Buying a Sachet of Water for a River Goddess

Buying a Sachet of Water for a River Goddess
by Oladehinde Ibikunle

I've always argued that Nigeria has a president whose stance bespeaks immaculate sincerity. His integrity supplants what other presidents/prime ministers in all the countries of the world can boast of.

The above fact was established when the president lamented the exorbitance of his party's presidential nomination form in the same way the average Nigerians lamented when the price of petrol hit 145NGN.

But, the president has squalidly feigned his inability to purchase the form in order to accentuate his prudence. This is the same action he took in 2015 when he announced reduction in his own salary yet could not subdue his ministers to do the same.

Nigerians should understand. The president was not economical on his numberless trips to various countries for diplomatic reasons. Who can ascertain the number of company keepers in his entourage to China? Who will estimate how much we spent on Yusuf? All these and other unknown instances of lavish  lifestyle are not abnormal for a nation's president, the president therefore needs not to feign financial incapability in order to hoodwink ductile Nigerians. We are all aware that abundant luxury and affluence are major attributes of political offices in Nigeria.

This fact the ruling party took into consideration when they decided to sell the presidential nomination form at 45million NGN; an amount the party (and every other Nigerian) believes is payable by the president who bids for second term in office without much ado notwithstanding its obvious outrageousness.

It is however utterly implausible that a particular group taxed one another to purchase the form for the president. It is like buying a sachet of water for a river goddess.  There is an insignia of absurdity in it. As the president has publicly stated, in a case whereby he feels dissatisfied with the price of the nomination form, if genuine and not feigned, he should have prevailed on the party's decision-makers to forthwith reduce the price or courageously decamped to another party whose nomination forms are cheaper, say Labour Party. This would have made his position on anti corruption more believable and of course made 2019 drama more fascinating.

Oladehinde Ibikunle