Nyesom Wike: In Abuja, Use A Machete, Not A Sword

BY OWEI LAKEMFA

There is also the noise, mainly at markets and motor parks, announcing unverified cures and medicines for all ailments, including those yet to surface on earth. Can your administration do something about this?

You proclaimed your admiration for the work of one of your predecessors in the FCT, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, and wished to walk in his stead. Certainly, his tenure would not be forgotten for his alleged zeal to restore the Abuja Master Plan. But you should learn and modify, not ape his style. El-Rufai took over the FCT Ministry with the mindset of a man going to war.

He, therefore, wielded a sword, cutting both ways. In the process, he cut both sides—the guilty and the innocent. He was like Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron, who, in a blind war after killing the enemies, also turned on those he was fighting to protect.

Rather than see the FCT as a war zone in which even the pronouncement of the courts will not matter, regard it as a large farm for which you have been hired as the farm manager. So you do not need a sword to tend it and clear the weeds, which are admittedly growing wild. What you need is a machete, which, even if it is very sharp, would do the work it is intended to do. As you know, we do not harvest cocoa the same cavalier way okra is harvested; don’t treat the populace the same way you would the people of your class, who have a sense of entitlement and impunity.

I will also make a prayer for you: that after your tenure, you will not flee the country as Mallam el-Rufai did. Ameen!