The name is Bond…Josh Bond

Josh
Josh
Jul 21, 2017 · 4 min read

Wild thoughts on repeat, first thing in the morning isn’t such a bad idea after all. There’s the feeling of sea weed flavoured caribbean breeze flirting with your skin and mild ecstasy tugging at your every brain cell, setting them uncontrollably free. Free enough to, hopefully, write a piece that has nothing to do with Rihanna’s polished body. Whatever.

Here’s something else you should think about.

I know all about how you’re not into politics for this and that reason and you know all the Socrates (or is it Plato) quotes about how people who don’t care are actually the problem; so let’s skip that part and get along nicely.

After watching a couple of seasons of Scandal and all the seasons of House of Cards that Netflix has in their magnanimity, let we the common Nigerian folks watch on our meagre $7 subscription, I have started to feel like Olivia Pope and Doug Stamper compressed into one ripped, super sexy, Sheldon Cooper smart persona, without Doug’s oversized head of course. So when I meet people for the first time, I start to think of what strategic value they can possibly add to my life pursuits and how to milk it out of them, when I’m with my friends, I anticipate betrayal and in the midst of all the laughter, I start to think up how to get dirt on them, when I’m with staff, I anticipate treachery and start to think up how to get dirt on them, when I watch the news, I visualize myself on a campaign, raining heavily on the parade of my opposition, winning a seat at the legislature and arm twisting and side stepping colleagues to get laws passed. When my partner starts to get to affectionate, I wonder who is out to get me through her, I can’t even trust nobody and when I’m alone, all I can think off is what negative history I have and how to literally erase the evidence or OJ Simpson it out if it ever gets to court.

You don’t need to tell me I’m being paranoid and unrealistic, I know those but that’s as far as it goes. I’m not aware of any other adjective(s) you might want to use on me so back off!

The heart of the matter is if I was in a more woke sociopolitical clime, my family could start prepping me to run for office from my teenage, I would start devouring biographies, speeches, history books one stack high, seeking out internship positions on the Capital or at Westminster and it wouldn’t be out of place, maybe I wouldn’t be labelled paranoid for being the “jerk” I described two paragraphs above. The difference is this is Africa, the headquarters of the politically underdeveloped world. It’s like hell down here (pun intended).

I mean, when you can afford to buy it all away, clean out the stable, who cares about history or your age or track record or whether you have any education or your health status or if you can communicate basically? Who cares about the pile of dirt on you or your affairs or your voting records or gaffes, political harlotry or policy positions over the years? When you have the financial biceps to bribe your way through, who even cares about whether you won the primaries or not or whether you’ll step down when your tenure is over or not?

I do. You probably do. Millions of people care too. However, it feels like we don’t for the simple reason that we don’t care enough to participate actively in the process. You don’t necessarily have to run for office or join a political party. At the very least, make your voice heard in whatever way, hold your leaders accountable, let their gaffes, policy flip flops, refusal to debate, body language and antecedents give you second thoughts and never let your objectivity be shredded by primordial ethno-religious sentiments or the feel of crisp currency. Don’t surrender your thought process and mental ability to those who have been bought with a price-that’s not the blood of Jesus. Not saying you should surrender it to religious leaders either.

When our politics gets to this point, I won’t be so off key with my Frank Underwood impersonation and we’d get better leadership too.

On my part, I plan to do something about our political scenery, something in defiance of the current standards that are so low that logic can’t even crawl beneath. I will start small, I will collaborate, until it gets big, there will be a shaking measurable on the Richter scale, things will never be the same again and ultimately, Nigeria will win.

Watch this space.

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