I love witty quotes. Don’t we all do? There’s one on a dashboard near you or stuck to the car ahead. For a while now, churches baptized each new years with fancy themes. Some swear on their grandmother’s grave that a church sticker of the year could prevent a car from being stolen or a house been robbed. We are a nation hooked on superstition.
One witty saying has stuck to my memory from my days in Radio Kano. It was a card on the message board of Uncle Folajimi Andy Iyeku. It says – you don’t have to be mad to work here, but if you are, it helps!
With Covid-19 revealing the best and the worst of mankind, madness is being exhibited everywhere, from pulpits to political podiums and elsewhere between. Executive madness exhibits with as much impact as other forms of mental health.
The usually debonair governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde was advised against holding a rally. He shunned the advice and even made snide political comments about Covid-19 at the rally. As it turned out, his Covid-19 diagnosis came back positive. Thank God he quickly recovered. Makinde apologized for his gaffe and soon made another. He claimed that the consumption of some untested herbs sped up his recovery.
It’s not rocket science that politicians and social influencers are capable of leading followers astray with their silly comments or actions. That was the message that Funke Akindele’s conviction taught us if anything. Makinde eventually locked down his state rather than lure his citizens to get infected and queue up at his residence for portions of his untested Covid-19 medication. That’s two strikes the Oyo State governor.
The Oyo idiocy is mild compared to the level of executive lunacy exhibited by two of his colleagues. In Rivers State, Nyesom Wike just exhibited the kind of psychosis that supports opponents of state police. He arrested, charged and jailed two pilots on exclusive assignments on the basis that he has shut the airports as prevention against Covid-19.
The aviation minister disagreed. He explained that the pilots and their plane were on essential duty and had presidential permission to fly. Rather than apologize, Wike ordered the company that hired the pilots to move out of his state. Wike is protected by the federal might. If the IG withdrew security around him, it won’t be long before he is made the mincemeat of his political foes. Hope somebody also explains that the oil that the pilots were serving gives him the allocation that enables him to function as a governor.
Megalomaniac Cross Rivers governor, olimpotic meristemasis Ben Ayade, is knows for traits of executive idiocy. He’ll jail journalists who challenge him to be accountability. With Covid-19 becoming a global pandemic, Ayade commissioned a tailoring company to make masks. Of course, Ayade is too far-gone to realize that masks are no ordinary clothes, they are medical supplies made to specification. If it took tailors to make them, no country would ever run out of them.
Mid-week, Ayade pulled a fairly huge crowd of his supporters in Calabar and declared that wearing ‘his’ masks cancels the requirement for social distancing. A former university professor and one-time senator, Ayade’s vaccine against Covid-19 are made-in-Calabar masks! Governors enjoy immunity, and won’t get Ms. Akindele’s treatment. That is very sad for a nation that worships political leaders.
Across the world, ‘leaders’ with massive followers are misleading their supporters. With nothing but clinical conjecture, Donald Trump touted an anti-malarial drug as the vaccine for Covid-19. It led to panic buying of the drug, the death of at least one individual and hospitalization of scores of others.
Trump is not alone. Televangelist Jim Baker was sued for peddling an online Covid-19 spiritual cure that is neither tested nor licensed by American experts. Actor Keith Lawrence Middlebrook claimed to have preventive pills and an injectable drug to treat Covid-19. He fell into a sting operation with an undercover cop that led to his arrest. Middlebrook has 2.4 million followers on Instagram.
Baker has pastorpreneur colleagues in Nigeria. Chris Oyakhilome, a jerry-curled wearing was reportedly a guest of the DSS last week. He faults the shutdown of Lagos and Abuja and claimed it was not done to prevent the spread of Covid-19 but to test 5G networks. The idiotic link between 5G and Covid-19 is popular among gullible humans fed on conspiracy theories across the globe.
The trouble with Oyakhilome and others is that they command sheeple who would stop breathing at their command. Left to peddle half-baked idiocy with ecclesiastical stamp may lead to the loss of lives and lack of control.
With people like these as social influencers, we are doomed as a society. If these are the best of us, then there’s no harm recruiting leaders from the Ward 6 or the popular Yaba left.
On Chinese Doctors
Isn’t it funny that Nigerians are so unhappy to see Chinese doctors when their government goes cap in hand to China for every kind of help?
