Mr. Ben Murray-Bruce, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer Silverbird Productions, one time Director General of the Nigerian Television Authority, and now Senator-Elect has been in the news quite a lot lately.
From his numerous utterances and pronouncements since being elected into public office, to his recent appearance at an event in Lagos where he made a very captivating speech, and at the end of which he rolled out on stage an environmentally friendly electric car which he promised will be his official car as a senator instead of a prohibitively expensive state-of-the-art limousine that our public officials think is their right and prerogative to ride at our collective expense. Clearly the man is on a mission – a mission to cut out a new image for himself as a social and anti-corruption crusader, champion of the masses, and as somebody to be reckoned with in the incoming National Assembly and in the new political dispensation.
In line with this mission, he has been saying all the right things and making all the right moves (talking the talk and walking the walk!), but with his credentials and his antecedents it will be a hard sell even for someone gifted with a silver tongue and smooth ways which he uses to charm his way into high places and out of tight spots, because the more one listens to him the more questions come to mind.
For example where has he been during the last decade and a half during which the ship of nation has been floundering and steering off course? Is it only now that his eyes have become unglued and he is beginning to see all the decay and the malaise that has befallen our nation and all the hardship that her citizens are going through?
Is it only now that the outgoing, heartless and inept regime headed by his kinsman that has been ruling the country has been overwhelmingly rejected and shown the way out by the Nigerian electorate, in addition to him having now achieved the status of a Senator Elect of the Federal Republic that he has suddenly become aware of all the corruption, wastefulness, ineptitude, misplaced priorities and other ills in crippling the country? Now that the Obasanjo and Jonathan administration both of which the senator elect had been very chummy with all this while have been resoundingly rejected, the man has suddenly found the voice, the courage and the conviction to stand up and speak out against the corruption, mal-administration and other ills in the country? The Senator-Elect thinks that he can suddenly bulldoze his way to the forefront of the national stage by repackaging himself and cutting himself out as a social crusader and champion of the masses, and that people are fools and would just accept him so without scrutiny?
Besides, the man has for long been a major beneficiary of our system of governance and public administration in the country. His tenure as the Director-General of the Nigerian Television Authority is a classic example and his tenure there has been described as the lowest watershed in the history of that organization. While he was there a hefty sum of eight billion naira was spent on refurbishing the NTA with nothing to show for it. Yet immediately he left his own private television and radio stations magically and meteorically took off. Notwithstanding all that, it is possible that Murray-Bruce has genuinely turned a new leaf and really means all that he has been saying lately. But then again, there is the possibility that he just wants to pull the wool over our eyes by trying to get away with what Fela Anikulapo-Kuti terms ‘Chop and clean mouth’!
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