The Fraudulent Tokenism Of Mallam Rufai

We have been reduced to the point where our feudal lords, show us the evidence of their own failure, and we applaud them for what should earn them garrotes

I am a strong believer in the power and value of personal examples. Rufai has shown a good example, and should ordinarily be commended for doing so. But these are not ordinary times, and the person in question is not an ordinary person.

El Rufai is a man in the public eye. This is not about the fact that his son has been enrolled in a government school, it is the fact that it is newsworthy at all. It is indicative of how much we have regressed as a people, and as a race.

How many in El Rufai’s generation, attended private schools? How many private schools were in existence when he went to school? We have been reduced to the point where our feudal lords, show us the evidence of their own failure, and we applaud them for what should earn them garrotes. Are all Kaduna state schools of the same or of similar standards to the one in question?

I have read news items elsewhere, that would suggest that the school in question has been the recipient of 200M in appropriations used to upgrade the facilities before the young khalifa would begin his first day in the school.

I am not unmindful of the fact that the story about the money spent renovating the school might be yet another lie and fake news, but I have raised it in order to point out the hypocrisy of the entire gesture. How many of the schools in Kaduna are as well appointed as the one in question? Is the school representative of the other public schools?

I congratulate the other children who have now become beneficiaries of the young man’s good fortune, and privileged birth, and I congratulate the young man for the good fortune to meet his future subjects and be related to them. He too shall flaunt his populist credentials in future. His fathers drank pure water, whilst the mothers fried akaras when paying for the chains that binds the ones applauding his father.

There was a time in this land, when the rulers and the ruled were not so far removed. The children of the ruled and rulers competed on even planes in the same schools, from primary to tertiary levels, and a man may rise on account of his talents and skills. Regardless of the name and office of his father.

There was indeed a country.

DF

First published 24 September, 2019.