy and the intelligence of Nigerians

Most Nigerian politicians are neither creative nor ingenious. Because they are not imaginative, there is no originality of thought, which explains why they are very predictable. Call it herd-mentality and you have hit the bull’s eye. Every political stunt, no-matter how fatuous, sooner than later becomes a fad.

THE one-word motto of the All Progressives Congress, APC, is “Change.” So resonant and powerful is the word “Change!” as a rallying cry that it was the veritable motor that drove APC to its historic victory in the 2015 elections. And this despite the many obstacles that the nature of the party’s emergence posed to its survival, causing many to predict its disintegration and death even before it could get its name printed on the ballots. For a populace that had watched for sixteen years as the Peoples Democratic Party laid the country to waste, change was not a mere slogan to their ears as they looked for hope and succour; change was the promise of a new beginning.

In a season of partisan frenzy, fair and objective reaction to matters in the public square is indeed a strenuous undertaking. This is even more so when folks who (mis)speak don the toga of leaders. But, perhaps, more importantly, democracy would lose its defining egalitarianism if it foreclosed the free expression of viewpoints by its adherents- including often unreasoned perspectives that seek to diminish and ridicule.

Lagos, the commercial nerve of the Nigerian economy is arguably the most populated state in the country, (with close to 20 million people) and the most industrialized. It is therefore of little surprise that the mega city generates about 13,000 metric tons of waste daily.