A coalition of big-time hustlers has christened itself a motion. Their motivation is thinly veiled. They’ll channel their aggression towards the re-election of President Bola Tinubu. To decorate up the enterprise, they selected a catchy title. Tinubu grew to become “Metropolis Boy.” Pa Tinubu will certainly welcome any residual boyishness younger individuals can credit score him with now. The town he usually claims to have constructed is a sprawling, chaotic metropolis the place over 60% of residents reside in slums. The Metropolis Boy Motion is, subsequently, an all-round conundrum.
In a way, the title suits completely. With out make-believe and irony, it wouldn’t seize the essence of the cohort. A gaggle of younger males whose wealth—its scale and sources—by no means ceases to astonish has coalesced to champion a president who has squandered his time period, unwilling or unable to confront the corruption and insecurity ravaging the land. These notice-me philanthropists, with their penchant for lavish exhibitionism, will quickly descend on the streets in gleaming motorcades, doling out handouts to entice the hungry lots. Their conspicuous sybaritism will be the proof that the president has banished poverty.
They received’t encounter revulsion on these streets. Too many are too hungry to care. The opposition seems anaemic, torpid and jaded. Democracy has raised hopes solely to shatter them. The road between roguery and enterprise has blurred within the fog of hopelessness. When a band of sons of Sceva hits the streets to hawk their counterfeit gospel, the individuals will gather the morsels and dance in adulation. When day by day survival turns into the only real goal, civic duty turns onerous—even summary, too distant for humdrum existence. So The Metropolis Boy Motion, with all its contradictions, has maybe arrived at the best time, in exactly the best place.
They remind me of the peripatetic luxury-bus patent-medicine sellers. The bus medical doctors start with prayers. The uninitiated mistake them for pastors. Wearing fits, briefcases in hand, they belt out soulful choruses to calm nerves because the bus lurches onto treacherous highways. After talking in tongues and accumulating choices for God, they unveil first the multivitamins. Then antibiotics , after some enchanting mumbojumbo in microbiology. They could toss sweet to a crying little one or two.
After portray scientific signs in probably the most grotesque phrases to stoke nervousness, they brandish surprise medicine that promise to remedy each ailment recognized to man. Passengers who by no means supposed to purchase something empty their wallets. As soon as they’ve squeezed out the final drop of money, they provide a ultimate prayer for his or her “victims” and hop off the bus like metropolis boys. All of the gospel, humanity, and love are deserted contained in the bus like a discarded rag as they hurry to the following prey. Regardless of such bare charlatanism, these faux healers not often face outright revulsion. The persons are too credulous, too distrustful of orthodox drugs, too superstitious, too forgiving.
Maybe 45 years in the past, when Dubai was not but a factor, Tinubu may have been a real metropolis boy. Contemporary from Chicago, Lagos then ranked nearer to at this time’s livable cities. However he prefers to color Jakande’s Lagos as a jungle—so he can pose as a magician akin to Dubai’s emir. Neither hyperbole nor stark irony fazes these of us. His spouse even believes he has outgrown “architect of contemporary Lagos” to grow to be “architect of contemporary Nigeria.” The audacity of the Metropolis Boy Motion’s founders is simple to hint.
‘Fashionable Nigeria’ has grown too harsh for its youth. Those that can flee are fleeing. Taboos, morality, and spirituality have retreated to the again seat. Those that stay have embraced survival with fingers and enamel. The land is dominated by permissiveness. “By all means” is the reigning philosophy. Laborious work is now not seen as sensible. Some select yahoo-yahoo. Others dive into politics. Nonetheless others enter the church enterprise. Even legislation enforcement has grow to be a profitable route out of poverty, with officers competing fiercely with businessmen. Nigeria has scattered its youngsters, seeding them with inordinate ambitions throughout each endeavor. Nothing has been left unbastardized. Thugs have been used to thrust back an ethnic group from the polling cubicles. The Metropolis Boy Motion appears to be like like the following degree. The flamboyant injection of mercenary instincts into political entrepreneurship.
Tinubu promised to remodel electrical energy technology and distribution. His first time period nears its shut, but common out there energy hovers round 4,000 MW. About 10% of what South Africa or Egypt distribute. His political technique is evident: subsume main opposition events into the ruling APC to forge a one-party-dominant state. However his electrical energy roadmap stays hazy. Due to the continual shortages, different African international locations, together with the poorest of them , mock Nigeria because the “Generator Republic.” Maybe the Metropolis Boy Motion will present the lots a couple of feeble Chinese language mills and torchlights to show that the president has remodeled the ability sector and stabilized the overseas alternate charge.
To stem ravaging starvation, Tinubu didn’t increase meals manufacturing or safe farms. Not even paying off and pampering bandits has labored. With a aptitude for spectacle over substance, he leaned on meals importation. We recall “Operation Feed the Nation”
Not less than it was a stirring slogan. Tinubu’s predecessor’s import-substitution efforts have been forgotten. To appease these impoverished by subsidy removing, the federal government turned to money transfers and meals handouts. This has deepened the institutionalization of a worrying begging tradition. Everyone seems to be looking out for a handout. The horde swarming automobiles in congested site visitors . Policemen on the roads and in stations. Conventional rulers on their thrones. Even airport officers , performing important safety duties, have turned abject beggars. Different Africans now discuss with Nigeria as ”Abegistan.”
The Metropolis Boy Motion will certainly distribute luggage of rice. Vote shopping for has grow to be rampant. Hopefully, they proceed with warning. Their agbata-eke enthusiasm dangers upsetting extra mockery from our bemused African neighbors who’re already sneering at our wanton wastefulness, begging tradition, handouts, financial hardship and electoral malpractice.
My nice grandmother disliked metropolis individuals. Individuals who flaunted ‘the town’ . She mentioned they talked an excessive amount of, advised too many lies, and lived faux lives . She mentioned the most effective place to retailer their guarantees was a perforated bag. She had no contact with peripatetic bus medical doctors and NADECO prodemocracy activists. God, abeg
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