Rochas Okorocha’s Ministry For Happiness And The Animal Farm Called Nigeria

By Reno Omokri
Rochas Okorocha, a man who has spent more money on statues than he has on living human beings has now appointed his biological sister as “Commissioner for Happiness and Couples’ Fulfillment”. What sin did Imo people commit to deserve this embarrassment as their Governor? And this Rochas, a man that so wants his people to be happy that he creates a ministry for happiness for them nevertheless delays their salaries and pensions. And when his unpaid workers and pensioners take to keke riding to augment their income, he bans that too.

*Governor's Rochas Okorocha

Apparently, Rochas has provided enough statues to make them happy! And the so called commissioner for happiness is anything but a happy camper. One could even ask whether she is commissioner for happiness or commissioner for ANGER? Her public comments since her appointment projects RAGE rather than joy. Perhaps she should have been made Imo state’s commissioner for DEFENSE?

To every unhappy Nigerian, do not worry. Happiness beckons as Rochas Okorocha has announced that he will contest for President whenever President Buhari’s tenure of unhappiness ends. However, with this recent episode in the dramatic life of Rochas, I am left with little choice but to conclude that Rochas Okorocha is a perfect example of why all aspirants to high office in Nigeria should submit themselves for psychiatric evaluation before being permitted to contest.

But coming back to reality though, these are the types of tales you expect to see being dramatized in badly written Nollywood movies of the Idumota variety. Now I know what people mean when they say that no matter how strange fiction is, reality is often stranger than fiction. Governor Okorocha and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have shown such monumental cluelessness that even I, an opposition politician, am ashamed for them, because obviously, they have no capacity to feel shame.

Coming on the heels of Okorocha’s joke of a government, we were regaled by the Presidency of the news that President Buhari had ‘commissioned’ the release of 500 inmates of Kano Central Prison. I kid you not! In fact, the tweet by the President’s spokesman reads as follows (and this is a direct quote). “President @MBuhari commissions the release of 500 inmates pardoned by Kano State Government at the Kurmawa prison. #PMBinKano.”

Obviously, the spokesperson, Bashir Ahmad, does not have a heart for his job, because he deleted the tweet from his TL on @BashirAhmaad after he got pilloried by angry Nigerians. But what has Nigeria done to deserve such leaders? Leaders who major on the minor and minor on the major. Not only did it take President Muhammadu Buhari forever to respond to the atrocious treatment of Nigerians and other Sub Saharan Africans in Libya, the president betrayed his deep ignorance of the state of affairs in Nigeria when he expressed wonder at what Nigerians were going to do in Libya. President Buhari said he was sad that Nigerians are being sold like goats in Libya. He must have forgotten that his army killed 347 Nigerian Shiite men, women, children and infants, then buried them in a mass grave like goats. Has he done anything to those who committed that act? So how is he better than the Libyans?

*Mrs. Ogechi Ololo (nee Okorocha), Imo State Commissioner for Happiness and Couples' Fulfillment 

The President asked why Nigerian go to Libya. What choice do they have? Are they safer in Nigeria than in Libya? If Boko Haram does not slaughter them, herdsmen will kill them. If SARS doesn’t shoot them, the chief of army staff may send them to the great beyond for blocking his route. If APC does not finish them with joblessness, APC will finish them by increasing the cost of petrol, electric and food. And even if you have a job, your APC Governor may prefer to use their salaries to erect statues for leaders of distant lands. If all of that does not happen, kidnappers are there to fulfill all righteousness. So, Mr. President, please don’t ask such an obvious question! Many of those who are actually making the perilous journey to Europe through the Sahara desert via Libya belong to those described by President Buhari as the disfavoured 5%. After having been told by the man to whom they looked up to for leadership that they were not his priorities, should anyone be surprised that people from the South-south and Southeast began checking out?

And speaking of leadership, if you want to know the difference between a leader and a dealer all you need to do is compare President Uhuru Kenyatta’s inaugural speech with that of President Buhari. To help you, I have quoted the relevant portions below:

“I undertake to be the keeper of the aspirations of both those who voted for me and those who did not”— President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Now compare it with the following, “The constituents who gave me 97% cannot in all honesty be treated on some issues with constituencies that gave me 5%”—President Muhammadu Buhari.

Now ask yourself if you will see a future for yourself in Nigeria if you are from “the constituencies that gave me 5%”? And that is why they are voting with their feet. In fact, to many of them, Operations Python Dance and Crocodile Smile were the last straw. Many of these long suffering Nigerians had noted that even where there was widespread killings and devastation by herdsmen and other ‘criminals’ (in Buhari’s Nigeria, you are only a terrorist if you are from the 5%) in the 97% areas, no military operations were unleashed there. There is a lot I can write about the new and improved Federal Republic of Nigeria under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, but let me end by quoting the conclusion of George Orwell’s Animal Farm:

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”