By Nura Akali.
When he got behind the wheel, Father Andrew didn’t know how the drive would end. At age 87, he still drove to the grocery, remained active in church, and lived independently. He could not have anticipated waking up in intensive care with tubes in his chest and down his throat. Sadly, his condition was worse than broken ribs. Chest radiographs revealed metastases exacerbating his tenuous respiratory status.
The following day, the trauma surgeon sat at his bedside, her voice cutting through the methodic ebb and flow of the ventilator. The risk of death, she said, for a person in his 80s increased linearly with the number of fractured ribs. For him, it was over 90%. Father Andrew, remarkably alert, listened intently. He scrawled on his notepad in unsteady script, “What about my car? When can I drive again?” His sister commented: “You see . . . he’s a fighter.”
That was a US surgeon quoted in an interview published today in a medical journal. Father Andrew and his sister remind me of APC and her die-hard supporters. Like Father Andrew, APC took the wheel in 2015 to steer Nigeria to good destinations listed in a manifesto. Alas, we are now on a different ride, but the passenger is not allowed to complain that the car may crash in 2019. Try that at your peril.
Do you often ply highways and fear being kidnapped? You shouldn’t complain. And dare not blame PMB’s appointees tasked with providing your security. Since PMB is better than GEJ, we must instead discuss Diezani’s looting of the treasury. Just like Father Andrew and his sister were more concerned with his driving when faced with almost certain death from cancer and ribs fractured in old age.
Three weeks ago, Boko Haram kidnapped a dozen women which the army denied earlier only for the FGN to admit it yesterday. You are worried? What an ingrate! PMB is better than Jonathan, Buratai is better than Minimah, and Adeosun is better than Okonjo-Iweala. So, we should instead discuss FIRS generating N1.7 trillion revenues under PMB, not a resurgent BH traumatizing Nigerians!
APC supporters, I feel your pain. It can be embarrassingly difficult to admit of failure, especially in politics where your failure is your opponent’s gain. But what is politics if not a path to making human life better? So, deny APC’s failures as much as you like, you won’t fool me. Just like with Father Andrew, what shall be shall be, and come 2019, APC must answer its father’s name on my ballots.
