“There is a storm that is coming. You know, people would think that ‘oh it’s the North, they don’t go to school, there is insecurity’. Look, if it blows up in the North, Nigeria is gone.”
By LASISI OLAGUNJU
Decades ago, my late mother pointed at a house to me: “Someone in that house once snatched someone’s wife. In the evening, when it was time for husband and wife to sleep, a storm swept into the bedroom and carried off their sleeping mat. Then pandemonium followed…Ó di b’óòlo o yàá mi.”
She described that scene as one of a cyclone of vengeful rage. Wife snatcher fought back strongly, got his mat back, but had to let go of the woman he snatched. He had to.
There was an exchange on Seun Okinbaloye’s ‘Mic On Podcast’ programme on Saturday. The video is trending online. Answering Seun’s questions was beautiful, brainy, bold Zainab Buba Galadima. She is the daughter of fiery opposition politician from the North, Alhaji Buba Galadima.
Zainab is an APC member, a former public servant who served in the Buhari administration while her father was busy throwing darts at that same government.
Zainab is asked some really interesting questions and she gives very interesting answers and insights. She is an APC member who is scared that the party has frittered away its goodwill and has incurred the people’s anger in indescribable ways. She looks into the belly of time and warns that a hurricane is hurtling towards our complacent country.
“I am really disappointed (with the APC and its government); very disappointed. You know, there are some places I cannot go to. During Buhari’s second term, they (the poor) broke my windscreen. They said ‘oh. You promised us, now you are enjoying. You are inside a car.’ Before, at the traffic light, you saw them begging with outstretched arms, now, they would knock on your window; now they would snatch whatever it is that you have (for them). So, even if you think it doesn’t affect me, it is coming. I am afraid of the storm that is coming”
“There is a storm?”
“Oh. Yeah. There is a storm that is coming. You know, people would think that ‘oh it’s the North, they don’t go to school, there is insecurity’. Look, if it blows up in the North, Nigeria is gone.”
At Phillipi, Shakespeare’s Cassius sees something exactly like this: “The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.” Zainab does not mince words about what is coming.
What she sees coming is not as portentous as the way she says it. Watch the video – almost 36 minutes long. Watch her; watch her eyes.
She is a foundation member of the APC. But, she is asked to look at the eight years of Buhari, and two years of Tinubu. “Are you proud of the APC?” She is fast in answering that question in the negative. She goes on to explain in ghastly details: “Unless you are in the government, you won’t know the extent of the damage. I am really not happy. I thought APC was ready for victory. But it did not know how to manage victory and I don’t think we were ready for governance. You see people who scream ‘I am for the people, I am for the people’ but once they get into government, you ask, ‘Is this the same person I used to know?”
The lady is asked if she is not proud of the Buhari government she worked for. She says: “There are a lot of regrets”, although she served in the government, not in a capacity where her performance could be assessed. “So, it is hard for someone like me to say, ‘oh I regret.’ But, there are some situations where I said, ‘no, we shouldn’t have done this.’
Who should then be blamed for the failure of the APC government? Her answer isn’t what APC politicians would say: “You know, I can’t single myself out. I was part of the people that actually campaigned and believed in that government. So, any failure on our part, I think I am one of the people that should be held responsible for it.” Compare her answer here to Adams Oshiomhole’s shameful sermon to APC governors at a meeting in Benin last week. The former APC national chairman said the current economic hardship was caused by Buhari’s government. Specifically, he accused that regime of “printing over ₦31 trillion.” Oshiomhole likened the heist to the fiscal suicide of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and Idi Amin’s Uganda.