Imagine the future of a country managed by Godwin Emifieles, Ahmed Idris, Beta Edus, AbdulRasheed Mainas, GodsWill Akpabios, AbdulRasheed Bawas, AbdulHameed Aliyus, Diezani Alli-son Maduekes, Bello Maigaris, the Jalalu Arabis of National Hajj Commission scandal, the Lamuwas of foreign affairs etc. Those stated contributed immensely to making Nigeria a country in penury and on the reverse gear within comity of nations as our extant law is twisted to encourage selective justice. One is not trying to de-market Nigeria but it is a country forced by its leaders to worship sentiments and subscribe to hypocrisy as a policy. It is a country that thieves, looters, drug barons and even pimps are ‘worshipped’ for what they have stolen from public coffers. It is a country where captains of industry and politicians are above the law because administrators of the law have compromised as friends, sycophants and shield. Nigeria is a country with stark and semi-illiterates in power and protected to abuse such power for personal interest. It is a country security apparatus are ‘denied’ free hand to operate within the statue laws and remote-controlled by a privileged few on corridor of power for selfish interest.
It is a country power is abused by those in authority and still protected and defended by those in the temple of justice and enforcers of the laws. Abuse of power and high-scale corrupt practices by those privileged few in power and their collaborators in the business circle are some of the major causes of the lingering security challenges bedeviling the country that may sooner than later breed a bloody revolution. The judicial system is archaic and infested by corruption. Judges are allegedly business moguls in the temples of justice. In some cases, armed bandits and their junior colleagues, armed robbers can be more ‘patriotic and humane’ if properly assessed than some Nigerian leaders. Custom, Immigration and Correctional facility personnel are more of criminals than what they are paid to offer. The situation is ripe for change under a Tinubu presidency with complete overhaul!
The opportunistic elite wherever they find a platform to speak astounds the audience with big grammar of ancient years to drive a point home, which in most cases are at variance with their inner intentions against good governance. Whether the elite are in government, academia, private sector or the unregulated religious ministries, Nigeria is famous for first, talking without thinking, and second, talking without walking the talk to action. Since the escalation of insecurity in most parts of the country and the mayhem of October 2020 #EndSARS protests, Nigerians have been inundated with some subject nouns that have been promoted in the Nigerian political and socio-economic space by the corrupt elite impoverishing the masses. These clichés from Nigeria’s political lexicon are applied in the daily rhetoric of conceit, deceit and falsehood fed to the long-suffering people.The security agencies and their principals in the executive and legislature readily chorus ‘cultists, bandits, hoodlums, looters, criminals and terrorists’ as the purveyors of violence and promoters of insecurity in the land.
After every slaughter of citizens, Nigerians are mocked with the familiar refrain of expression of ‘sadness and shock’, lamentations of ‘inhuman, tragic, callous, satanic, dastardly and horrendous’ massacres; and empty, contemptuous and unfeeling assurances of apprehension of the murderers; and vows of remedy with clichés such as – ‘we are on top of the situation; the killers or kidnappers will be arrested and prosecuted or we are trailing the suspects bla! bla! bla’. Condolences and hypocritical visits become the order of the day from various quarters – the presidency, national assembly, governors, senators, representatives, council chairmen and sundry- words that do little to condole or comfort the bereaved, and mourning families of victims, who themselves may be the next victims of attacks by the evil agents of death. Normal life resumes until another episode of slaughter occurs.
This is the ghastly and morbid cycle of our existence here in the land of our ancestors.But who are these ‘bandits, cultists, hoodlums, vandals, miscreants, looters, criminals and terrorists’? Are they bona fide Nigerians who have for decades been criminally excluded from the distribution of national resources, abandoned to the low estate of crass poverty, ignorance, disease, squalor and subjected to avoidable and un-provided deaths? And no social safety nets provided for them whatsoever? Some may be those Nigerians out of the millions of out of school children, almajiris, palm wine tappers, motor park touts, agberos and illiterate youths who desired education but could not afford it and no one cared: the educated youth who roam the streets of cities and villages without jobs to earn a living: the rural folks whose occupation is farming but not empowered with the funds and tools to produce and even when indulging in subsistence farming are hacked down in their farms by bandits; our students who are rendered idle with incessant and protracted strikes by academic and non-academic staff and other unions. For these forsaken teeming masses, there is no hope but despair; no faith in nationhood and no love for country. They have been abandoned to fate in the midst of plenty. These indigent folks are daily fighting battles of survival against vicious poverty, hunger and disease while they watch their leaders indulge in unconscionable, opulent revelries and ostentation funded with suspected ill-gotten and illicit wealth.The alarming escalation of violent crimes is the harvest of decades of corruption, neglect, misrule, total alienation, exclusion, marginalization and contempt with which the political elite and ruling class has treated the poor masses since the military ‘criminally’ aborted the fledging and promising First Republic in 1966.
