When government taxed our lives into poverty

The desire of every citizen after performing their national obligation of voting is to get responsible and responsive leadership that addresses their needs. That is where Jack Toronto and his 'liable' junior brother come into the story. A pair made for each other; one vindictive, the other, an expert liar.

Together, they can cook up some of the most sumptuous pot of malicious citizen-killing policies and when in trouble, defend them with a plethora of brazenly disrespectful and scandalously audacious potpourri of more lies.

So, it was a monumental surprise when the citizens of Umuofia decided or were conned into voting for this pair as caretakers of their community and inherently its kitty. Eeeiii, what a brave decision! To hand over your pot of grilled tilapia to a hungry cat to keep it safe for you is truly a daring choice.

Unfortunately, with their hearts filled with glittering promises, they glorified and celebrated their newfound love with horn-tooting and endless parties. They have found their God-sent saviours who are going to change Umuofia from their so-called ‘sorry state’ into the richest state in the world, even beyond the wealth of the Hanging Garden of Babylon. With promises like “One district, one factory,” “One village, one dam” etc. the people were hooked, ‘milk and honey’ is here at last, they assured themselves and concluded that the proverbial utopian state had finally arrived.

Fast forward, 100 days came and the leadership of Jack Toronto and his junior brother were offered the platform to account to citizens as they promised. Within the first few lines of their presentation, the signs of trouble had already begun to rear their ugly heads. The lies spewed out as achievements
to celebrate the day, could knock a bulldozing train loaded with millions of tons of coal off its track.

The people of Umuofia listened to the magician younger brother of Jack Toronto laces their ears with a twist of pulverising list of achievements. Though they were wondering whether the submissions were about Umuofia or a distant place elsewhere, they kept quiet and took in all the stories most of which were barefaced lies, adopting the proverbial wait-and-see approach to the situation as they hope for the best. What followed next was a cornucopia of excuses laced with propaganda and vituperative fabrications that served as ‘Covid and Ukraine palaver’.

They were clear digressions from the kingdom of milk and honey that was promised. Many things followed, but my focus today is on Jack Toronto and his Wikipedia-known liar of a junior brother, and the first lesson of leadership that they taught the people of Umuofia; taxes, taxes and taxes everywhere.

The citizens of Umuofia attended to their livelihoods diligently and enthusiastically supported Jack Toronto and his junior brother in all ways possible to implement their plans. This was despite the loads of pent-up reservations citizens had amassed due to the many existing evidence of adulterated and failed promises. Dams have become ponds; factories have become people’s shops and citizens have become slaves. Then one morning, citizens woke up to the news that some banks belonging to non-believers of the con-works of Jack Toronto and his younger brother have been collapsed. Most owners of these banks were citizens who have managed to garner enough hatred upon themselves
for their opposition to the raping of the state’s purse by Jack Toronto, the liar, the preacher man, the writer and the cook. After a bit of an uproar, citizens accepted the destruction of livelihoods, the abuse of power, the undermining of the legal systems and the looting of the state’s coffers as collateral damage, notwithstanding the fact that they have similarly and frivolously shut down several media houses for seemingly vindictive reasons.

After everything, they called it the ‘banking sector clean up’ and called upon citizens to come and clean up the mess. The clean-up exercise was in the form of lumping a new tax on the heads of innocent citizens who have already lost so much during the process itself. They called it the Financial Sector
Recovery Levy and the citizens kept quiet and paid. Jack Toronto and the younger brother giggled and flew more expensive jets.

Not too long after that, Jack Toronto and his junior brother quickly discovered that communication in Umuofia was a very lucrative business therefore they must have their share of the cake. Having already tested the waters and realizing that the citizens of Umuofia are a very docile type, they quickly put together a string of convincing lies and sent the preacher man to announce another tax, the Communication Service Tax. Citizens swallowed the new drain on their wallets with little protest and Jack Toronto and his entourage of looters once again snickered at their cowardice and patted themselves on the back for bringing in more cash to misuse. Don’t forget that their favourite criticism
of the previous leaders of Umuofia was that, they borrowed recklessly.

They said to themselves, “What else can we do if the citizens are so gullible that any fib presented as explanations to them is acceptable as the basis to introduce another tax?”. So as quickly as they could they tripled things up with a new one; a sanitation and pollution levy. The invention this time was that
Umuofia would be made the cleanest city in the world. The grumbling was louder this time, but who dare you when Jack Toronto and his entourage are carrying a delusion around that “Ya gye y3 man”. So once again citizens paid amid some valiant resistance. More so when the economy was only getting worse with every new tax, and the few who could speak up were being hounded with all the
force that should have been channelled into fixing the country. But the IMF was unintimidated! They watched from afar and waited in bated breath to pounce when Umuofia’s die was finally cast.

Let’s not forget that somewhere along the line, Umuofia had gone through a terrible period of COVID19 that took lives but also enriched others with the help of IMF's huge dollar inflows. As is always their character, Uncle Jack and Brother “B” have spotted a gap already and quickly assembled the team
and hurriedly cooked up a plan to siphon their share of the people’s money at the expense of the dying citizens. So, after sharing ‘sakora’ rice with minuscule eggs to just citizens in Akra, Telma and Greater Kumasay at a cost of Ghc 12,000,000.00, they profess themselves saviours of Umuofia. So, it wasn’t
surprising when they blamed the people for receiving a payable ‘free water’ and demanded the citizens pay back for the freebies. Paying for anything that is free in itself is an insult to the intelligence of the citizens but with the brutal force Jack and his brother are brandishing against anyone who stand in
their way, not the Trade Union Congress (TUC), opposition members, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), religious groups nor the Council of State could bring them to the understanding that free means you don’t have to pay. So, they bludgeoned citizens with more tax; Covid-19 Health Recovery
Levy and the people paid.

