Akpabio: Let the poor be

I have never been on the senate president’s chair; so I can’t say I know the view from that perch of power. I guess from that vantage height, hunger and suffering of more than two hundred million people sounds funny. The tale of woe of families struggling to feed makes for good comedy when enacted in the red chamber and where fuel queues are picturesque. Distinguished senate president, I guess it’s funny from where you are standing but from here we miss the joke.

Perhaps it’s not the Senate president’s fault. Nothing can be funny while standing in this scorching economic heat- we used to live on thin margins but now the margin is non-existent. The cars now parked at home because the owners cannot afford fuel and the millions of households that have to treat essentials as luxuries to be set aside… we have thought about it and still don’t see the joke.

We understand that we live in two different worlds because we know that while each member of the hallowed chamber will take home hundreds of millions, the poor will take home eight thousand naira- sorry, even that handout has been withdrawn because we did not show appreciation.

No one is saying the palm trees closer to the oasis should not look fresh but that they should not mock the struggling shrubs in the rest of the desert. We understand and so we are quiet. From his ride to and from the sprawling assembly chamber, through the tree-lined national capital- the part where senators live, the senate boss met no crowd of protesters asking why they have to pay our economic recovery with their breakfasts; why they have to give up watching African magic because a litre of fuel has become a pint of blood.

There is rarely anywhere in the world where two hundred people will remain mute while receiving economic lashing for crimes committed by those doing the lashing. The poor understand their place- if the poor anywhere else do not, the poor in Nigeria do-they can only fart their frustration on social media- they have accepted the job of diffusing anger online before it threatens the corporate peace. So why will Senator Akpabio not let the poor be-why will he mock them?

But again, it is possible that the senate president, sitting on that seat of power- was only joking.

Can’t someone, even though that person is the president of the senate, joke about the suffering of the economically broken, even though they were broken by the policy machinery of their own government? There are many great speakers who will rise to defend Mr Akapabio and they may be right.

After all, Senator Akpabio has always been privileged and rich, and the rich privileged have a different sense of humor from the poor- just like a white slave master who invites a slave, after his day’s toil, to dance and entertain him believes that it makes the slaves happy. The senator was born into privilege, his grandfather was a warrant chief and his uncle was a minister in south-eastern Nigeria. One of the first positions Senator Akpabio occupied was that of the commissioner for petroleum and natural resources in the oil-rich Akwa Ibom. Senator Akpabio is privileged and there’s nothing wrong with being privileged, it only gives one a different worldview and perhaps, a different sense of humor.

I supposed we shouldn’t make such a fuss about the senator mocking the poor. We may have to first ask if he understands what it means to be poor. If he understands what it means for a hard-working man, who endures 5 hours daily to commute to work, not having enough to feed his children, having to spend hours awake thinking about this under sweltering heat and mosquitos because he cannot afford fuel, because his country has the least power supply in west Africa.

We will certainly be jumping to conclusion if we don’t first enquire whether the distinguished senator understands, even through imagination, what it means for a man to have a wife in labor for his first child and not have up to one thousand for the hospital card. For a man to consistently come last in the race of life because his country is a rope around his waist and weight around his neck. Should I bother to talk about the ordeals of the millions of the unemployed, I will be lettering these pages with tears and dark brown slime of human suffering, I wouldn’t do that I wouldn’t ruin the days of my readers. It was Chimamanda who said that privilege blinds…it does indeed!

Dr Samson Abanni,
School of politics, policy and governance

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