I am a young man under 30, I struggle every day just to get by.
Every day I work hard using my intellectual ability and skill to make a living legitimately, toiling under the unbearable and harsh conditions of my country, yet my president says I’m lazy and want everything free.
I take care of my bills pay house rent, pay tax and settle extended responsibilities. I do for myself what my government is supposed to do for me but has failed to do, yet my president says I’m lazy and want everything free.
I Am not registered at a gym but my biceps are not lacking healthy muscles, because I exercise them every night (and almost every other time) when I have to draw my generator just to have light, yet my president says I’m lazy and want everything free.
When I’m sick I’m treated at the local hospital where I risk being injected with overdose or with the wrong medicine by the nurse, but when my president has headache, he travels to London to buy panadol, yet he says I’m lazy and want everything free.
My brother wakes up every morning at 4:30 am to set out for his office in Ikoyi and returns back home 10pm at night, yet my president says he is lazy and wants everything free.
While I sit tight in a Lagos traffic, trying to block out the cacophony of blaring horns from other motorists, I see young people hawking variables- sometimes under the unfriendly sun and sometimes in the dead of the night, yet my president says these people are lazy and want everything free.
Every year, thousands of youth struggle to graduate from the University, the females one who were unlucky get sexually harassed by male lectures but they finally pull through, then they are sent to strange lands to serve the country, when they’re done, the big government official tells them to go and be self-employed so that they can create job opportunities for others, yet my president says we are lazy and want everything free.
My heart bleeds for those young Nigerian Entrepreneurs who cannot get access to soft loans because they are not connected to a big man in government, but my President believes they are lazy and want everything free.
Qualified young Nigerians cannot be employed in the CBN or NNPC or NIMASA because they are not sons and relatives of governors, senators or ministers, yet my president says they are lazy and want free things.
I feel sorry for those young Nigerian inventors who have been going to the ministry of science and technology to present their life-changing inventions to the big man in office but can’t because the big government man is either out of office, or he is busy, or he has travlled, and when he finally sees them, he tells to come back tomorrow… tomorrow that ends. I feel sorry for them because my president believes they lazy and want everything free.
The senators in my country earn a lump sum of N14.250 million (minus other allowances) every month. They sat down in their “hallowed” chambers, unperturbed, and watched how some armless youths strolled into the senate, seized the mace and walked out unchallenged, yet my president says it is me that is lazy and wants everything free.
I am not a minister, I don’t collect estacodes for travelling to nowhere in particular and for doing nothing, yet my president says I’m lazy and want everything free.
My president said he was going to fight corruption to a standstill, but my president harbors corrupt people in his circle and in some, cases rewarded them. My president said he was going to build a prosperous and vibrant economy for us, yet our economy have fallen deeper but he blames it on the past government. My president said he was going to create three million jobs yearly, in under three years, over 7 million Nigerians have lost their jobs. My president said he is now a reformed democrat but severally my president has displayed flagrant disregard for the rule of law. Yet my president says I am lazy and want everything free.
My president is the 75 years old Muhammadu Buhari of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
As an African that respect for elders has been ingrained our culture, I cannot argue with elders. I’m not interested in proving to the president that I am not lazy, I will save all the energy so that in 2019 I can have enough strength to go to my polling unit, wait patiently in line, get the ballot paper and vote out my president. #MyPVCmyPower
VICTOR TERHEMBA
Is a talent manager, political and social commentator.
@VictorTerhemba