For the Niger State Governor, embarrassment became mortification and then incarceration during a recent Sallah visit to the Emir of Suleja when a man identified as 38-year-old Hamisu Abdullahi shouted, “No water, no light.” The government of Niger State has since confirmed the arrest of the man. According to the report, the man was arrested by the police for attempting to disrupt government activities. While the reports indicate that there have been deliberate efforts to make it look like the police swooped in and arrested the man on their own, what is clear is that the man became a marked man for shouting “no water, no light” at such a conspicuous, if inauspicious, moment.
Sadly, through more than sixty years of independence, Nigeria has become a country strangely unrecognizable to the startling visions of prosperity and security that comforted those who fought for the country’s independence through some of their darkest days. In Nigeria today, everything is a struggle, every moment a massive test, with life itself becoming one desperate slog.
Hamisu Abdullahi only cried out “no water, no light” and unsettled the government of Niger State so badly as to cause them to put in motion a machinery to punish him. If the man had lived all his life with adequate electricity and clean water, there was no way he would have shouted, “No water, no light”. Even if he did that out of mischief, it would have sounded all hollow instead of coming back to haunt him in such a spectacular manner at the hands of a government that knows it has largely failed.
The greatest Irony in Nigeria today is that Nigerians are finding a kind of silence in suffering, one encouraged by those they supposedly elected into office. Nigeria’s desperate do-nothing politicians expect Nigerians to suffer in silence and say nothing and do nothing. Such expectation has become so entrenched in government thinking in Nigeria that those who dare to confirm and confront their suffering are met with grave consequences.
Hamisu Abdullahi may have cried out for different reasons altogether as the governor visited, but in his words were writ large the wretchedness that has become written into the Nigerian story.
How many families in Nigeria today can boast of adequate clean water for domestic use all year round or even six months a year? The less said about the power situation in Nigeria today, the better. Yet, all that many government officials want to do is silence dissent and talk about re-election when they have embarrassingly little to show for their time in office.
The chief reason Nigeria remains stuck in a rut is the failure of accountability by those elected to hold public office and the shocking reluctance of Nigerians to demand accountability from those they call public office holders.
Nigeria did not get to this impossibly dark place by chance. Bringing it out of this place will not come by chance. It will take a lot of work and bravery like that shown by Hamisu Abdullahi.
No matter what anyone In government says, frustration is mounting among Nigerians, and it is only a matter of time before the beaker finally overflows.
Ike Willie-Nwobu,
