THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD TODAY

By Toyo C. Ngem

Nigerians have once been described as the happiest people in the world. But that was not meant to be exaltations of the people. It was the vindication of Fela Anikulapo’s lyrics – Suffer, suffer for world, Enjoy for Heaven – in his evergreen album entitled Suffering and Smiling in the 1980s. In context, Fela had satirically tried to describe ‘prayer’ as an ensnaring mechanism through which the masses have lost their souls to man’s hypocrisy in anticipation of heavenly paradise as the reward. So, when the purported “Happiest People in the world” would later come as a research outcome, it was just too difficult to place it appropriately in real axiomatic expression. Many believe it was deceptive in its entirety because the smiles on the faces of the people were never a reflection of their minds; that they only wear the smiles to cover the agonies ravaging their inner minds. Yet it is also true that a thousand and one Nigerians are truly happy in context of its entire ramifications. So, it is neither here nor there!

As Yoruba would say, eni t’ebi n pa to n rankun bi eni t’oyo – the hungry man that pretentiously flaunts a filled tummy – we know he deceives no one but who? The answer is obvious and we can find the evidence in the abyss of life time mourning the entire camp of Peter Obi supporters and the political clan of Atiku plunged themselves into with the judgements of Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) delivered yesterday, even with extreme harshness devoid of any mercy by the jurists. And in like manner we can also find the evidence of people in joys of true smiles and genuine happiness for the same reason of judgement. We shall soon encounter them and the reason they have cause to be so.

Hitherto, in their millions as Nigerians, the Obedients – eponym for the Peter Obi followers in the 2023 General Elections – had never been happy since late February this year when the Presidential Election’s results were announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Some political observers have even argued that the origin of their sorrows dates back to the early month of June, 2022 when Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu won the ticket to become the Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, (APC). What a pity? Over a dozen of months in agony of sadness before the final abyss of mourning!

No body wishes them that. It was rather an outcome of their own choice to live in the discrete world of fallacies from the outset. Thence they murdered truth to create their world of agony covered with fake smiles by clinging on false hopes in epochal phases that was climaxed by the Tribunal judgement.

Years before the turn of 2023 election cycle, arguably the era of ENDSARS when they raised the false narratives of “Lekki Massacres”, they clung to the hope that Asiwaju Tinubu’s presidential ambition had been successfully killed through the blackmail of their wanton killings of security agents in shindig of their anti-Tinubu slogan. They would later wake up to see the man getting set “to fight dirty” with them. “I am ready to wrestle with pigs in (their) mud; after all I will only clean up” afterwards, Tinubu said. That was his promise to his ancestors when he set forth for the war with his intra and inter party foes to claim the crown.

Then came their hope that he could never win the Primary Election of his party. In combined forces of the foes, the anti-Tinubu campaign was intensified, giving them the illusion of a cause to wear smiles beneath the agony of their uncertainty minds. The era ended for them in sorrows and anguish as Tinubu secured overwhelming vote returns in clarity of incontestable margin to his runner-up. But they were quick to grab another rope of hope: he will never win the presidential election!

It is now history how that ended too. It was only more worrisome that they continued to die back as they die down through the anguished backlash of their deliberate assassination of truth. Yoruba will say b’ase n ge won lowo ni won b’oruka – as we keep cutting their hands, the keep wearing the ring. When Tinubu became their President and Commander-in-Chief as a time they never wished coming to past, it turned out to be the era of the fact: that, truly, they have lost their souls in the lake of fire – not leaving out many of their intellectuals and the so called men of God dwelling in their false paradise.

Swiftly, they clung again to a hope in the Court, even in strong reliance on their unrestrained tyrannical blackmail against the Court and the jurists they look up to for the succour of salvation of their souls. Yes, they got what they wanted! The Court gave them the truth they needed to know: that they have been living in fools' paradise. And in merciless pangs, the court finally threw them into the eternal abyss of anguish from which they are not likely to recover their souls. Thence we shall have them in practical term as the millions of Nigerians carrying false smiles to cover their latent agonies. Now, the rampaging souls of the Obedients can now rest permanently but albeit in severe anguish for the loss.

Along the stretch of same course are another Millions of Nigerians wearing smiles out of the true happiness of dwelling in true paradise of the “God’s Will, Allah’s Way”. They are found in the political clan of the country’s progressives. Among them, nevertheless, are the happiest people in the world from the outcome of the Tribunal’s judgement yesterday. This writer will therefore seek the readers’ indulgence to allow the selective case studies of them from Alimosho Federal Constituency. This is for no other reasons than being a place where the intra-party foes within the progressives fold had also lived the dreams of the Obedients literally killed by the Court yesterday.

Her Excellency, Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire (OFR), member of the prestigious Lagos’ political elite club, the Governance Advisory Council (GAC), stands in the apex of these joyous people. They include Vice Chairman, Lagos West Senatorial District of the APC, Chief Sunday Aboyade; the Commissioner Nominee for Alimosho LGA, Mr. Akinyemi Ajigbotafe; Prince Idris Balogun (aka Oluomo Kaafata); and many others involved in the true struggles to see through the realisation of Tinubu’s presidential ambition. Why have they been singled out as case studies for Nigeria's happiest people today? Let’s go for a recess as the Court did yesterday!