Scarcity of truth, fatal in governance By Sly Edaghese

It is fatal in governance when the citizens begin to perceive or see their President as lying through his teeth. The earlier President Muhammadu Buhari knows this the better for him.It is increasingly becoming the hallmark of the President and his administration to say one thing today and the next day you hear them reversing it or even denying it. This is referred to as a flip-flop. Flip flop is very harmful in politics, especially when it becomes pervasive, as we are seeing it happening in this administration. It started with the padding of the budget the President passed on to the National Assembly for debate.

The document was inflated and stuffed with all sorts of unimaginable provisions by some unknown elements. As the President was saying that the budget proposal he sent to the National Assembly had been tampered with or padded with sand, so to say, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, who seems unable to differentiate his propaganda work as APC National Publicity Secretary from his present portfolio as Nigeria’s Minister of Information, was saying another thing, that the budget remained as it’s submitted; that no one padded it. Later the budget was declared missing from the National Assembly. Who took away the budget, no one knew. Again, before you knew it, we heard the budget was not missing!

Then most recently, Buhari set a date, May 29, the Democracy Day, that he would be publishing the names of those who had looted the nation dry along with the amount of what each of them looted and what have so far been recovered from them. The day came and nothing of such or near to that was heard from the President in his national broadcast! Rather, as it were, the president developed cold feet and began to speak to the nation in “tongues”. Not a single name of looter was disclosed nor the amount of what was looted or recovered. It was only just two or three days ago the government published some amounts it claimed to have recovered from the looters, without stating the names of such looters. Yet another display of a master class in lying was when the President gave a notice the other day, first, that he was coming to visit Lagos State. Lagos made elaborate preparations to receive Mr. President.

At the eleventh hour, a change was made, the President would be represented by his deputy, because of his “tight schedule.” An online social media disclosed that the President not coming personally to visit Lagos was due to his ill-health: an ear tumour or so. The presidency rose stoutly, as if the President was a superhuman who could not be touched by infirmity, to fault the claim of the online social media. To prove that the president was sound and healthy, they began to show him on TV the next day or so welcoming a visiting governor to his office. Next was the President’s planned visit to Port Harcourt.

Again, at the last minute, he sent his deputy to represent him with the usual excuse of “tight schedule”. Today, with newspaper report, we now know better. The lie is out! The cat is let out of the bag! Our President, after all, is human. He has been sick and now he’s been flown abroad to attend to his ear problem!

Now I totally agree that politics is not for a decent soul. Hear a former governor of Niger state:
‘‘If you cannot lie, get out of politics. Anything you are involved in has its own rule. You are in politics to win, win first and let other things follow.

“If you are talking of honesty or morals, go and become an Imam or pastor.”

The Holy Bible has no kind word for liars. It says, variously, that “But the fearful, an unbelieving, murderers… and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death… And there shall in no wise enter into it (the kingdom of God, Holy Heaven) anything that defileth…or maketh a lie…” (Revelation 21:8, 27).