By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.
A video clip I saw today of the daughter of a big man in the northern part of the country on her wedding day prompted this write up and the caption above. In the video, the girl (now a married woman) was carried on what looked like a hammock by some four hefty men, one on each of its sides, to show the ‘pedigree’ of the bride.
It was done, I think, to show that the bride belonged to a class that expects such a thing as a right, regardless of whatever some people might say against it.
But slave trade was abolished in the UK in 1807, after many earlier attempts. In the US, it was abolished in 1865 following the adoption of the 13th Amendment of the Constitution, where about 100,000 enslaved black persons were freed in the cities of Kentucky and Delaware, two of the bastions of slave trade (in the US).
Here in Nigeria, people who claim to be enlightened are found to be engaged in what one may call ‘modern slavery’, going by the video clip that is trending on the social media.
Enlightened both in Islamic and Western forms of education, the father of the bride is supposed to also be a leader of the people, since it is taboo to utter the word ‘former’ when referring to him.
It is a taboo that can cost someone his job, as it is a bigger taboo in the Western world, particularly the UK, US, Germany, France and the rest of them, to deny the Holocaust, an action that can cost someone even his life.
But the Holocaust victim is now the culprit in the modern day holocaust it is perpetrating in Palestine and the same Western world is looking the other way. In fact, the US and UK (in particular) not only look the other way, they actively offer military and financial support to the former victim of the Holocaust in its bid to wipe away the entire population of a country so as to own the oil resources that are abundant in the land.
All in the mistaken belief that Palestine is wholly or in the most made up of Muslims, forgetting about the seizable population of Christians and other minority religions in the area.
The digression is informed by the need to show the double faced similarity between what the Western world does and what the elites in Nigeria take for granted.
In Nigeria, the elites can, in a manner of speaking, get away with anything, including murder, while the common citizen can not try half the brazen action of the elites, or he will have all the uniformed and the non uniformed agents of the government coming after him.
Imagine, with all the pomp and circumstance of the days of slavery, someone being carried in a hammock by four able bodied people in the glare of the world in the name of high society marriage merriments.
This is an abuse of the privileges that the elites on these shores undeservedly enjoy, especially taking into cognisance what the political elites in the National Assembly, the Senate in particular, do.
Aside of getting away with hundreds of millions of Naira (sometimes courtesy of what is allegedly called ‘budget padding’) in the name of ‘constituency projects’, they corner all the big jobs for their children or brothers and the big contracts for themselves, and nobody can say or do anything about it.
This explains their rush for the Senate in the National Assembly, Ministers or Special Advisers, so that they may escape the arm of the law, because they had illegally dipped their hands in the government’s till, in their previous calling, enriching themselves beyond measure in the process.
Most of them will campaign for office with the face of saints, but will change and become their avaricious self once they are ‘elected’ into office by the common people, since the elites hardly bother themselves with going to the polls. They only decide who becomes what in their localities.
And most often, if not themselves, they forward their children or brothers for appointment as ministers, commissioners or special advisers, leaving the common person with the crumbs and wait for the next elections.
And in the next elections, they will be used and dumped, as usual, and where they are lucky, will be left licking the crumbs like the dogs they are taken for until, still, the next elections.
It is up to the common people to understand that the commonwealth is for everyone, not just the elites, and the earlier they do that, the better for them, now and in the future.
Malam Malumfashi wrote from Abuja.
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