What The People Want
A long time ago, I read that government has two hands, each of which
it uses to take and to give respectively. The one it uses to
take/collect is very long and it reaches every where. The other with
which it gives is very short and it only reaches those who are around.
I think it was in good old Readers' Digest that I read that way back.
With the realities of today's growing public angst against governments
ccthe world over, I am compelled to go back and think about this
epigram. And then reflect on what it is exactly that folks want from
their government whether it is elected or selected.
Due to space, I'll not be able to run through the entire gamut of
complaints about governments that abound. I'll rather summarise them
thus: PEOPLE ARE TIRED OF BEING TREATED AS IF THEY DON'T KNOW
ANYTHING!
In more precise words, government needs to respect the intelligence of
the people under their authority! For instance, how can they be
talking of austerity and they are still living in opulence? How can
they be hiding the truth from the people they claim to be so concerned
about? Why do they pretend not to know the causes of certain crises
when the truth is staring them in the face?
In a state in north east Nigeria, every day without a bomb explosion
is seen as miraculous. The capital city has become an extension of
Karachi or Kandahar. And they they tell us it's religion. What kind of
religion? Did a new religion we don't know about spring up in that
city yesterday? Has the city not always had christians and muslims?
Their refusal to admit that the 8-year tenure of the immediate past
administration in the state should go into the Guinness Book of
Records as the most insensitive to the plight of the people. The
gruelling poverty under which the people have existed is something
that no one talks about. Was it not in that state that the governor
commissioned an electricity transformer that is powered by a small
generator kept hidden from camera view and a so-called solar powered
water borehole that got the initial and only water ever from a
government water tanker?
They are waiting for me to say it and I have
done so.
It's the same hunger and deprivation that made youths in the past to
go into armed robbery that now make them to go into kidnapping and
terrorism. The difference between then and now is that they know how
poor the majority of the people is and armed robbery will not pay
them.
Finally, government should extend its shorter arm so that it can get
to those who need it most rather than solely to the overfed sycophants
who surround it.
it uses to take and to give respectively. The one it uses to
take/collect is very long and it reaches every where. The other with
which it gives is very short and it only reaches those who are around.
I think it was in good old Readers' Digest that I read that way back.
With the realities of today's growing public angst against governments
ccthe world over, I am compelled to go back and think about this
epigram. And then reflect on what it is exactly that folks want from
their government whether it is elected or selected.
Due to space, I'll not be able to run through the entire gamut of
complaints about governments that abound. I'll rather summarise them
thus: PEOPLE ARE TIRED OF BEING TREATED AS IF THEY DON'T KNOW
ANYTHING!
In more precise words, government needs to respect the intelligence of
the people under their authority! For instance, how can they be
talking of austerity and they are still living in opulence? How can
they be hiding the truth from the people they claim to be so concerned
about? Why do they pretend not to know the causes of certain crises
when the truth is staring them in the face?
In a state in north east Nigeria, every day without a bomb explosion
is seen as miraculous. The capital city has become an extension of
Karachi or Kandahar. And they they tell us it's religion. What kind of
religion? Did a new religion we don't know about spring up in that
city yesterday? Has the city not always had christians and muslims?
Their refusal to admit that the 8-year tenure of the immediate past
administration in the state should go into the Guinness Book of
Records as the most insensitive to the plight of the people. The
gruelling poverty under which the people have existed is something
that no one talks about. Was it not in that state that the governor
commissioned an electricity transformer that is powered by a small
generator kept hidden from camera view and a so-called solar powered
water borehole that got the initial and only water ever from a
government water tanker?
They are waiting for me to say it and I have
done so.
It's the same hunger and deprivation that made youths in the past to
go into armed robbery that now make them to go into kidnapping and
terrorism. The difference between then and now is that they know how
poor the majority of the people is and armed robbery will not pay
them.
Finally, government should extend its shorter arm so that it can get
to those who need it most rather than solely to the overfed sycophants
who surround it.
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