Hope, hurt and the coming elections

By Suyi Ayodele

(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Tuesday, May 12, 2026)

https://tribuneonlineng.com/hope-hurt-and-the-coming-elections/

Alexander Pope (1688–1744), the 18th-century English poet and satirist, is known for his numerous famous quotes from his works. However, the one believed to be his most famous is the one referred to as Alexander’s ‘Ninth Beatitude.’ It was part of his October 6, 1727 letter to John Gay (1685-1732), a fellow Tory satirist and member of the Scriblerus Club.

In that famous correspondence, Alexander quipped: “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” The poet, regarded as the second most quoted writer in English after Shakespeare, gave the advice while relating his numerous disappointments in America after leaving Zimbabwe for the so-called God’s Own country!

He wrote in the opening paragraph of the famous letter thus: “Yes, of all the emotions that I have experienced since my arrival in America, disappointment is the greatest…. I cannot help but repress a despondent sigh. So this is America? I feel so let down.”

Alexander, the best of the Augustan Literature, posited with the quote that man can achieve inner peace if he let go of rigid expectations, especially from fellow human beings. He encouraged men to reduce expectations drastically, face the realities of their situations, and appreciate life in its present form while not totally abandoning efforts to improve their conditions.

A 15-minute-28-second video of a 99-year-old British woman surfaced on the internet last week. It is one of the most heart-wrenching scenes I have ever come across. In the video, the nonagenarian, who lives in a care home, abandoned by all her three children, narrates how all she laboured for disappeared after her grown-up children coerced her into selling her home, and shared the proceeds among them.

One of the daughters who had promised to accommodate and cater for her for the rest of her life soon ejected her after barely eight months and sent her to a flat paid for by the old woman herself. According to her, the same daughter, who lives just 20 minutes away from the care home, hardly visits.

The sons, too busy to visit, spend barely 30 minutes with her whenever they visit. The mother of three had hopes while raising the children. She had hoped that at her old age, they would be there to take care of her. That was why she spared nothing to train them, give them good education and cater to their needs, especially after their father’s death in 1998.

At 99, the poor old woman, already at her departure lounge, had to put herself in a care home when her little reserve got exhausted! She cried at the beginning of the video, but for the duration of the video, she demonstrated high mental stability.

The thrust of her message is for parents to, while playing the good parent roles, also think about their own personal comfort at old age! The African worldview places a premium on the upbringing of the children with a hope of a better future when old age comes. But is that usually the case? Do children meet the expectations of their parents in old age? Should the Black man begin to think about his personal welfare at old age instead of breaking all his limbs for his children while he was still at his prime?

The video in discourse answers the questions. It is as didactic as it is tragic! Only God knows how many parents in their old ages are experiencing what the 99-year-old Briton is going through at the moment. We pray to reap the fruits of our labour. But what happens if the fruits refuse to fall for us to eat? God forbid, you say? No problem. The video in question says you should first forbid yourself!

Some say the video is AI-generated. They may be right. But whether it is AI-generated or a true-life story, the message in it resonates with all here who are 60 years and above, lonely and alone.

Reflecting on the video, I have been able to draw a similarity between the children of the old woman and our politicians. How many of our expectations have the political leaders been able to meet? Are Nigerians not in different ‘care homes’, abandoned by those we placed our destiny in their hands?

What do we get in terms of ‘constituency projects from our politicians? Are they not grinding machines, Okada or Keke, generators and other worthless items? In one South-South state, constituents got four yards of fabric from their senator- packaged as democratic dividends. The people clapped for him. In that same state, a senator has been sharing cutlasses, hoes and some seedlings of cocoa and cashew as empowerment! We appear to be doomed.

Up North is not better. A governor shared wheelbarrows and shovels to his people as empowerment! One federal legislator ‘commissioned’ an electric pole in a state in the North-Central, just as one gave out shoe-making kits to empower those who elected him. When we complain of insecurity, the Federal Government sends rice. When hundreds of people are killed by mindless felons, the government at the centre still sends bags of rice.

We often talk about the economic crunch occasioned by the voodoo economic policies of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration. The response we get on each occasion is the 10-kg bags of rice as ‘palliative!’ Which aspect of the nation has been made better by this government? Our roads are in bad shape but the government is spending trillions of Naira on the Coastal highway and the Sokoto-Lagos highway, with the contracts awarded, without any public bid, to the friends and cronies of the President, or to companies where the President or his relations have appreciable interest!

Check our hospitals. They are all death centres. The common man cannot afford the ones that appear to be working because of the high cost. The National Institute of Health, in a recent document listed “Top Chronic & Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs)” to include: “Hypertension (High Blood Pressure), which affects roughly 1 in 4 Nigerians, acting as a ‘silent killer.’ Stroke (Cerebrovascular Disease): A primary driver of neurological disability, appearing at high rates even in young adults; Diabetes Mellitus: A major cause of chronic illness (approx. 13.9% prevalence in some studies); Chronic Kidney Disease: There is an alarmingly high incidence of this disease, particularly in Northeast Nigeria; Cancer: Common types include breast, cervical, and prostate cancers and Mental Health Disorders: Affects 20-30% of the population, with depression and anxiety heavily under-treated due to stigma.”

Pray, which of these listed ailments can any hospital in Nigeria handle successfully? My town’s man and mentor died at the University Teaching Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, a year ago. We had to transport his remains back to Oyo town for preservation pending his final funeral rites in Ekiti. Why? UCH had no electricity supply for months and the morgue system collapsed. That was the same hospital which had the privilege of treating the King of Saudi Arabia in the early 70s!

