Romanticizing Tinubu’s Anthem and the Threat of Imprisonment, by Abdulkadir Salaudeen

Maybe you consider “Nigeria, We Hail Thee” as Tinubu’s Anthem or National Anthem, colonial or barbaric, you must learn and cram it by fire and by force. This, in other words, is the content of a clause of the Counter Subversion Bill sponsored by the Speaker of Federal House of Representatives, Honorable Tajudeen Abbas.

Can our present rulers in Nigeria pretend to be serious at least once in the lifetime of their regime? I doubt. Sadly, seriousness is one of the missing words in their political lexicon. This explains why governance has turned to huge joke under this regime. One wonders if some of these elected politicians are sane; considering the way they think, how they talk and the mannerisms they display.

While the Senate President is considered a renowned skit maker by many Nigerians and he is never expected to be serious with governance, it is unfortunate that he is being rivaled by the Speaker of the House of Representatives in skit making. Isn’t it a joke that Nigerians could be jailed for ten years for not stuffing Tinubu’s Anthem into their heads? A bill to that effect was sponsored by the Speaker of the House of Representatives whom I learnt has a PhD. This column shouldn’t have addressed this nonsense if the bill had been sponsored by some Agbérós (the infamous motor park thugs) who became prominent when Tinubu was the Lagos State Governor. A display of eccentricity by agbéró shouldn’t be surprising; but why this eccentricity by an elected politician with some number of academic degrees? Or is the PhD honorary?

With the quality of those we voted to lead us (who now rule us), is Nigerian of becoming a zoo—that is if we considered it not yet a zoo? Or how else does one describe a country whose rulers choose to stand arm akimbo when the country is going down? To say our rulers do not know how to set the country’s priorities is even missing the point because learning national anthem isn’t a priority in the first place and should never be a priority especially in a country where citizens are horribly sandwiched between life-suffocating-hunger and hopelessness.

Can anyone imagine that a lawmaker from a part of the country where people are now forced to eat grass due to poverty (this is no exaggeration)would sit down and draft the following?:

“A person who destroys national symbols, refuses to recite the national anthem and pledge, defaces or abuses a place of worship with the intention of causing violence and subverting the Government of Nigeria, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of N5,000,000 or imprisonment for a term of 10 years or both.” This is what is written in clause 8 of the bill.

The above is the priority of a lawmaker in whose region people are reared like cattle from their homes in villages, towns, and cities, to jungle by bandits and kidnappers on daily basis. How can the inability—or rather undesirability—to recite Tinubu’s Anthem become a crime punishable by fine in millions of naira and/or imprisonment? Must our rulers always listen to satanic whispering? Probably the Speaker is shocked that Nigerians could still muster strength to protest against bad governance despite the regime’s weaponisation of hunger to emasculate the masses. Is the next punishment for our sins imprisonment? When does committing Tinubu’s Anthem to memory become a virtue, or an achievement, or a show of patriotism? Who did this to the sponsor of this bill?

The bill is a bold and rude attempt to enslave Nigerians. The irony is that we (Nigerians) empowered these politicians through our votes but they are desperate to pay us back by enslaving us. They have turned themselves to gods and want to be respected even more than God. Is this not silly? Read clause 18 of the bill:

“A person who castigates, instigates, persuades, denigrates, embarrasses or brings into disrepute the leadership of a community, religion, lawful group, local government, State or Federal Government of Nigeria, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of N4,000,000 or imprisonment for a term of two years or both”

If the wild-growing wings of these elected rulers are not clipped through citizen political education, orientation, mobilization, and participation, a time will come when it will be considered disrespectful for civil servants to ask why their salaries are not paid. Citizens might be punished for not trooping out to welcome and praise their ward councillors in any occasion as that would amount to being disrespectful to community leaders.

I still do not understand the rationale behind the romanticization of this Tinubu’s “Nigeria, We Hail Thee” such that one could be imprisoned for not memorizing it. We thank God the bill has been withdrawn, there would have been urgent need to convert many housing estates in Nigeria into prisons (or is it correctional centres?) to accommodate at least two categories of Nigerians. Those who can memorize Tinubu’s Anthem but will not memorize it because it is too disgusting to the memory and those who, sincerely, cannot memorize it because they have basket brains—due to government’s induced mal-nourishment—and will not kill themselves. Which category would you have belonged to?

May our lost common sense in Nigeria be found (Ameen).

Abdulkadir Salaudeen

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com