A coalition of big-time hustlers has christened itself a movement. Their motivation is thinly veiled. They will channel their aggression toward the re-election of President Bola Tinubu. To dress up the enterprise, they chose a catchy name. Tinubu became “City Boy.” Pa Tinubu will surely welcome any residual boyishness young people can credit him with now. The city he often claims to have built is a sprawling, chaotic metropolis where over 60% of residents live in slums. The City Boy Movement is, therefore, an all-round conundrum.
In a sense, the name fits perfectly. Without make-believe and irony, it wouldn’t capture the essence of the cohort. A group of young men whose wealth—its scale and sources—never ceases to astonish has coalesced to champion a president who has squandered his term, unwilling or unable to confront the corruption and insecurity ravaging the land. These notice-me philanthropists, with their penchant for lavish exhibitionism, will soon descend on the streets in gleaming motorcades, doling out handouts to entice the hungry masses. Their conspicuous sybaritism will be the proof that the president has banished poverty.
They won’t encounter revulsion on those streets. Too many are too hungry to care. The opposition appears anaemic, lethargic and jaded. Democracy has raised hopes only to shatter them. The line between roguery and enterprise has blurred in the fog of hopelessness. When a band of sons of Sceva hits the streets to peddle their counterfeit gospel, the people will collect the morsels and dance in adulation. When daily survival becomes the sole objective, civic responsibility turns onerous—even abstract, too remote for humdrum existence. So The City Boy Movement, with all its contradictions, has perhaps arrived at the right time, in precisely the right place.
They remind me of the peripatetic luxury-bus patent-medicine dealers. The bus doctors begin with prayers. The uninitiated mistake them for pastors. Dressed in suits, briefcases in hand, they belt out soulful choruses to calm nerves as the bus lurches onto treacherous highways. After speaking in tongues and collecting offerings for God, they unveil first the multivitamins. Then antibiotics , after some enchanting mumbojumbo in microbiology. They might toss candy to a crying child or two.
After painting clinical symptoms in the most grotesque terms to stoke anxiety, they brandish wonder drugs that promise to cure every ailment known to man. Passengers who never intended to buy anything empty their wallets. Once they have squeezed out the last drop of cash, they offer a final prayer for their “victims” and hop off the bus like city boys. All the gospel, humanity, and love are abandoned inside the bus like a discarded rag as they hurry to the next prey. Despite such naked charlatanism, these fake healers rarely face outright revulsion. The people are too credulous, too distrustful of orthodox medicine, too superstitious, too forgiving.
Perhaps 45 years ago, when Dubai was not yet a thing, Tinubu could have been a genuine city boy. Fresh from Chicago, Lagos then ranked closer to today’s livable cities. But he prefers to paint Jakande’s Lagos as a jungle—so he can pose as a magician akin to Dubai’s emir. Neither hyperbole nor stark irony fazes these folks. His wife even believes he has outgrown “architect of modern Lagos” to become “architect of modern Nigeria.” The audacity of the City Boy Movement’s founders is easy to trace.
‘Modern Nigeria’ has grown too harsh for its youth. Those who can flee are fleeing. Taboos, morality, and spirituality have retreated to the back seat. Those who remain have embraced survival with hands and teeth. The land is ruled by permissiveness. “By all means” is the reigning philosophy. Hard work is no longer seen as smart. Some choose yahoo-yahoo. Others dive into politics. Still others enter the church business. Even law enforcement has become a lucrative route out of poverty, with officers competing fiercely with businessmen. Nigeria has scattered its children, seeding them with inordinate ambitions across every endeavor. Nothing has been left unbastardized. Thugs have been used to chase away an ethnic group from the polling booths. The City Boy Movement looks like the next level. The flamboyant injection of mercenary instincts into political entrepreneurship.
Tinubu promised to transform electricity generation and distribution. His first term nears its close, yet average available power hovers around 4,000 MW. About 10% of what South Africa or Egypt distribute. His political strategy is clear: subsume major opposition parties into the ruling APC to forge a one-party-dominant state. But his electric power roadmap remains hazy. Because of the chronic shortages, other African countries, including the poorest of them , mock Nigeria as the “Generator Republic.” Perhaps the City Boy Movement will gift the masses a few feeble Chinese generators and torchlights to prove that the president has transformed the power sector and stabilized the foreign exchange rate.
To stem ravaging hunger, Tinubu did not boost food production or secure farms. Not even paying off and pampering bandits has worked. With a flair for spectacle over substance, he leaned on food importation. We recall “Operation Feed the Nation”
At least it was a stirring slogan. Tinubu’s predecessor’s import-substitution efforts have been forgotten. To soothe those impoverished by subsidy removal, the government turned to cash transfers and food handouts. This has deepened the institutionalization of a worrying begging culture. Everyone is on the lookout for a handout. The horde swarming cars in congested traffic . Policemen on the roads and in stations. Traditional rulers on their thrones. Even airport officials , performing critical security duties, have turned abject beggars. Other Africans now refer to Nigeria as ”Abegistan.”
The City Boy Movement will surely distribute bags of rice. Vote buying has become rampant. Hopefully, they proceed with caution. Their agbata-eke enthusiasm risks provoking more mockery from our bemused African neighbors who are already sneering at our wanton wastefulness, begging culture, handouts, economic hardship and electoral malpractice.
My great grandmother disliked city people. People who flaunted ‘the city’ . She said they talked too much, told too many lies, and lived fake lives . She said the best place to store their promises was a perforated bag. She had no contact with peripatetic bus doctors and NADECO prodemocracy activists. God, abeg
The post The City Boy Of Abegistan, by Ugoji Egbujo appeared first on Vanguard News.
