A quick perusal of Dr. Rueben Abati’s article ‘The Hypocrisy of Yesterday’s Men’ which was published in almost all reputable Nigerian newspapers on the 3rd of February, 2013, will adequately acquaint one with the infamous coinage of “Yesterday’s Men”, while positively amplifying the diminutive glory of “Today’s Men” – another euphemism for the Aso Villa cabal. In reaction to Abati’s venomous attack, Femi Fani Kayode in his article, “The Delusions of Today’s Men” in the Leadership Newspaper of 4th February, while affirming the christening of “Today’s Men” castigated and vilified “Today’s Men” in an even more direct approach albeit proportional to the initial attack on them (The “Yesterday’s Men”).

The common Nigerian citizen (Whom I refer to as the expendable pawn) can’t help but watch with uttermost amazement as “Yesterday’s Men” and “Today’s Men” exchange fiery darts between themselves at the expense of his food, health, job, security and most importantly, his life. The whole mumbo jumbo of this slandering is a fallout of the in-house dispute among members of the oligarchic academy, Yes! The very people who have stunted and stagnated the growth of this country in many ways. Permit me to say; only a fool will be inclined to sympathize with any side of the divide. A quintessential metaphor would suggest that the common citizen is caught in between ‘the devil and the deep blue sea’, of which both ends are perilous in their own respects.

If we attempt to reach the premise of this hullabaloo (in the sense that all these noise has no bearing on the common man aside from mere information), we will immediately arrive at the last straw that broke the camel’s back, which is Dr. Obi Ezekwesili’s postulation of $67 billion USD that was squandered between Yar’Adua and GEJ’s governments .This was the bane of the name calling and vilifications between ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Today’s Men’. Both sides seek to exonerate their guilty selves while not actually caring about the masses .The same Ezekwesili almost crumbled the federal Government colleges of the federation with her unpopular restructuring of unity schools, to the extent that entire staff of the affected schools went on strike during her tenure as Minister for Education. What did she do with mammoth budgetary allocation approved for her ministry? Even the World Bank, what laudable projected has she been able to accomplish in favour of Nigeria? Now hold it there! Before you demonize her alone, let’s go back to the most gullible cabal in the history of this nation, what can we point out as a 100% accomplishment of Jonathan’s tenure? Someone aptly described it as ‘a harvest of promises’.

A quick perusal of Dr. Rueben Abati’s article ‘The Hypocrisy of Yesterday’s Men’ which was published in almost all reputable Nigerian newspapers on the 3rd of February, 2013, will adequately acquaint one with the infamous coinage of “Yesterday’s Men”, while positively amplifying the diminutive glory of “Today’s Men” – another euphemism for the Aso Villa cabal. In reaction to Abati’s venomous attack, Femi Fani Kayode in his article, “The Delusions of Today’s Men” in the Leadership Newspaper of 4th February, while affirming the christening of “Today’s Men” castigated and vilified “Today’s Men” in an even more direct approach albeit proportional to the initial attack on them (The “Yesterday’s Men”).

The common Nigerian citizen (Whom I refer to as the expendable pawn) can’t help but watch with uttermost amazement as “Yesterday’s Men” and “Today’s Men” exchange fiery darts between themselves at the expense of his food, health, job, security and most importantly, his life. The whole mumbo jumbo of this slandering is a fallout of the in-house dispute among members of the oligarchic academy, Yes! The very people who have stunted and stagnated the growth of this country in many ways. Permit me to say; only a fool will be inclined to sympathize with any side of the divide. A quintessential metaphor would suggest that the common citizen is caught in between ‘the devil and the deep blue sea’, of which both ends are perilous in their own respects.

If we attempt to reach the premise of this hullabaloo (in the sense that all these noise has no bearing on the common man aside from mere information), we will immediately arrive at the last straw that broke the camel’s back, which is Dr. Obi Ezekwesili’s postulation of $67 billion USD that was squandered between Yar’Adua and GEJ’s governments .This was the bane of the name calling and vilifications between ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Today’s Men’. Both sides seek to exonerate their guilty selves while not actually caring about the masses .The same Ezekwesili almost crumbled the federal Government colleges of the federation with her unpopular restructuring of unity schools, to the extent that entire staff of the affected schools went on strike during her tenure as Minister for Education. What did she do with mammoth budgetary allocation approved for her ministry? Even the World Bank, what laudable projected has she been able to accomplish in favour of Nigeria? Now hold it there! Before you demonize her alone, let’s go back to the most gullible cabal in the history of this nation, what can we point out as a 100% accomplishment of Jonathan’s tenure? Someone aptly described it as ‘a harvest of promises’.

Fani Kayode has drawn our attention to the trillions of Naira being supposedly spent on oil subsidy payments in the last two years and its partial removal with no positive results to show, the 7.5 billion Naira earmarked for the new FCT (probably golden) gates, the 4 billion Naira for the frivolous house for the First Lady, the 5billion Naira for the rehabilitation of FCT prostitutes – which makes me think they are being patronized by people in high offices, graduate unemployment hovering at 80%, the 70% of Nigerians (the pawns) living below poverty line, and the over 4000 Nigerians killed by terrorists in the last two years, in addition to David Cameron’s unanswered question of ‘how did Jonathan, and his cohorts, spend $100 billion USD made from oil sales in the last two years? Now we must also note that Kayode himself was a rubberstamp minister during Obasanjo’s regime.

A reasonable Nigerian should not be swayed by any cunning “Yesterday’s Man” or “Today’s Man” to believe that they ran or are running a government that cares about its populace. They all seek relevance and wealth. I only sympathize with the pawns, majority of which may not come to this conscious awareness because they have already been blocked and disconnected from the basic knowledge which they need to uproot the vices entrenched in our politico – economic system.

by Bizum Yadok (Bizum is a political strategist and current affairs commentator who writes from Jos, Plateau State)

Note: the opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer and do not represent the views of ViewPointNigeria

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Expendable Pawns between “Yesterday’s men” and “Today’s men”