Damn! Dame!! Fresh Air!!! …And the prerogative of a concerned citizen. By Wale Bakare

So Dame Patience Jonathan is now a permanent secretary in Bayelsa? Most people still mumble in disbelieve on her appointment as one of the permanent secretaries alongside sixteen (16) other senior civil servants in Bayelsa State. And for some of us that are already used to the persistent incredulous drama from this administration would have accrue enough shock absorbers to summon the courage to move on in the face of any trepidation. Dame Jonathan apparently has all the qualification to be bestowed with such appointment legally, what most Nigerians are at variance with; is the reality of the “I don’t give damn obsequious attitude that resonates with government misplaced priorities. Is it morally right to appoint the first lady and the current wife of the president into a public position with so many vested interests? Is she due for an appointment as the permanent secretary? Would she permanently serve in Bayelsa State or shuttles Aso Rock? Your guess on all these is as good as mine. The Commander- in-Chief cannot however claim ignorance of the process that led to her appointment. He has constantly proved to us that there is so much we don’t know and many we may never know. We hardly can anticipate what next to expect to add to the existing national distraction album, after all – You and I voted GEJ and not PDP. So he is free as usual to turn the polity into a family business and subsequently we live with it. The Bayelsa State governor Hon. Seriake Dickson may have resort to put the cat before the horse with Dame’s appointment. We all understand that the process that brought him in as governor was coordinated solely by the president himself, so his desperation to appease the shoeless one at the expense of revamping the state economy in the interest of all Bayelsas should be much unsurprising. Seriake must have decided to play a fast-smart one having learn’t some valuable lessons on how to play the game of loyalty from his predecessor who was booted out of office in a military-like-manner. Being conscious that to be in the bad book of the president is to lose all privileges (including security). He decided to honour own grammar extraordinare “DJP” with the Permanent Secretary position so that his day may be long at the helms of Bayelsa affairs. If Seriake goofed by tempting Dame with the perm sec offer shouldn’t she have graciously applied wisdom by refusing the Greek offer? At least to preserve any doubt of sanity Nigerians still deemed of her (if there is any). But then she sees nothing wrong with it—alas she also doesn’t give a damn. One gift most of our leaders have is the ability to defend all their actions even if it is evident that their argument is wrong. Corruption thrives here in its various shapes; Innocent lives are lost daily yet war has not started, Oil subsidy cabals still walks freely- what we see is different committees who will be paid in total about half the money they are meant to investigate. They make a mockery of every situation and toy with our “physics” collectively. It’s even sadder that there are no credible opposition to fight these anomalies. I am forced to ask here, what`s our prerogative? Should we live with it as we have been advised to? Or Wait till another opportunity presents itself to correct the wrongs? What happened to all the promises? Is the AIR still FRESH? Have we lost it totally…Our international reputation has dwindle and citizens are taking for granted. It is only in the “FRESH AIR” era that Mallam Ribadu would come out to say that he can get the subsidy thieves in one week and nothing is done or the NSA Dasuki telling us he has phone numbers of leaders of Boko Haram and no one has been prosecuted, or much worse our chief economy driver Okonja Iweala warning us of our rising debt, yet Nigeria is not broke. How much apprehensive can a nation get under a democratic dispensation? These are Palpable distractions we have been able to cope with, it is wholly unbelievable when you look at the events that have transpired so far and it’s just a year of GEJ administration, more terrifying is the thought of having three more years of God-knows what more drama we are in for. The sudden thirst of blood sucking demons in human forms, sectarian violence, regional and ethnic conflict, insecurity, untold suffering, rampant poverty and economic hardship does not look to end soon. We are fast disintegrating as a nation gradually crumbling before our own eyes. Who will return the country back to its glorious days? Is the #20millionYouth for 2015 enough to channel this course? Can we move forward as a nation without revisiting our history? May God deliver us from the evil machinations. Follow @waleflame on twitter to engage in intellectual discuss on possible ways of moving our dear nation forward.

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