By Frank Meke.
Our minister of culture, Hannatu Musa Musawa, was on Arise television yesterday evening, spinning her usual meaningless webs of unsubstantiated cultural projections which allegedly claimed would give Nigeria her first ever Olympic cultural gold medal and the first country in the world to produce 100 billion dollars culture economy.
She also told us, the mumus and mugus ( fools, unintelligent sufferheads), that our culture will produce 20 million jobs before the end of the year. She swore that she was not lying through her teeth because her ” ideas ” were scientistifically insured, in fact too sure to fail. I was dazed !!
Hannatu didn’t tell us why she disappeared from the scene for weeks which made some of us, I, in particular to heave an euphoric sign of relief that she may have left the culture beat for good but being a very clever actress, ( after all she is Nigeria’s first ever minister of Creative confusion) Hannatu must have deliberately disappeared to rejuvenate to gain more power and strength for cultural mischief and nonsensical theatrics for the industry.
To be honest, Hannatu Musa looks more relaxed and beautiful. No doubt, she possibly went to Europe to catch her breath after one year of non achievement in the sector. To her, the holiday is necessary to prepare us for another year of cultural and creative economy jingosism and jigsaw. When shall light come to our culture space?
Asked by the programme anchor, what she is bringing to the table after a dismal one year controversial outing, Hannatu Musa Musawa went into the same old fables of turning Nigeria culture into a dream replica of Dangote refinery with capacity to pump over 100 billion dollars into the Central Bank of Nigeria by 2030. Abeg clap for this Wizkid.
I was so excited to see how effortless our minister of culture came close to being a magician , with clinical precision to confound and confuse Nigerians. Kai, Nigerians, we have suffered too much at the hands of youth corpers who pretend to crop a system, an industry that does not believe in the abracadabra leadership of Hannatu Musa Musawa and what an effrontery!
In all seriousness, it appears that the minister is back to the beat for the worst. Her first year result is still officially shrouded in mysteries as her boss, Mr President, is yet to tell us if Hannatu failed or passed the first year examination as minister of culture.
I clearly read her body language during the show, which is more of providing her a soft landing for a relaunch of her trademark of talking to nobody in particular. There’s no need to probe her one year in office because both creative sectorial players and those in the culture space certainly were not excited about Hannatu as culture and creative economy minister in the first place.
The private sector operators have quietly and deliberately ignored her ” come see me” rantings, her frosty feet misteps, and all the noise of being the only minister with a ground zero ministry without any visible sustainable foundation worthy of giving us hope for a serious cultural future today and tomorrow.
Her Excellency, the queen of our cultural economy, can not even spell out in simple practical terms how 20 million jobs for suffering Nigerian youths will come about. She did get to her village during the Hunger protest to showcase the cultural jobs she created. Watching her talk about the hunger and end bad governance protest fallout and possibly relating it to how her ministry of culture ought to have made appreciable impact and intervention simply revealed a political neophyte far from the values and gains which culture could hand out to assuage the pains of young nigerian persons and adults .
Trust me, I scorned the devil and gave it to him that he should stop breeding liars in our ministers, not limited to Hannatu alone, when she boldly challenged the Arise television anchor, to invite her for “more interrogation “, boasting that she back for good! What a grandstanding arrogance!
Now that Hannatu is ready for public interrogation on her talking and not doing”achievement”( poor performance in office) , I have also volunteered publically to be one of her interrogators. I won’t promise any soft gel questions or paddings.
I won’t play Donald Trump. It’s not election year in Nigeria, but we are certainly in the mood to interrogate the non performance of government officials, ministers and agency heads who eat our food, drink our water, and travel for holidays, even for medical tourism at the expense of poor Nigerians.
We are ready to confront and interrogate a Hannatu Musa Musawa who is appointed by the president to create jobs but left her job for the same president to do. We shall, with a speck , clean out Hannatu’s cupboard, check her commitment and dedication to our culture space. We shall not peep into her baggage of unending controversies but will challenge her to name top private sector players, thespians, musicians, artists, crafts operators, sculptors and many other who are in the same bus of idealistic cultural fancy with her, to mention the number of cultural festivals in Nigeria, to dance on the public podium, traditional music from any part of Nigeria of her choice.
We shall ask her to show us evidence of the digital culture library or museum she built in one year, the cultural tower of Babel. And to test her mouth watering submissions to having the magic wand to breed a 100 billion dollar culture economy for Nigeria from the blues and without recourse to the owners, the Nigerian people, Hannatu must assure us that her ministry will not depend or enjoy federal government allocations and allowances if the President pardons her one year failed appearance as minister of Culture.
As we say on the streets, time has come for the lying toms in government, with the penchant to out smart gullible Nigerians with worthless and unattenable figures usually in dollars ( this currency of corruption) to be told to live the lie which they gleefully and deliberately tell Nigerians.
It’s only in Nigeria that we see self amputated and over ambitious politicians running around, pretending to serve the people, but pretentiously waiting in the wings for government money to squander on bleaching creams and vain projects.
Do you even notice that Hannatu is arrogant and unteachable? Humility , a virtue expected of a servant of the people, is far away from her. Anyway, it is her stock and business, unfortunately True profitable governance in our culture, takes the pain because we are so unfortunate to have a minister who wants to hug the media space for nothing other than mere display of her ornaments and beautiful face.
I am done with Hannatu and will advise us to look elsewhere for hope and help. Unfortunately, we have a media sector that does not fact-check the likes of Hannatu and her many gymnastics in unending and unrealistic cultural projections. This same minister would pull her strings to stifle opinions, critiques, comments, and interrogations by a section of the media that could see through her unbelievable tales of the moonlight on Nigerian culture.
Our queen of culture can’t stand up for the industry, can’t measure up on the metrics of deliverables given to her by the presidency, and certainly is not the messiah of the industry. I rest my case!.