by Elnathan John

Sometimes the leaders of a country can unilaterally destroy a country or lead it into war without the active participation of its citizens. That is very selfish. In Liberia or Sierra Leone for example, all those selfish war lords didn’t seek the participation of the citizens when they were killing people over diamonds. They just did. But our leaders, God bless them, they believe in equal participation, in the deregulation of stupidity. They let us pitch in and help and they have been doing so for the past 50 years. 

Because of their kindness, I have decided to give you some tips on just what you must do to help the leaders bring this country to a halt.

First you must believe the leaders when they come home and tell us how much our tribe and religion is the best and how the others are just evil. Assisting them is crucial in this regard, because we are the only ones they can use to achieve their goals. So if a man from another evil tribe is trying to get an allocation of land in your office, make it really difficult for him. Create a distinction between indigenes and settlers. Make sure the settlers suffer in your state, even though they have been there for 100 years and the constitution guarantees them rights. Do not allow them to contest for elections. Discriminate against them and attack them for owning property even though you have refused to get your indigene behind up and work. The leaders need us to create these divisions so that they can live in peace. It is our duty to help them. 

When our leaders are campaigning for elections we must listen to them and vote only people from our region or religion. This is important because only your ‘brother’ can govern properly. All other people have evil intentions. If he is Muslim, his sole intention is to Islamise Nigeria and if he is Christian his intention is to sell our country to the godless wine-drinking West and to the Arab-(and by extension Muslim)-hating Israeli’s. 

As a civil servant it is important not to work. Spend as few hours as you can in the office and while you are there make sure you attend to your personal business. If you are a man, disappear for your private business and if you are a woman spend most of the day filing your nails and marketing fabric, perfumes and shoes. It is evil for anyone to expect you to work on your files as soon as they come. 

We need to assist our leaders in causing chaos. Yes they have tried by not building roads or when they do, building tiny insufficient and substandard roads but we must help create congestion by never following traffic rules. Traffic rules are for people who have nothing better to do with their time. Where there are three lanes create a fourth and if you are ingenious, a fifth lane. Then at the junction beg someone to let you pass or enter by force, thereby creating slower traffic. 

When these leaders steal money, we need to encourage them. Give them chieftaincy titles and honorary doctorate degrees. Give them awards. Never make them feel uncomfortable, reserve the best spaces for them in church and on the prayer grounds. Collect their tithes and huge contributions for the ‘lord’. Then pray for them. The Nigerian god has a special program of blessing for corrupt leaders.

If a leader, while unable to provide health care, electricity or security comes out to say he will use a billion naira of our money for feeding in a year, we are allowed to do something: scream on Facebook and Twitter. But that is all we are allowed to do; we must let him get his one billion and eventually make jokes about it. 

When they try to divert attention from the fraud they are committing by throwing red herrings that we can quarrel about while they do their business, we must recognise it and proceed to fall for it. We must spend as much time as we can quarrelling until we are sure our leaders are done concealing what they want to conceal. 

When some disaster happens to us, orchestrated or worsened by the actions or inactions of our leaders, we must never attack them. We must attack each other. This is important. Find someone of another tribe or religion to kill, burn their houses. If you have a grievance against the government, blow up your neighbours. This will solve a lot of issues. Then after the violence we can spend time arguing over whose religion is more peaceful than the other. 

You must also remember to be corrupt yourself. If you are  policeman, don’t forget that collecting 20 or 50 naira at checkpoints is an effective way of contributing your quota to National corruption. If you work for government, make sure that the contractors oil the wheel of corruption by insisting on your own cut. If they refuse, make sure their payment gets delayed.  I could go on and on, but I am sure you can find creative ways of being corrupt in whatever sector you work. You are after all Nigerian.

Finally and most importantly we must do something- we must forget. There is no better way of supporting our leaders than forgetting.

We must forget especially during elections. We must forget what they did in previous years. If they killed people, we must forget. If their relatives were caught laundering money, we must forget. If they suddenly became rich after holding office, we must forget. If they had a track record of supporting corruption, we must forget. If they built no roads, no hospitals, no industries, we must forget. Forgetting will help our peace of mind, especially if they are from our part of the country. Forgetting will take us closer and closer to that path that our leaders have been carefully creating- the path of destruction. Anyone who tries to remember what they have done, God will judge them harshly. 

Do all these and I assure you, you will have the privilege of being part of the destruction of this country. It is not easy, but together, we can achieve it. God bless our collective hustle.