You cannot convince any real patriot that General Muhammadu Buhari’s regime does not mean well for the nation and its citizenry. To harbour such thoughts is sacrilegious sedition. Every fortnight, government wakes up with a brain wave and because we are the best materials for all sorts of experiments, rolls out policies meant to test our loyalty, resilience and since we won’t stop breeding – help cull the unwanted numbers.
Nigerians are resilient lots. You would not subject citizens of some other nations to a quarter of what Nigerians are subjected to without risking mass insurrection.
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Our friend, Alhaji Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim, aka Sheikh Pantami, is a consummate patriot and tech guru. You can’t take that from him. His friends and followers attest to these facts that he is not just a man of letters, but a giant of faith too. In Nigeria, your secular titles either bow before your ecclesiastical titles or enhance it. In Nigeria, a man of faith is worth much more than the science of life.
So, I believe that Sheikh Pantami means well because, as a man of faith, he would have run any policy through divine lenses before dropping them as gems at the Federal Executive Council for approval. Thus, his projects get presidential and divine endorsement.
Critics, who would not know the road to salvation even if you dropped them at the gates of heaven and hell, swear that people of faith are too much in a hurry to implement a divine mandate that they sometimes fail. They swear that these people either do not hear well or they do not wait for the full instructions before acting. Due to much deprivation, men of faith sometimes sleep on duty. Daily Trust editors want us to believe that Sheikh Pantami and his men were not fully awake when they ‘discovered’ that rested SIM cards were being recycled and sold by itinerant vendors.
In other words, the precious man-hours we spent queuing to register our SIM cards in the years of the locusts were just attempts to make sedentary citizens get up and exercise. It took a team of restless reporters to draw the attention of the giants at the National Communications Commission, NCC to the illegality happening under their nose. Of course, like the dynamic institution that they are, they sprung into action, stopped the ‘illegal sales’ and ordered an audit of registered SIM cards. This is why, given an opportunity to choose between having a government without a press or a press without a government, the ruining regime would choose the former. There would be peace on earth when reporters write what they’re told.
So, to punish Nigerians for waking up a sleeping ombudsman, Sheikh Pantami’s officials issued a new directive – two weeks to link all SIM cards with National Identification Numbers, NIN. SIM registration is done by phone providers supervised by NCC, while identification issues are on the exclusive list of the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC supervised by a different ministry. Interagency cooperation in Nigeria is as symbiotic as the relationship between a legal wife and her husband’s sidekick. As for NCC, it could only be trusted to stay on top of any serious matter for a fortnight, not longer.
In the midst of a virulent pandemic that sends the president into hiding, a government agency orders over 200 million citizens to troop out, socially distance, queue with their face masks, hand sanitisers and spray to link their SIM cards to their NIN registration. Nobody made the connection between mobbing and the spread of the coronavirus. It is not beyond people of faith to believe that COVID-19 is a punishment for the earth’s sinfulness, after all, the holy books say – the soul that sinneth, it shall die; want to live forever steer clear of sin.
Bumbling and bumbling as usual, the regime realised it had made a deadly mistake. Out came the conflicting signals – you didn’t need to queue up after all, if you had done your Bank Verification Number, BVN, then you have a NIN number – only you didn’t realise it. Recharge, send a text at your own cost (yes, government taxes us for their own stupidity everyday) and get the magic number. If you choose the queue, NIN registrars are on strike because, without salary, they spend their own cash trying to make the government look good – no more.
If asking valid questions were not an attribute of rebellion, we would have asked why we needed to risk our lives struggling to link our SIM cards with our NIN or BVN during a pandemic? Why? What’s the urgency? Why can’t it wait? Why not do these seamlessly over a length of time? What’s the rush? Why punish and expose your citizens to sure death?
We must inflict pain – we changed car registration plates in pain, get our national passports in agony, renew it in torment, registered for SIM, BVN, NIN and voters cards – all in distress. Why?
When would there be a one-stop-shop for our identity needs? Why can’t we get the cards we are due in the post? Why can’t we get messages in our inboxes reminding us to update our information on our birthdays or three months ahead with reminders in-between as other nations do?
In the light of the controversy that migration has generated recently, it is now settled palaver that if you jet out – (like Andrew of Buhari’s yesteryears), you burn your passport of patriotism. So, in all the planning, nobody remembers Nigerians in the diaspora. We love their dollar remittances but loathe their inclusion. We have embassies and emissaries across the globe but they do not influence policy decisions.
General Buhari’s December 1983 quote rings through for him in 2021 – This generation of Nigerians and indeed future generations have no other place they can call home – we shall stay here and salvage it together. If you live abroad, forget it.
Of course, Nigeria first exempts the General and his family. While making the statement in 1983, Buhari kept his contract with his London doctor for himself and his family. He has kept it since he was petroleum minister. His patriotic wife Aisha, went to Dubai for a medical procedure and discovered that the air in Dubai is less toxic than the one in the Presidential Villa where she had to fight power-mongering cousins and in-laws. The first son, Yusuf was airlifted to Germany for proper treatment. To paraphrase Babatunde Raji Fashola, – may our patriotism never be questioned. So, if you queue for NIN registration, you’re taking the mark of the beast from a ravaging pandemic and in Nigeria, only death is free!
Footnote
Here’s a welcome note to New Britain the one that helped build and sustain the EU for decades but severed its links two weeks ago. It Brexited but has a foot in. Why? Even Stanley Johnson, father of Brexit Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has applied to reclaim his French citizenship. His mother is French and he argues he’ll always be European. He was a former EU parliamentarian and staff. The Johnsons are as divided as the British are of Brexit!
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