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By Myke Agunwa
Popular investigative journalist, David Hundeyin has stated that Nigerians will not elect quality and visionary leaders as long as citizens tie the success of a leader to his ability to provide mundane values like food and cheap internet access to poor people.
The author, who went into exile after the #ENDSARS protest, reiterated that any leader who, during his engagement with the electorate, begins to talk about building dams, constructing critical infrastructure, developing factories for the manufacture of tractors, building world-class hospitals, investing in military hardware, and other geopolitical alignments will lose the support of the people unless these ideas are woven around mundane social supplies.
Hundeyin also argued that the average Nigerian has been conditioned to be reflexively hostile toward anything remotely intellectual. “Just give him hot, steaming jollof rice with 1 piece of meat, a cheap MTN 30GB data package, and a 2nd hand 1.5HP split unit AC, and you’re free to pursue your nationalist agenda”.
These views may not be unconnected with the current debate on the 2027 general election, where several views are being canvassed by political actors and their supporters on the personality that will unseat President Bola Tinubu in 2027 as well as if the President will be given another tenure.
The controversial social media revolutionary published some damning reports on the past business deals of President Bola Tinubu and was part of the team that initiated the FOI request where a United States Court for the District of Columbia directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release records of their investigations of Nigeria’s President Tinubu’s involvement in alleged drug trafficking.
Taking to his X handle on Tuesday, Hundeyin lamented that most Nigerians judge the success of a leader on his capacity to sustain the ephemerals that keep them in their comfort zone which include food, air conditioned environment, cheap and fast internet access.
He said that any leader or presidential aspirant that attempts to bring in a revolutionary idea, initiates debates on how to strengthen the educational sector, why the incursions from the superworld countries into Africa should be checked, and why the developed economies support unfit leaders in Africa will be attacked unless the leader finds a way of actualizing those tall dreams and at the same time satisfies the mundane demands of the populace.
According to Hundeyin, “Whenever revolutionary leadership emerges in Nigeria, the only real trick it needs to deploy to keep the population on its side despite the usual foreign influence and interference blitzkrieg, will be to deluge a critical mass of the people with a few cheap comforts. That’s it.
“The majority population in Nigeria as it currently exists is not configured to understand ideological revolutions of any kind. So an Ibrahim Traoré-style, eloquent, ideologically driven revolutionary leader will be entirely lost on them and probably won’t last 2 years.
“What they do understand is creature comforts. Rice, cheap high-speed internet – for TikTok, movies, and porn – and an AC blowing at 18⁰C overhead to counteract the oppressive 40⁰C humidity outside. Give them these things, and you become indispensable to them – no amount of NED and State Department regime change shenanigans will ever successfully turn them against you as long as they have their WiFi blazing, AC blowing, and jollof steaming”.
Citing examples with present and past leaders with opposing leadership ideologies and how they were able to sustain the support of the people he said,
“Nigeria doesn’t need and wouldn’t understand an Ibrahim Traoré. What Nigeria needs is actually a Hugo Chávez – a leader who has similar ideas to Traoré, but doesn’t bother trying to communicate them to people who fundamentally aren’t equipped to grasp them. Someone who knows how to sell social development and national sovereignty using the language and tactics of populist simplicity.
“Don’t bother trying to explain to the Nigerian why the US State Department installing a drug dealer as his president is bad for him, or why Bill Gates buying off the entire Nigerian legislature so he can push his GMOs on Nigeria and end Nigeria’s food sovereignty is dangerous. The Nigerian does not understand complexity and has been conditioned to be reflexively hostile toward anything remotely intellectual. Just give him hot, steaming jollof rice with 1 piece of meat, a cheap MTN 4G 30GB data package, and a 2nd hand 1.5HP split unit AC, and you’re free to pursue your nationalist agenda. In fact, if anyone then tries to get in your way, the Nigerian will see that as a threat to his continued supply of rice, porn, and cold air, and will sleep in the streets to defend you like the Venezuelans did to defend Chávez”.
“It now makes sense why so many random Nigerians are triggered by Ibrahim Traoré’s existence and popularity. His intellectual speeches and eloquently-expressed ideas, with big words like “imperialism,” and “sovereignty” must be the most irritating thing in the world to them. All they want to see and recognise as a “revolution” in Burkina Faso is Burkinabés celebrating cheap internet, air-conditioned houses and cars, and steaming rice. And since that hasn’t been forthcoming (instead all you’re hearing is stuff about dams and roads and tractors and hospitals and military hardware and geopolitical alignments and “Faso Mébo”), that must mean Ibrahim Traoré is a fraud”.
While acknowledging that Nigerians are smart people, he called for a mental shift and reorientation of the mind.
“Something we will learn (someday) in Nigeria is that being “enlightened” or “smart” is something that is evidenced by the choices you make everyday, and not merely an identity layer or a brand that you wear to nourish your ego.
“Smart people change their minds when they see superior arguments or data. The point of education is to make you open to learning and using new information – not to stay in one place and suck yourself off for being “smart.”
“If 10 years of clear and high quality data pointing in one direction is not enough to influence or change an opposite position you took 10 years ago, then you need to reexamine why you think you are intelligent” he said.