The Retinue of Sycophants

Today, I Listened to a young, Intelligent and passionate Nigerian tell of her desire to leave Nigeria and live abroad. Why? I asked. She said “ the only people who seem to get ahead in today’s Nigeria are the crooks, the politicians, our rulers and their retinue of sycophants.” So I did what I do best, preach of the values of passionate steadfastness to the Nigeria of our future and what our country can be. For all I said, the words tasted like ash, its substance hollow, its values diminished. It felt like ruse. It felt like a BIG LIE.  The French Artist Georges Braque aptly describes it,” Truth exists, only lies are invented”

So, as I bury myself in thought at the constant assaults on the senses and esteem of the common man; from the removal of Petroleum subsidy, to the lack of constant power supply; from security challenges to lack of citizenry safety; From domestic inertia to misperception in foreign policy, I ask the same question, who advises our leaders. Policies we all see are counterproductive and only serve vested interest are peddled in the media as bitter medicines that can pain and the heal when in fact they are lethal doses administered periodically to bring us to submission, servitude and suicide. I ask again, who advises our leaders? My answer? The retinue of Sycophants.

They are everywhere, crouching, bending, and bowing and some even kneeling. In the corridors of power, boasting of abilities to turn an honorable man into an object of ridicule and hatred in the eyes of the masses. Master painters of distorted realities; feeding the stories of effective government policies. When in fact these policies are failing and failing woefully. I remember a former minister of Power who promised 6,000 Mega watts of electricity before the end of a certain year. Two days to the end of that year, who bashfully told reporters that they could still attain the target when power supply was less than 40%. Or a senior customs officer who while consoling the family members of a young man brutally murdered by a Custom’s officer said “God gives and God takes”. Or perhaps, Special Assistants, Commissioners and even ministers who promise to repair roads, provide facilities or even conjure figures of progress when the reality seems millennia’s away. They are; the retinue of Sycophants.

I only hope those leaders who truly care for the people will see these sycophants and lead them where there truly belong; the waste bin of history. After all, no one who remembers the prevaricators, the embellishers of truth or the sycophants. Only those upon who the mantle of responsibility and leadership of our nation is placed upon would be said to have failed or succeeded. As Edmund Burke puts, “A disposition to preserve, an ability to improve, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else would be vulgar in conception, perilous in the execution.”  we may then see the end of; The retinue of Sycophants