Paul Murray’s latest novel “The Bee Sting” describes a family hurting from effects of the 2008 global financial collapse. I recall the book now that I see many Nigerian families badly hurting as the year grinds to an end. Not only I but many more, including Vice President Kashim Shettima, have watched millions of our citizens slip under the poverty line. Speaking during a public function in October in Abuja, the vice president said “the poor in the country are angry with government officials and other members of the elite.” The public anger has increased, unfortunately, under the government he and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu lead. “All of us here belong to a tiny segment of the Nigerian population,” Shettima said. “And we don’t need a soothsayer to tell us that the poor are angry with us. Go to the slums and mingle with the poor.
“I’m a native of Maiduguri. Anytime a rich man brought a new car to his house, it used to be a place for pilgrimage. People (used to) go to see (the car) not out of anger but admiration. But now, as we cruise around in our bulletproof cars, one could see contempt in the eyes of the poor. They are the most neglected segment of the our society. You hardly can differentiate between them and their animals. Even the animals they rear belong to those in the city.”
Shettima’s idea of stopping the anger from blowing up in our faces is to “improve the quality of governance.” But he warns that time isn’t on our side. “What we have is just a tiny window of no more than 10 to 20 years.” His notion of good governance includes creation of jobs for the unemployed “to give them a hope.” He believes if everyone had something worthwhile to do, “all this madness of insecurity will disappear. There won’t be Boko Haram and banditry if this is done, especially in the North. We can blame the bandits but we in leadership positions owe it to posterity to address this” (problem).
As to how to deal with the challenge of insecurity, Shettima proposes”kinetic and non-kinetic solutions”, whether the problem is “the IPOB agitation in the southeast, the challenges in the south-south, Boko Haram or banditry in the northeast, north central and northwest.” While the government is at it, the vice president wants the citizenry to be patient. “I want to ask you to give the president the benefit of the doubt. Let us support him; let’s rally around him; and be reassured that he is determined to redefine the the meaning and concept of leadership and is ever ready to reposition the Nigerian nation.”
In sum, the point Shettima is trying to push is this: a) the bee of poverty is stinging the majority of Nigerians hardest, b) because of that the mass of the very poor are hurting and angry and why not, the elite are “cruising around” in bulletproof and tainted vehicles while they go hungry all day long; c) there isn’t much difference between the poor and animals; and poverty is at the root of the “madness” of insecurity. What is the solution to poverty? Jobs and more jobs. Tinubu means well for the country but the poor need to be patient. Give him the benefit of the doubt, Shettima says. But he agrees time is running out. Ten to 20 years to do that.
Not a few Nigerians are surprised by the vice president’s candour. It’s not usual or common for top government officials to admit, to even themselves, least of all Nigerians, that things are not as they should be. Recall a second republic minister who, when told there was hunger in the land, said he hadn’t seen Nigerians scavenging food from refuse dumps. Not long after that, the government he served was overthrown by the military. Shettima, therefore, may be seen as representing a new government mindset. This is good, but Nigerians don’t only want the government to know their crushing hardship but also to do something about it. They are saying their sufferance is wearing thin and its elasticity can no longer be trusted. The security challenge Shettima alluded to as “madness” is a signal that the poor’s patient endurance is beginning to snap. It may not take 10-20 years to break completely.
