The calm before the storm

By Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko

The deafening silence of the political class and the elite club, in the light of the grave abnormalities enveloping the land, is worrisome. Could it mean resignation out of anger, frustration and disappointment? Could the deadly silence be out of fear and apprehension? Whatever, the silence is unhelpful and uncomfortable.

Never before in the history of this country, has frightening insecurity, crippling poverty and ethnic divisions become so intertwined, intermingled and interwoven to the extent that despair and fear of tomorrow has become the major discussion at every small gathering from Maiduguri to Lagos, Sokoto to Calabar and Katsina to Port Harcourt.

School children are abducted in their hundreds, food trucks are blocked from going South, technically-defeated Boko haram seized and held on to Dikwa for a whole week, and successfully commandeering costly military trucks and other quite expensive equipment from our Army every other week.

Ethnic militias, armed bandits, ruthless herdsmen and kidnappers dominate the news. Every nationality in every region is fighting back from fright over the silence of the Presidency on the very deep claim by the Fulani that they own every inch of Nigerian soil. The silence of Aso Rock over that frightening claim by the Fulani and the backlash it created, threw up a new Nigeria nobody ever imagined.

In all these strange developments, politicos are busy, plotting about 2023 elections and husbanding scarce resources towards maintaining their stranglehold on power.

Now, judging from the tradition and style of the government of the day, everyone is expecting a military operation or series of military operations to commence, not far away from now.

The big question remains: if past military operations failed to resolve the issues and restore peace and harmony, how come we still trust and depend only upon military action against the civilian population, as the only possible solution to our multi-faceted and structurally inspired absurdities?

• Ugochukwu-Uko is the founder of Igbo Youth Movement, IYM, and Secretary of Eastern Consultative Assembly, ECA