It’s not a secret how Nigeria is Africa’s giant in little more than name only. For all the statistics which are bandied daily by the Federal government, the Nigerian on the street sadly can’t feed his family on such statistics.
Good jobs are hard to come by and this means that in a country with a large percentage of young people, a university degree is no guarantee of job security.
When you get a decent job, you best be willing to do absolutely anything to keep that job because believe me when I say there are a million and one people secretly hoping you get the boot.
A lot of people have gotten really creative in the workplace; they know it’d take more than competence to keep their jobs. The Nigerian society and the hypocrisy and sycophancy it usually engenders means he’ll have to kiss his boss’s ass every now and then.
You shouldn’t worry too much, these are the small disgusting tasks one quickly resigns himself to. Kissing ass is a bit like beer- it’s usually an acquired taste. However, unlike beer, very few people actually like kissing ass.
This long preamble aside, it stands to reason that when a man has been lifted from the tragedy of a boring average paying job to something as lucrative as politics, he should be ready to kiss just about anything to keep such a job.
It’s not a secret that “politics is commerce” in Nigeria; it’s a sector which pays even more than the lucrative oil sector. Millions of Naira in bonuses and salaries and even billions more in Ghana must go and ghost contracts.
Yesterday, Senior Special Adviser to the President on Public Affairs (I think the title “befuddler-in-chief” suits him better), Dr. Doyin Okupe exercised his right to free speech when he asserted that; “Those people saying that this government is clueless need psychiatric test. From now on, anybody who says this government is clueless should be referred to a psychiatrist”.
I’ve always wondered about Dr. Doyin Okupe and the lengths to which he’ll go to show his boss that he’s even more Goodluck Jonathan than Goodluck Jonathan himself.
It’s ironic that in responding to APC’s Presidential hopeful Atiku Abubakar’s constructive criticism, Dr. Doyin Okupe had to plunge into depths of ass kissing unknown.
The last time I checked, it is within any citizen’s rights to exercise their opinion on the government and express dissatisfaction with certain government policies. Surely, this is the very idea of a democracy. Maybe Dr. Doyin Okupe needs a refresher.
Insinuating that a private citizen and indeed all other private citizens who call his boss’s leadership clueless should be evaluated by a psychiatrist is reaching new heights of ass kissing on a job.
Dr. Okupe went on to say that “It is obvious that people are also trying to make mileage of insurgency”.
I’m trying to believe this part slipped out in anger. Every government is sworn to protect the lives and property of it’s citizens and insofar as it falls short of this expectation, is it far fetched to call such an administration clueless?
Here’s a quick one for Dr. Okupe, when his boss kicks off his campaign for a second term, perhaps he should tell the displaced people of Mubi and other Northern villages that “people are trying to make mileage of insurgency”.