The Philistines are not happy. Yes, they are angry and belching hot airs from frustration. They are angry at President Muhammadu Buhari for not attending to their ancient wild and bestial desires, and continuing the neglect of our infrastructures. They are angry at the President who neither eats nor allows them to eat. They are angry that the state treasury had been zipped and they had been told to look for other means apart from freely stealing from the treasury, to satisfy their needs. To them, that is not what governance is all about. They are very angry that Buhari has abolished the entitlement culture that gives them unfettered access to the treasury, even when others are starving to death. They said that Buhari has destroyed Nigeria, just because they are no longer feeding directly from the state coffers. They said things are so bad because they are not allowed to purloin to their hearts’ desires, as was the case before Buhari came. They said that Nigerians are dying because there is no more corrupt money being thrown around. They belch it to high heavens that they are hungry. It got so bad that a senior lawyer that had attained notoriety for defending the looters he worked with before Buhari came was even so shameless as to cry out recently that Buhari took away food from them. You can’t imagine that. Yes, food for them and their cronies. And he was not even ashamed to say this.

For the angry and frustrated philistines, nothing could be considered too low to use to send Buhari out and bring back the feel-good days where rapine vultures flowered and the resources of the state were salted away in a manner that jarred decent minds. Nothing, to them, should be considered too mean to use to deceive and manipulate Nigerians to send Buhari away and re-introduce their state of liberalised graft. Yes, they must bring back their corruption by fire by force. It is so bad that the social media has been invaded by the philistines with such gusto that fabricating, forging and spewing out unbelievably fake news and false information has become the order of the day. Every action, word and even body language of the present government is twisted and manipulated to provide momentary pleasure to the witless philistines and their supporters. Even when their fabrications look so childish and are hardly consumed, they trudge on in blind desperation. It is so bad that every lie is employed to manipulate the feeble minds of many Nigerians to sign on to their dirty mission. Worst hit are some so-called religious leaders who have been recruited to lease their altars to podiums for the promotion and dissemination of false, inciting and devilish information. It is so bad that religious leaders have unabashedly abandoned the virtues of honesty, integrity and hard work to preach in support of ultra-corrupt leaders and political leanings that hitherto destroyed the nation while it lasted.

What about ethnic incitement and hate? The philistines don’t care if they set the nation afire by manufacturing and selling hate, sowing discord and prodding Nigerians to genocide and war so as to satisfy their bestial desire to come back and continue their carnivorous feeding from the commonwealth. The country is being diligently incited into inter-ethnic wars at present by the very forces that ensured that our patrimony was completely stolen down. These wolves don’t care of the consequences of their action because they believe that in fighting to latch onto the state treasury again, they are fighting a life and death battle. They don’t care if Nigeria burns from their desperate actions because they believe that nothing could be worse than not stealing freely from the treasury. They don’t bother about the aftermaths of their asinine actions, because they feel that in capping the treasury against their ravenous touch, they are facing a life sentence.

To these deadly philistines, what matters is that Buhari must go and the state purse must be returned to them. They don’t care if Buhari builds our infrastructures they abandoned to die while their free-loading was going on. They don’t mind if Buhari is steering the economy far from their notorious predatory course to the paths of productivity. They don’t mind if Buhari is investing in the sectors that give real growth to the economy. They don’t care if Buhari is saving where they holistically consumed. It does not matter if Buhari is waking all the institutions they consigned to the graveyard while only corrupt plundering grew. For all they care, these amount to destruction of Nigeria and her economy. The only way to go is to liberalise stealing as they are used to and Nigeria will be better. What matters is what they steal and stash away in their private accounts. Ask them where the resources that would be stolen will come from as the oil that services their deadly thirst for stolen resources has dipped in the volume of revenue it provides to the treasury and they tell you that God will provide.

As 2019 approaches, the philistines are predictably getting more deadly in their desire to take back power by all means. These prebendal coyotes are driven by the desire to get hold of our common treasury once again and deal with it the way they did in the period between 1999 and 2015 when the deadly commission was brought to an abrupt end. For this deadly desire, they can do everything – yes everything – to corner power. They can kill, lie, perjure, slander and fabricate so long as such will give them some assumed good footage to satisfy their desire. We have seen much of these vices in n the past three years when the national treasury had been locked up high enough against their deadly reach.

Yes, the desperate political marauders believe that the commonwealth should serve their bestial needs. They believe they have an unquestionable right to dip their hands into the treasury at will. They believe that the directive principle of state policy that should govern Nigerian politics must give first line attention to their selfish cravings, those of their family members and cronies before any other thing. They believe that it is their due right to feed and make merry before any other national need is attended to. As we saw in the woe-ridden 16 years they maintained unquestionable suzerainty over everything in Nigeria, no other interest trumps their selfish desires. As we saw in the 16 horrible years they were here, Nigeria and its institutions may crumble so long as their needs for more resources to service their idiosyncrasies are met. They believe the country is best governed when they feed to their fill and feed their hirelings with morsels. To them, the best leader, the leader who is doing very well is one that latches the state treasury open for free loading by them. This underscores their understanding of Nigerian politics and how to go about it. That Buhari has not allowed this bestial order to endure is the reason why the nation is subjected to the ceaseless umbrage it is being subjected to presently.

But Nigerians must quickly make a choice. The choice Nigerians must make in 2019 is very clear. It is a choice between bringing back the 16 years of locusts, the years of waste, the years of free looting, the years of institutional decay and atrophy and the three years of prudence, financial rectitude, accountability and honest governance that has saved enormous monies that would have been looted and channeled such to meaningful investment in capital projects that will give real life to the consuming economy we had before now. The choice is between corruption and integrity. It is a choice between stealing and accountability. 2019 is a choice between re-establishing graft, decay and impunity and continuing on the straight and narrow paths of judicious use of our resources to build a future that will serve all of us, as we have had these past three years. There is no meeting point between the two broad options we have to choose from in 2019. The differences are so distinct that it will only confuse those that willingly choose to be confused. The options are so clear, cadent and separable.

So, as the philistines top up their desperate efforts to re-launch Nigeria into uncensored larceny in 2019, we must educate ourselves of the consequences of patronising them and their rotten wares after the 16 years atrophy we are struggling to shake off. Nigerians must count the costs of bringing back wholesome stealing of state resources and know that no nation develops by the kind of bizarre corruption that is at the soul of the arcane business the deadly philistines promoted when they were in power. The result of such bestial commission is what we had in Nigeria for the 16 sordid years these rodents reigned. Is that a choice we would want to try again as a nation? Is the reinstitution of corruption a road Nigeria needs to travel again? These are critical questions we need to answer as the corrupt philistines that plunged our country to hell even with an unprecedented revenue base, increase their deadly desperation to get back to power in 2019.

•Peter-Claver Oparah writes from Ikeja-Lagos, e-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com

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