Who Is Talking About this??? Austerity In Africa

Joyce Banda, Malawi President

In a recent development, welcomed by the good people of Malawi, Joyce Banda, Malawi President announced that she will take a 30 percent pay cut to show that she will sacrifice personally as part of her government's austerity measures.

The newly appointed Africa's second female president, after Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, came into power in April following the death of President Bingu wa Mutharika and has since then made tremendous efforts to redeem and rebuild the confidence of the great people of Malawi.

In an interview granted to the BBC correspondent, she said, "I am the servant of the people..."

According to her, her mission in life is to help women and youth gain social and political empowerment through business and education.

On the contrary, down here in Nigeria, where we constantly live in the shadow of the past, no one dare confront either of the three tiers of government for salary cuts, even though we (Nigerians) run the most expensive democracy in the world. 

Nigerian Senators receive hypothetically at least N2, 800,000 monthly multiplied by 109 senators = N305, 200,000.

Hon. Reps receive hypothetically at least N1, 800,000 monthly multiplied by 360 Honourables = N648, 000,000.

Are the Nigerian Senators or Honourables really servants? At least, each member of the house of Assembly is allocated certain fund to carry out projects in their various jurisdiction per year. Are they functioning in that capacity?

Perhaps, the problem is not the senators nor the Reps but the media who are the "Fourth Estate of the Realm". The media checkmates the legislators and the executives.

Unfortunately, most media houses down here in Nigeria are owned by politicians. Controlled journalism you'll say. Where journalists are strategically controlled and compelled with starvation to compromise professional ethics. Living from hand to mouth due to poor salary arrangement, running from one press conferences to another to earn enough to sustain.

However, Austerity measure is not a new phenomena in the African democratic settings. You'll recall the great "Abami Eda", Baba Fela Anikulapo, in his song titled "Teacher don teach me nonsense", says ‘austerity makes him laugh because it is beyond crying. 

According to the high-life legend, The government steals money from the country, the same government is introducing austerity measures—forcing the poor people to pay for their own greed and calling it ‘austerity measures’. 

:::Government Propaganda:::

According to Joseph Goebbels, a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.

It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Nevertheless, lies told repeatedly would never metamorphose into truth.

But like they say, "This is Nigeria, and anything can happen."

From my manageable room, down here in Abuja, Nigeria's political hub of Africa's most corrupt government officials, where job availability is uncertain, whereas authority stealing is most assured, I continue to pray for the media revolution.

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