The Wailing Wailers, The “Change” They Voted For And Our Own Change

Those who either sentenced themselves or were sentenced to inconsolable heedless wailing by the outcome of last year’s general election can never stop being funny. Often when you hear or read their loud, frenzied and syndicated cacophony of complaint and twisting of everything from President Buhari and his government lately to suit their wailing enterprise, you walk away with the impression that these wailers cannot simply be serious. A common refrain that dog their conversations lately is ‘ is this the change we voted for?’ You are often to hear them complain noisily and bitterly of what Buhari, his government and APC did to them or did not do to them that you are often left to wonder if they are not working themselves to a state of permanent psychotic frenzy by the defeat they suffered last year. They believe that by their repetitive efforts, they can choral Nigerians into stoning Buhari and asking them to come back to continue what they know best: free plundering of the Nigerian commonwealth. But you wonder; are the wailing wailers not wasting the tears they should reserve for more patchy days ahead just at the starting point of what promises to be a long night in the cold? To the extent that these crooning wailers are getting real giddy pruriently awarding marks to a man faced with the gargantuan debris they left here, with a parched revenue base at the eight of a first 48 months is downright silly if not an overplay of dented emotions that will surely percolate in the days to come.

But let us not be detained by the wailers and their cheeky antics. Rather let us excurse into the wailers’ latest claptrap of ‘is this the change we voted for?’. This is at best a profanity and blasphemy uttered by those who staged a rather stupid war with change when they felt the unstoppable wind was about to sweep them into the ocean where they are now, wailing like a recorder firmly set on auto reverse or a broken and cracked gramophone. I ask, which “change” did the wailers vote for? Certainly not the pan-Nigerian change that swept them off a terribly abused power and brought President Buhari in with a loud, cadent and unmistakable task of cleaning the putrid Augean stable the Wailers left here. So which “change” are the wailers struggling to claim to have voted for? Some days ago, I was unfortunate to stumble on a Channels Television broadcast of a meeting of the remnant of PDP in Lagos. In the said meeting, one Tunji Shelle the factional chairman of Lagos PDP (of course, the state PDP Secretary was equally shown on the programme describing Shelle as an impostor since he alleged his term had ended), Shelle was to entertain his fellow dispirited PDP compatriots with a comedy that has become common with PDP members since March last year, he reeled out a litany of what Buhari and APC did to them and did not do to them and yelled before his co-wailers; “Is this the change we voted for?” And his members responded; Nooo!

From where I was seated watching this comic display, I shouted taaa! Shut your mouth? Which “change” did you vote for? But then, I knew this fits into PDP’s present wailing mantra. Oh yea, the “change” we voted for indeed! As they manage their tortured state since they were rooted out of power, the wailing wailers have demonstrated troubling state of mind disorder and one of the symptoms of this malaise is the present claim to have voted for change. No lie, no blasphemy could be more ludicrous! In contrast, those that have now assumed a permanent state of wailing fought bloodily to stultify change. They spared no armoury; fair and foul to ensure that change never happened here last year. They spent our money like it was going out of circulation the next minute, in raw hard currency, they plunged into the foreign reserve, excess crude account and turned the parastatals into ATMs to halt change last year. They recruited all kinds of bloody fiends, vermin and hoodlums to engage in bloody fight with change. They turned all state institutions against change and I know they were hit by an irrecoverable force that change survived all their machinations to finally sweep them out of power and start the recovery of the country from the labyrinth of decay and atrophy they callously plunged it into. It was so bad that Nigeria was made to indulge in its worst and most dangerous period of electioneering campaign when people were set against each other, race and tribe were instigated to go for each other’s jugular; all because the present wailers were desperate to stop change. It was so bad that their chief priestess openly incited her supporters and those of her husband to stone whosoever called for change wherever they were.

So how can these same people claim to have voted for change? Which change did they vote for? Which change could those who have sentenced themselves to permanent wailing by our getting the “change” we badly needed last year, now claim to have voted for? Oh yea, it is possible that the wailing wailers indeed voted for “change” but not change. The change they voted for was that Jonathan and his government will remain till eternity. The “change” they voted for was for the continuation of the uncensored larceny and brigandage with which they crushed a well endowed country. The “change” the wailing wailers said they voted for was for the continued pillaging of the resources of the country by mindless criminals, ramparts, cronies and fronts of the outgone regime. The “change” they voted was for the confutation of the buffoonery, the mediocrity and outright cluelessness that bankrupted an oil rich country and emptied the treasury despite homongous oil earnings. The “change” the wailers voted for was the continued defenestration of state infrastructures and the reckless unbundling of every stare institution through conscienceless plundering. The “change” the wailing wailers voted for was for the continued erosion of the country’s moral sinew through atrocious conducts by officialdom which promoted the main mission of their “change”, which is stealing and corruption.

But our change is different. It is real. It doesn’t come in quotation marks. It is clear. It is laconic and straight and that is what we are getting now. The main corpus of our change was for President Buhari to replace the ineffectual buffoon (apologies to The Economist magazine) who was sleep-walking in power and he did just that on March 28, 2015. The change Nigerians voted for was premised on cleansing the badly desecrated stable which the PDP levied here and Buhari is exactly doing that. The change we voted for was for President Buhari’s government to plug the rat holes through which Nigerian wealth was pilfered and he has done that- to the sorrow and heightened wailing of the wailers. The change we voted for was for President Buhari to disperse the yam eaters who purloined Nigerian resources to their personal barns and he is doing that marvellously. The change we voted for was for President Buhari to release the whip and scourge the troublers of Nigeria without mercy and he is doing just that. The change we voted for was for President Buhari to impress it on Nigerians that stealing is corruption, that those who stole the heirlooms of Nigerians must vomit and he is doing exactly that. The change we voted for was for President Buhari to arrest the drift the economy was taking by diversifying it from oil, plugging every loophole and ensuring that Nigerians’ resources work for Nigerians and not for few selfish thieves for whom the wailers are up in arms and he doing just that. The change we voted for is for prudent, accountable, honest, transparent governance and we are getting exactly that. The change we voted for is for prudent management of our wealth for the betterment of all Nigerians and we are getting just that. The change we voted for was for our ailing infrastructures to be fixed, our critical sectors be revived and Nigeria rescued from gluttonous sharks and given back to Nigerians and we are getting that.

So one can see the difference between the phantom change the wailers are claiming to have voted for and the real change we all voted for and with which we chased away the kleptocratic cabal for which the wailing wailers have declared a permanent state of wailing. There are no meeting points. They are like oil and water. So when next you see a wailing wailer indulge in the sheer blasphemy of talking about the “change” they voted, tell him to go look for his loincloths where he took his bath in March 2015 for Nigerians got the change they wanted on that day and are savouring its rip offs.

PostScript: What could better give fillip for those who support the present effort to cleanse the country from the debris the wailers left behind than the fact that an old woman was reported to have donated her monthly pension to the fight against the blood suckers that are syndicating the present wailing so as to stymie their being called to account for what they stole? If anything, this points to the wailing wailers that they have to strive harder to recruit us to join their obnoxious mission.

By Peter Claver Oparah

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