THE TERMITES IN THE HOUSE: A Call to All Renewed Hope Ambassadors, All Social Democrats, and All Patriots Who Just Want Nigeria to Work for All

by Ademola Rabiu

There is a type of person who arrives at a building site with a lecture on architecture and a crowbar in the bag. They call themselves consultants. The workers call them something else. This piece is about them. That type is now everywhere. They sit inside our forums. They post on our platforms. They wear our colours. They use our language. And while we argue about policy, they quietly saw through the beams.

The Crowbar in the Consultant’s Bag

This piece has one purpose. To call them out. To strip the costume. And to call every Renewed Hope ambassador, and every patriotic Nigerian who simply wants this country to work, to stand up and shout them down.

A termite does not announce itself. It simply eats.

Advertisement

The Infection in the Bloodstream

Understand what they are not. They are not members of any serious project. They are infections in the bloodstream. They did not come to assist. They came to weaken from within. That is not inquiry. That is infiltration. One who enters a house to study its beams and then saws them is not an observer. That one is a termite.

They speak of a national amnesia. A fine phrase. But they mistake their own selective memory for a nation’s disease. They see deception everywhere except in their own reflection. That is not study. That is vanity wearing the mask of inquiry. They say they are here to seek answers. No. They are here to manufacture alibis. They are here to plant doubt. They are here to poison the well and then complain the water tastes of truth.

You cannot seek truth with a crowbar in your hand.

The Vanity of the Masked Observer

Look at the claim to be honest observers. An observer stands apart. They dive into the mud and then complain about the stains. They squat on the platforms of progressives, of social democrats, of reformers while dreaming of a feudal order.

They work inside movements they despise. They call this seeking? That is not seeking. That is sabotage dressed in philosophical rags. They are fifth columnists with philosopher dictionaries. They are wreckers with keyboards. Make them feel they have come to the wrong platforms to be sanctimonious.

The wrong platform for sanctimony is a platform that expects you to critique, to build, to see a half-filled and not half-emptied cup.

The Barren Mind Behind the Purple Prose

They question the system. Commendable. But they have no analysis with any depth. Only invective. They have no alternative. Only scorn. A mind that can only destroy is not a sophisticated mind. It is a barren one.

They condemn the reforms, the very reforms that are globally acclaimed. And they rubbish them. On what grounds? Their own fevered certainty? That is not intellectual depth. It is shallow intellectualism. It is easy to be the critic in the shadows. It is hard to build in the light. They have chosen the easy path and called it virtue.

Eloquence is not evidence. Volume is not analysis.

The Feudal Ghost in Socialist Clothing

So let us be precise about what they actually are. Their intellectual depth is a puddle. Their ideological purity is a costume. Their analytic mind is a blender of grievances.

Their political view is a dead end. Their conscience is a rented room. Their nationalism is a mask. Their patriotism is a pose. They are feudal elements. They are far-right ideologues masquerading as neutral observers. Their instincts are showing. They worship at the altar of a strongman past.

They have no democratic theory. Only nostalgia for a time and system that served them.

A rented conscience always has a landlord. Ask who owns theirs.

The Ego That Would Rather Be Right

They speak of a real awakening. But their eyes are closed. They are not social rights crusaders. They are pretenders. Dilettantes. Saboteurs with a poetic streak.

They did not come to ask questions. They came to bury the very platforms that host them. That is not conscience. That is ego. That is the sort of mind that would rather be right than see the country move. Their intellectual honesty is a lie. Their claim to truth is a performance for the gallery of their own ego.

The mirror is the only audience they truly fear.

The Uniform of the Camp They Intend to Bury

They call the government the worst. Perhaps. But they are the worst kind of critic. The ones who wear the uniform of the team they intend to bury. A true patriot does not sneer from the sidelines. A true patriot critiques and builds. They only tear. And they tear at the very vessel they sail in. They say they are here to learn the mechanics of sycophancy and deception. Tell them to rather look in the mirror. Class is in session.

Lack of patriotism is not a philosophy. It is a habit.

The Duty of the Builders

Now to the duty.
To every Renewed Hope Ambassadors. Your role was never to defend every detail of every policy. Your role is to keep the house standing while the work continues. That means refusing to let wreckers borrow your platform and call it conscience.

You cannot welcome the termite because it speaks well. You cannot confuse eloquence with honesty. Your duty is to demand rigour, not rhetoric. To ask for numbers, not noise. To insist that whoever claims to seek answers first answers one simple question. What are you building, and where?

To us, democratic socialist. Our tradition is not a tradition of sneering. It is a tradition of building. Of organising. Of taking the side of the ordinary person who has no time for philosophy from the sidelines.

Do not let a feudal nostalgist wrap himself in your language and call it a critique. Reclaim your vocabulary. Social democracy is about the future. Anyone who dreams of the old hierarchy is not your ally. They are your opposite in borrowed clothes.

To every patriotic Nigerian. You do not need a party card to see a fraud. You do not need a manifesto to smell a wrecking operation. You only need your eyes and your memory. Ask them what they have built. Ask them where they stood when the work was hard. Ask them what they would do differently, and then watch the silence. The silence will tell you everything.

The patriot builds. The pretender performs. The termite eats.

The Foundation and the Bonus

And now understand the ground on which we stand. This administration chose its theme with deliberate care – Renewed Hope. Not Prosperity For All.

Not yet.

From where we took over, prosperity for all in four years was never possible. It was a promise no honest leader could make. What was promised was to arrest the retrogression. To institute stability. To secure continuity. That was the first assignment. That was the necessary foundation.

And yet, even while laying that foundation, this government has already begun to spread prosperity to forgotten homes. Direct cash transfers to the vulnerable. Student loans to the children of people who never dreamed their kids would see a university gate. These are not the main meal. They are bonuses. They are signs of direction. They are evidence that the heart of this administration beats for the ordinary Nigerian.

A foundation is not a mansion. But only a fool mocks the foundation while the mansion rises.

The Second Term We Demand

But let no one confuse the bonus for the main dish. We at the Transformative Governance Forum expect more. The 2nd term must be about inclusive growth. It must be about development. It must be about the president becoming the development, the people’s president he promised to be.

That is our expectation. That is our demand. And that is why we cannot afford to let the termites distract us with their poetry of despair.

The first term was about stopping the fall. The second term must be about teaching the nation to walk. And then to run.

The Call

So this is the call. Call them out – on every platform, under every banner, in every forum where they wrap shallow minds in deep costumes. Shout them down, not with noise, but with clarity. Expose the pretenders and the termites. Demand evidence over vibes. Demand construction over commentary.

And after the certain victory in January, demand the 2nd term we were promised – real development and a Nigeria that works for all.

The nattering nitwits are not the answer. They are the problem they claim to seek.
They are not scholars. They are termites.
And no platform, no party, no nation will be saved by pretending the termite is a teacher.
The house is still standing. The work is still going. Watch the beams. And watch the ones holding the saws.

The termite calls itself a scholar because it has read one book. The builder calls itself a worker because it has laid a thousand bricks.

Choose your side.

✍🏾 Ademola Rabiu, CEng
A Patriot that refuses to stop believing

Advertisement