Things however are now getting really hot and volatile, and citizens are beginning to question the tons of dishonesties they have been served. By this time, no one was even energized enough to raise much opposition amid the cacophony of noise when sanitary pads became luxury items deserving to be taxed and duly taxed.

Citizens continued to question themselves whether the choice they made was the right one. They were barely done when Jack Toronto and his junior brother arrived at their doorsteps again with a cup in hand to collect more money from their wretched pockets. This time, it was an electronic levy (ELevy). Citizens' transfer of money electronically has caught the eye of the looters so they are
aggressively scheming to have a portion of it. They care less that the economy is bad; they care less that the salaries are very low; they care less that the cost of transport is killing citizens; all they care about is tax, tax, tax and tax again. But this time, the citizens said no, enough is enough. The
Parliament of Umuofia said no, the workers said no, the chiefs said no and everybody said no. But it is Jack Toronto and his junior brother that we are talking about. They never give up. They threatened, intimidated, bribed, and finally got their wish. E-Levy became a tax, Jack became happy, his junior
brother sheepishly grinned from ear to ear, and the preacher man got more cash to push the family’s agenda. Sadly, the people of Umuofia suffered more, and became poorer; 850,000 went below the poverty line and everybody went to bed again.

Let me cut the story of the people of Umuofia short by jumping to the latest potpourri of junk that Jack Toronto and his squad have heaped on their feeble shoulders to carry, and this time, even the young were not spared. The new target was sports betting and lottery winnings. Any contemplation on the
part of Umuofians to make a little income from betting or lottery was shaken by the razor-sharp laser eye of these guys to spot, attack and loot any bit of money in the system. It is this sense of smell for the people’s money that suddenly plunged Umuofians into carrying another heavy tax burden. It was
a heavy burden they carried with a weary pocket and a bitter heart. But this did not deter Jack from adding new ones and suffering the people more.

Just this week, the new burden on the people of Umuofia is a certain emission tax which is clothed under the excuse that people need to move to electric cars. Alongside this tax are several other new ones including those on bottled water, alcohol, car insurance (a tax on tax, which is illegal), etc. The people can’t bear it anymore. A palm wine-drinking partner of mine whispered into my ear that, most of the community members are barely able to marshal a meal a day now and are planning to remove the ‘animal farm’ leadership of Umuofia because the people are broke, battered, malnourished, disoriented and tired of this greedy regime of looters, liars, tricksters and selfish family members. It
is time to fight back, so they will fight back.

So, when Jack Toronto came to town again with an excuse of an IMF directive and a plea for citizens of Umuofia to understand him; carefully ignoring the extent to which he and his junior brother have destroyed the country, there was no understanding to be given at this juncture. His desire to impose a Value Added Tax (VAT) on electricity was met with furious and stern resistance from all quarters. I sat my old ass down somewhere next to the mango tree as I sipped palm wine and watch the action unfold. The TUC is relentless in its resistance and has promised a showdown.

“We no go sit down make you cheat every day, Walahi,” they growled back. ‘Eb3y3 butubutu’ I shouted from my base of solitude. This time, even the sworn supporters of Jack Toronto and his darling ‘follow-back’ will not budge to any further heaping of taxes and tightening of belts. The transport owners including The GPRTU would not understand. They threatened counter-action and swore brimstone. The IMF finally came in and told Jack Toronto, enough of killing your people with taxes, find other ways.

They know no other way as their seven years in power have proven except borrowing and taxing. But since they cannot borrow now, they are taxing, and for now, all is quiet as they have gone into scheming to come back and hoodwink Umuofians into another tax burden. They have promised citizens that they are going back to do broader consultation. But that is not the way these bunch of
malicious leaders operate. The way they chameleonically transformed from human rights experts into human rights abusers and from economic whiz kids into digital legends is enough danger signal to advise citizens that these guys are malleable and ill-intent. They can do anything just to have proximity to power and the public purse. They will plead, pound your fufu for you, grind your pepper, drink kalypo with you, and attend your funerals and naming ceremonies etc. just to get your consent or vote, then you will taste pepper; the really hot one.

The case of the citizens of Umuofia is sad especially when juxtaposed on their current plight compared to before the arrival of Jack Toronto and his entourage. But old as I am and the experience I have gathered over the years. I ascribe to the saying “If you wear a hat that keeps attracting bees, drop the hat somewhere in the dustbin and have your peace”. Jack Toronto, his junior brother, and the
family members have done citizens a great disservice, especially after all the promises, and must be hurriedly dumped in the dustbin. Remember, people who don’t keep promises, accept their faults, or apologize when they fail, are the most dangerous. They use lies and fabrications to solve problems, and bribery and corruption to buy their way through. Fake news is their hallmark, a reason for which they have an entire empire of workers in the Julorbi House creating and sharing fake news on social media. At the end of it all, it is their families that grow wealthy and the masses that end up pitifully
impoverished.

Umuofians have to be strong this time to resist these tricksters with an exorbitant appetite for taxes. Let us not forget that, they told citizens, “We will move Umuofia from taxation to production”.

One of the numerous cunningly crafted lies they used to trick citizens into voting them into power. The truth is however glaring to see. For Jack Toronto and his team, they came to steal, to kill, and to destroy.

Ably aided in this by some sections of the security services, the ‘Jubishiary’ and the Electoral Commission. But Umuofia must not be destroyed. Show them the exit so that citizens can audit them and expose their hidden crimes. The polls are in December, let no one promise you anymore or bribe you. If they do, take the money and vote against them. Lessons have been learnt. The priority now is, to choose a leader who has done it before instead of a tax expert turn computer
Wizkid. It is a communal labour to save Umuofia, don’t sit on the fence.
I am out.