In the Gospel reading of 29th Sunday in Ordinary Times, Year B (Mark 10:42-45), “So Jesus called them all together to Him and said, ‘You know that the men who are considered rulers of the heathen have power over them, and the leaders have complete authority.

This however, is not the way it is among you. If one of you wants to be great, he must be the servant of the rest; and if one of you wants to be first, he must be the slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served; he came to serve and to give His life to redeem many people.’”

The above quotation reveals what quality is expected of a leader and what should be the expected result of any leader’s actions. This, our Lord Jesus Christ kept during His short life on the earth. He completely made Himself servant of the servants in words and actions. He never closed His eyes to the needs of the poor, the sick and the oppressed. His desire is that everyone should be saved and for this, he had problem with the world leaders of His time, who thought things should be the other way round.

People must serve the leaders, even when they have nothing in their stomach to give them the strength needed. All the resources in the world must be theirs and theirs alone, while the led can perish, for no one cares. And so, we can see in this content that political leaders in the country of ours are nothing but pretenders. They pretend to have the interest of the masses at heart while seeking for elections into political offices but the moment they get to power; either fairly or by crude ways of theirs, they start to sing a new tone.

It was Mr. President while campaigning in Ogun State that refuted the claim that fuel price would rise to N200 and instead told the people “E lo f’okan bale; a gbe wa le.” (Go and put your mind at rest, we shall bring it down). This was a promise made in less than 3 years but that same promise no longer holds water today. This is unlike the leadership style of Christ, who came over 2000 years ago and all the promises he made remain valid till date.

Today, we are not even talking of N200 any longer, the fuel price rose in less than one day in office from N165 to above N500 and presently to above N1000 naira with the advent of Dangote Fuel, for which we were earlier made to understand would force the price of fuel down following deregulation in the industry.

One fact in the mouth of many is the fact that our political leaders do not know hunger, do not know suffering and do not know what it takes to be poor; hence, they only pretend to know hunger, suffering and poverty by words of mouth. If not, a sensible leader will not have the courage to address the led after realizing the price of a litre of fuel he met at N165 is now above N1000 in less than 2 years of his administration. 

The administration as it is, is willingly making the citizens to suffer while pretending to be executing a policy that will put an end to their sufferings.

As pretenders too, they are far from the led unlike how close they were during electioneering campaigns. They now go around in bullet-proof cars and can no longer mingle with the masses for fear of being harass. Their Spokesmen that would have expressed the true mind of the citizens to them are also bigger pretenders, who only tell their Masters what they would like to hear in order not to lose their jobs.

Even the Governors are not fearing better. they only assemble themselves in the Federal Capital Territory to discuss how to share fund and not how to urge Mr President to soft-pedal on some policies that are creating pains and sufferings to the masses.

The leaders on fuel prices claimed NNPC is in charge. If one may ask, was NNPC elected into office? The masses only know those elected or those that elected or appointed themselves; who in turn appointed those in the NNPC. If therefore those appointed are not doing well, what stops the person that appointed them to change them or call them to order? After all, there is virtue in accepting one’s fault and making an amendment than being arrogant.

The truth is the fact that over 37 products come out of the crude oil and so, whatever affects crude oil affects the whole products emanating from it and this in turn affects everyone from the top to bottom, with the exception of those eating free meal in the name of being in power; hence, they can pretend not to know the negative impacts of such high prices.

Many citizens are also pretenders to some extent. Rather than letting the government knows that its policies have affected them; turning those that were using cars before to now be trekking, some will say they are exercising. Some will also be defending those in power blindly.

Government should therefore declare a state of emergency in Oil and Gas industry, pronounce Capital Punishment on those stealing in the industry and sell off non-operating refineries in Port-Harcourt and Warri. It is even a big shame that government for years could not make its own refineries to work, in spite of allocations going into the system yearly but can now celebrate a single person for having a refinery that is operational.

Citizens are no longer finding it funny. The rate of suffering and poverty in the land is what is manifesting in the ever increasing rate of insecurity, killings, kidnappings, unemployment, yahoo-plus, ritual and the rest. It is good that our pretending leaders realize that they are still coming back into the same society after their tenure. After all, only the reign of Christ Jesus is everlasting, while that of our leaders are just temporary, no matter the number of years or terms they spend.

In other words, the country’s leaders should do something urgently about the sufferings and hardship currently in the land before it will be too late.

God bless Nigeria.