I like Bankers and accountants – the type that’s obsessed and can fiddle with figures and even manipulate it. In addition to this, I appreciate them especially if such has a stint as a stockbroker, not necessarily an accountant or a banker but one with a background in Classics.
There’s this other one I unfortunately had contact with – he dreams a lot about numbers and figures. He brandishes figures here and there whenever he’s talking to some gullible and defeated followers about creating a fathom 100,000 jobs even when those he was addressing at the Museum rally were mostly jobless lots.
There’s no crime or rules guiding the use of figures but this barefaced lie is a matter bordering on integrity especially concerning the declaration of a 100,000 jobs that can be said to be ‘politically’ oriented even when the time table for 2020 campaigns were yet to be released.
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At least, Edo people heard him loud and clear – a feat Dangote does not have the gumption to have achieved let alone the federal government but we @JohnMayaki.com are particularly elated on this onerous achievement because of the “energy and statistical omniscience” with which “Mr. Wake N’ Sleep” exuded when declaring the fake figures.
I am not sure he’s good at mathematics let alone Advance Mathematics – the one that normally discourage students from science courses. Not even does he have knowledge of Algebra and this can be confirmed from his academic records – he failed simple “arithmetic” but manage to get 3 credits – the one that can admit him and others into Classics.
Recall the first tranche of this fantom ‘economic revolution and employment boom’ was announced during his first year anniversary and that was put at 25 percent out of the 200,000 mouth-watering glitz – this, no doubt, it should be a plus for a government that is accountable to her citizens, but unfortunately, this administration is not known to be honest – I mean 50,000 jobs within 365 days – be it casual or nomadic road sweepers.
We must also not forget that the process of interpellation works best when the claim in question is invisible; in this case 100,000 jobs has been ‘created’ – note; created as though they are obvious and this is working for us because, in the first place, we have given no thought of being interpellated or else, we never asked questions.
Queries such as: where are the jobs? Who got what? What sector of the economy does these salivating jobs exist or were created? Is Obaseki saying that in reality 100,000 jobs was created with a corresponding 100,000 people employed?
Or let’s assume they were ‘created’, according to Obaseki; do they exist in reality? What is the correlation and relationship between created and existing? Could it also be that they were ‘created’ but were meant to exist in the consciousness of the people so as to form records of achievements? Could this be that Obaseki is simply obsessed with figures and attempts to bamboozle us with it?
Or else, what is the meaning of this endemic poverty scourging the innocent citizens on daily basis? Why is crime rate skyrocketing and almost at equilibrium with the allegedly ‘created’ jobs? What about frustration, depression and suicide rate? Where are the companies? Why are citizens flooding immigration offices across the country, sleeping at embassies to obtain ‘run-away-visas’, and in most cases, fleeing in droves through the desert and swimming across the Rhine with families?
Why these interpellations and fantasies? Or, could it be that Mr. Governor is day-dreaming unknowingly? Should we take him serious and be optimistic that the state is the better for it even as Edo is now the second most indebted state courtesy of Obaseki?
Yes – Mr. Governor is unintelligent with figures and this is even more so, since they unfortunately refused to add up. Except to say that 100,000 jobs is all shrouded in ‘vagueness’ and buzz words – since we are unable to see these jobs, we must, however, believe they have been created and this does not necessarily translates to the employment of 100,000 physical able-bodied men and women. There is a gulf between created jobs (phantasm) and employment. So, we can use our tongue to count our teeth to find the jobs between the semantics – ‘created’ and ‘provided’ jobs.
Sometimes, they even blackmail us to say – the jobs are there, we’re an unemployable graduates. They sometimes tell us that ‘We need to get training and wait for the jobs to come; the jobs will come!’ It’s a circle of brainwashing in the entire political eco-system and this continues till the re-election year – interpellation.
“We are training our youths! We are training our teachers and investing on infrastructure” – never mind if there are no ‘structures’. “We are building ultra-modern Central bus terminals! Our teachers are winning awards to Canada” – these and among others are the elements visible in Althusser’s argument on interpellated subjects, for which Obaseki is not lacking in skills and strategy in its deployment.
Therefore, I agree that achieving a 100,000 jobs is a record-breaker but what has always seemed strange to me is how this feat was achieved leaving us all in abject poverty – and this is what has left me cold with Obaseki’s obsession with figures.
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