CAN it be truly said that because Nigerians know where they are coming from, they know where they are heading to? Can we really see clearly as a people the downward slump the nation keeps sprawling into with daily occurrences? Have we as citizens of this nation become walking corpses?
Reggae music legend Bob Marley’s popular album, Exodus remains in line with Scriptural leaning about the movement of people. In the title song, he asked essentially: “Look within, are you satisfied with the life you are living?” This is a fundamental question for the Nigerians of today in view of what is going on in the country.
Life is becoming meaningless. Stories of mindless killings, whether by bombings, shootings or mob attacks have become habitual episode being sidetracked to national pattern. Justice is turning out to commodity in the market of buying and selling. Avoidable disasters of all manners are being absorbed as part of global phenomenon. Many more now die before their times in ways God would not be asserted blame for the errors. Rather, they are more of signs of the end-time.
I watched the video of the barbaric slaughter of the four UNIPORT students online. My heart sank seeing the level of depression of the spirit of the common man wasting innocent lives. Let’s even assume that it was true that the young undergraduates stole laptop and blackberry handset. Must they be the ones receiving the ultimate judgment from a mob? What about those scooping the nation’s resources in billions of cash into private purses? Ironically, those are the ones being hailed as society’s big men and honoured as success – with justice being turned upside down.
Before this was prevalence of iniquitous manslaughters of the future generation across the nation. Go to Mubi in Adamawa State, scores of students of the Federal Polytechnic were either shot or macheted by suspected colleagues for no justification. The sad case of Nassarawa State University postgraduate student Cynthia Ozukogu, brutalized, chained and put to death by her Facebook social media friends remains a distressing and depressing story. Many more of such inhumanity filling the pages of newspapers.
More than any other time in the history of this nation, kidnapping has become an order of the day. Just the same way, armed robbery keeps harassing the peace and security of the society without practicable solution. Many tales are being told of arrests of kidnappers and armed robbers, but records of judgment upon the culprit remain miserably scanty. This means the sustainability of criminality as there is hardly a precautionary trend to dissuade perpetrators.
Same has been the chronicle of Boko Haram terrorism. The sect has shaken the north eastern part of the country and the federal capital with suicide bombings and shootings for a while. Several hundreds of innocent lives have been wasted alongside properties of value. Till date, prosecution of the arrested many of the terrorists remains hanging.
What a nation? What a people? Unrighteousness has enveloped the land with afflictions. Natural disasters are taking over as recompense. There is what scientists with the wisdom of man now label as global warming. Yet, not all nations of the world are being afflicted. But Nigeria is experiencing overwhelming flooding in several parts today, rendering many homeless. The disaster is plainly being linked to global warming. Yes, it may be so. But going deeper should make one understand the catastrophe as compensation for the consequence of reigning intrigues and atrocities in the land.
Beyond the tales of adversities, what else do we have to be glorified as a nation? Not only a prostrate, distraught and strangulated territory, but a realm saddled with levels of most corrupt and apathetic populace. As the much endowed resources flowing in are being pocketed by the advantaged few, the country is dwindling to wretchedness and penury, straining the unprivileged majority to be pressured to make it also at all cost. While those in power and their connections are enmeshed in corruption and fraud, those outside power are getting trapped in assorted criminalities. This is to say, since the head has become rotten, the bulk is decomposing and decaying.
The slump is manifesting all around. Yearly budgets are no more than mere formalities. Federal legislators are presently combating the authorities over pitiable performance of the existing budget and yet presenting a bulkier one for the coming year – with barely anything on the ground to show for performance. In the Nigeria of today, government hospitals are becoming consigned mortuaries; sales of failed public properties – like NITEL and lately PHCN, are hardly done with purity; the poor desiring to eat from dustbins and decomposing waste-heaps are getting frustrated by the day as such sources of livelihood hardly offer anything anymore.
If there is any contentment by the downtrodden, it must perhaps be because the oppressed has not suffered enough to the point of death. The reality is that the only category pretending to be enjoying the good of the land today are the kleptomaniacs, fraudsters in and out of government and the growing dupers of varied hues.
Why are we where we are without making progress? Let’s go back to the dawn of December 31, 1983. The civilian administration under Alhaji Shehu Shagari was then being sacked by the military junta hungry for a return to power. By the grace of history, we can recollect the major actors who eventually became rulers that further dragged the nation down to the valley.
But first, let’s hear the voice of Gen. Sani Abacha on that dawn of military take-over:
“You are all living witnesses to the grave economic predicaments and uncertainty which an inept and corrupt leadership has imposed on our beloved nation. I am referring to the harsh and intolerable conditions under which we are now living.
“Our economy has been hopelessly mismanaged. We have become a debtor and beggar nation. There is inadequacy of food at reasonable price for our people who are now fed up with endless announcement of importation of foodstuffs. Health services are in shambles as our hospitals are reduced to mere consulting clinics without drug, water and equipment.
“Our educational system is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Unemployment figures, including the graduates, have reached embarrassing and unacceptable proportions. In some states, workers rae being owed salaries and there are threats of salary cuts. Yet our leaders revel in squandermania and corruption; and indiscipline continues to be the bane of the nation’s proliferated public appointment in complete disregard for our stark economic realities.”
This is almost 29 years after. There have been successive administrations. How much has changed? The man who lamented on air then later forced his way in to reign and rule after his co-coup plotter, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida who collaboratively annulled the people’s choice ten years later was forced to “step aside.”
Ponder again on Bob Marley’s cry: “Look within; are you satisfied with the life you are living?” Indeed, is your life better off than what it was in 1983? The concept of transformation might sound positive. But the veracity of it is what it impacts on the people’s sensibilities and lives. It must go beyond partisanship.
Any leadership working for self will never move the people out of the miry clay. Rather than serving public interest, personal enhancement through elongated tenureship becomes prioritized. This is why those contented with the inglorious happenings in the land are the ones contending with the concept of a Sovereign National Conference that would have made Nigerians to speak out their minds and work out restoration of lost glories on the pathway to their destinies.
But since nothing seems to be working other than atrocities and mayhem, now the National Assembly is considering the review of the militarily-enforced constitution. But would the populace see this as another opportunity opening up for a meaningful turn-around? Will there be sincerity and true love for the people in the heart of those at the helm?
Devoted thought cannot be for retention of position of power or to benefit from the suffering of the masses. It is only in righteousness that the broken walls of this nation can be rebuilt. It is then that the hope and aspiration of true greatness can be restored and the glory we once had rejuvenated.
Let it be known that tough time will not last for ever only if tough people are devoted to goodness and righteousness.