Yet we have leaders who promised us life more abundant – leaders who paid lip service to letting the poor breathe while they ended up smouldering life out of the majority and leaving the rest between life and death! Rather than give us what they promised, they abandon our hospitals and embark on health tourism to hospitals in the West! There was a time when the late President Muhammadu Buhari and the former Head of State, General Abudusalami Abubakar, were guests at the same hospital in faraway London, United Kingdom! What can be more shameful!

I checked how many times president Tinubu has visited France since he assumed office on May 29, 2023. The response I got is troubling. Cumulatively, Tinubu has visited France 11 times. In his three-year presidency, he has spent 89 days in France out of the 237 total days he has spent outside the shores of this country. Read the result in its raw form:

“President Tinubu has been outside Nigeria for 237 days since May 2023, about 24% of his total time in office so far. Since taking office in 2023, President Bola Tinubu has spent 237 days outside Nigeria, with France accounting for the largest share at 89 days; no other country comes close. The United Kingdom follows at 28 days, while the UAE, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia trail behind. This pattern points to a presidency that has placed strong emphasis on international engagement, particularly with Europe, and especially with France, which has emerged as his most frequent foreign base.”

How on earth will an ambulant President be able to pay attention to the promises he made to the people. How will he be able to appreciate the fact that in our teaching hospitals, the pain relievers are what patients are loaded with, when, at the slightest discomfort from headache, the President is off to France or London? The President is not the only guilty party here. Half of our state governors stay in Abuja while insecurity reigns supreme in their states!

I heard one of the President’s ‘friends’ argue the other time that former President Olusegun Obasanjo spent half of his first term globetrotting. The question the fella failed to answer is: did the country record visible gains from Obasanjo’s numerous trips? If yes, can we say the same about Olabisi Ajala’s cousin who currently occupies Aso Rock Villa?!

If the Tinubu administration has nothing to show for the President’s numerous foreign trips, he should be encouraged to learn from the wisdom of the elders that Bí eégún Alaagba bá ròde tí ò bà r’ówó mú wá’lé, tí ò sí lérò léhìn; idán ò tó, òkìtì ò tó ni – if the chief masquerade comes home empty-handed and without the usual crowd, it means his magic was poor and its stunts inadequate.

Promises! Expectations! We are back in season again. Politicking has commenced and governance has taken its usual back seat. Our politicians are on the field now. One, a former senator and two-term governor of Cross River State, Professor Ben Ayade, wept bitterly the other week because the Presidency truncated his return to the senate. Here is a man who made no meaningful impact when he was in the saddle for eight years.

The Nollywood fine boy, Desmond Elliot, is running from pillar to post in his Surulere Federal Constituency 1, seeking for a fourth term in the Lagos State House of Assembly. All his people point out to as his ‘constituency project’ are two latrines at the Ojuelegba Bridge, in Lagos!

Ironically, the man acting as Elliot’s stumbling block is Femi Gbajabiamila, the Chief of Staff (CoS) to the President. Gbajamibiala holds the view that Elliot is not the only competent person from his constituency. Yet, Gbajabiamila was in the House of Representatives for five consecutive terms representing the Surulere Federal Constituency and won his sixth term before he was appointed by Tinubu as CoS! What do they mean by the saying: “The pot calling the kettle black?”

We have lamented the pain inflicted upon us by this government in the last three years. The same set of swarms of locusts is out again asking for our mandate. They are out with a puny faction of our patrimony they appropriated to themselves. Someone sent a video of how our senators arrive at the National Assembly. It is grandiose in its crude form! Nobody would believe the luxury they display given that poverty walks in three-piece suits on our streets!

Now that the same caterpillars and cankerworms are back on the field, are Nigerians going to take the peanuts they are offering and vote for them? Or are the people wiser enough to say no and vote according to their conscience?

Penultimate week, a man parked his clean SUV on the Third Mainland Bridge and took a dive into the ocean! Thankfully, he was rescued. Almost that same time, another young man drove his SUV into the Ikpoba River in Benin City. We have countless cases like that of those who could not face the realities of the hard times we are in.

Businesses fail daily here. People’s finances nosedive because of the daily hyperinflation. Many hopes have been dashed because the leaders who promised 24-hour electricity have since detached Aso Rock Villa from the National Grid in a to-your-tent-oh-Israel manner that left many frustrated! Governors who promised security move about with well-armed escorts. Only the citizens are at the mercy of killer herdsmen, bandits and terrorists. But they are back for our votes.

Thanks to Alexander Pope and the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers of old who cautioned that men ought not to expect so that they would not be disappointed. If I were asked my best Ifa Corpus, I would easily choose Ogunda Meji. That is where Orunmila teaches that one should only hope on one’s destiny (Ori). The Odù Ifá, after asking all the other deities who among them can take man to the expected end, and they all fail, Orunmila turns to Ori (destiny) and pronounces it as the one who has the capacity to take a man to his expected end – Orí nìkan ló tó Alásàán báá r’òkun!

And this is my divination message to Nigerians as they are faced with the no-choice choices facing them in the new political dispensation. The people should take their destiny in their hands. They know those they had tested, trusted and hoped on in the past but who paid them back with failures. Nothing has changed and nothing will ever change.

So, let the people try something new; let them experiment with those who still bear a semblance of innocence. Above all, If I were to divine for Nigerians, again, I would simply ask them to recite the old lines of the ancient Babalawo, who after all efforts failed, asked Orunmila how he made it, and Agboniregun responds: Isé orí rán mi ni mò ún jé/Ònà tí Olúdùmarè là sílè ni mò ún tò (I answer the call of my destiny/I follow the path set before me by my maker).

Nigeria was once great before the locusts came. It can be great again if the people choose wisely and have less expectations. The words of Alexander Pope are still potent!