2 October 2019
El Rufai sent his son to a public school; it is politics.
El Rufai pays minimum wage; it is politics.
All these is because of 2023. He wants to be president. He should stop deceiving us.
Well, El Rufai is not deceiving me. I know it's politics. The man, like all other governors, is a politician; I don't expect him to play football. Politicians play politics. All of them. Wait, let me repeat that so that you don't miss it: I said all politicians play politics. If you meet anyone who says he is not playing politics, then that one is the patron saint of liars.
So now that you know that all politicians play politics, your concern should be what kind of politics are they playing, especially with the office you gave them and the resources they control.
Those who don't have even one of their children in a public school in Nigeria are also playing politics. Is that the kind of politics you want? Won't you prefer a governor who will have even if it is a child, just one, in a public school?
Those governors who have refused to pay workers salaries are also playing politics. Won't you rather have a governor that play politics by paying salaries and paying the minimum wage that even the Federal Government is still debating on?
It is never about whether this politician or that politician is playing politics or not, it is always about the brand of politics being played with your life that you think you deserve.
In the final analysis, this is about our acute poverty and evidence of being shackled to penury and maladministration by the ruling class. 59 years after Independence it is still headline news that a governor enrolls his son in a public school; it is news because we have come to accept that our schools are shitholes. We are still celebrating N30, 000 minimum wage in a country blessed with so much natural and human resources; we are grateful for crumbs from their table.
We are so backward that just one toe ahead is celebrated as forward. We are a conquered people and our slave masters are our own brothers. Gradually we are losing our humanity so much so that we consider it a favour if our leaders eat what we eat, drink what we drink and send their children to our schools or hospitals.
One day we will wake up and see: "Breaking News: Governor El Rufai, his colleagues and their children breath the same oxygen like the rest of us," and we will be expected to be grateful.
For now, we can only lift up our eyes to heaven and cry, "Oh Biggie, deliver us from all these Tachas."
– Firsts Baba Isa (FBI) is a legal Practitioner and writes from Abuja.