Successive governments whether military or civilian, had thrived on falsehood to hoodwink Nigerians of coming on a redemption mission only to abandon the people and enrich themselves and cohorts. These elites are our kinsmen; we grew up together, attended the same public funded schools and higher institutions. We know their family economic and social status before they accessed power. No sooner they assumed office they start to erect palatial mansions in their sleepy home communities, in Abuja and other choice cities within and abroad. They drive fleet of exotic cars in convoys protected by heavily armed frustrated and emaciated security guards maintained at public expense. Their births and deaths are celebrated like carnivals with regal pageantry, with scores of pages of newspapers advertisements adorned with their photos, felicitations or condolences. They throw cash around and live in obscene and unconscionable luxury in the face and midst of crass and mass penury, poverty and severe deprivation of the greater majority of citizens. In their narcissistic posturing, they praise themselves to high heavens trumpeting achievements that are fictional and at best alternative facts for the bottom pit of hell.
The manner the so-called ‘hoodlums hijacked’ the #EndSARS and #EndBadGovernance protests, our present colonizers have hijacked our hard-fought democracy and turned it to a mercantilist, exploitative, oppressive and rogue system that exclusively favors them- a tiny segment of the populace, churning out billionaires and multi-millionaires, the new rich with gummy hands and heartless. These corrupt Nigerian elites are products and disciples of poor mentoring by past leaders- the Obasanjos, Babangidas, Abachas, AbdulSalams and their ilk. For them, restructuring the faulty federation is balderdash because they would be inconsequential and voiceless in the new dispensation. They are sitting on the goldmine of corruption, they cannot be easily moved. They are in All Progressives Congress (APC) today and, tomorrow they switch over to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and next tomorrow they are in Labor Party or New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP). They are all members of the club of indigenous colonialists and neo-imperialist oligarchs.
Pardon me for crying out loud. The frustration is becoming unbearable! I watched how government warehouses were burgled by hungry youth to evacuate what rightly belonged to them hoarded by agencies and influential individuals in the very government they elected. I watched how stark illiterates accessed power and misusing same power to frustrate the people that elected them. I have watched how the criminally-minded with fake credentials, sordid past and character deficit catapulted to the Green and Red chambers of the national assembly as lawmakers. I have watched how idiots were appointed ministers in a government elected on claimed slogan of Renewed Hope.
One has watched a lot of Kanny and Nollywood drama series in past systems of government. Where are the mentors and role models who promote our core human and cultural values of honesty, unity, hard work, truthfulness and fraternity? Where can we find them? Do we see them among the former Heads of State and Presidents who took as much as they desired from public treasury to build mansions and launder billions of our monies in various banks here and overseas and are not held to account? What about our political elite who justify humongous salaries and allowances they earn which are not legitimate and statutory but contrived on the claim of self or group entitlements? How can a member of the national assembly ever dream of being more productive and important to the society than a medical surgeon, physician, university lecturer, engineer, journalist, lawyer or those teachers that labor to impact knowledge and discipline into our children to justify their bloated and bogus salaries and allowances? Will the police ever banish their illegally mounted toll-collecting checkpoints, cash for bail and other corrupt practices that are shameful acts even to the Inspector-General of Police? What about the ‘famous’ Army Captain who in Taraba State waylaid a police team that arrested a notorious kidnapper Hamisu Wadume and snuffed life out of those police officers on national assignment? Is that captain the ideal model for our army?
We can recall that few years back some military officers and their civilian collaborators under Sambo Dasuki diverted billions of naira and dollars budgeted for purchase of arms and equipments to secure the country from the murderous Boko Haram beasts. Instead of the purchase, the officers stole the amount against the security of the country. Today, are those officers mentoring the military rank and file to become real patriots or thieves? By this their actions of national sabotage and treachery, have they not put our troops in harm’s way and empowered the murderous beasts? Should they not be summarily punished according to military law than trial in a conventional court? But sadly, the same military high command would rather demote a Major General who complained of dearth of equipment for our fighting troops. Why is Nigeria slow in winning the war against Boko Haram, banditry and kidnapping with all the claimed Army Divisions and deployed resources at their mercy?A forensic interrogation of the prevailing and escalating state of insecurity may reveal insider sabotage by greedy and selfish elements in the security institutions and their civilian collaborators benefitting immensely from the endless conflict.
My country’s problems are complex and complicated; a nation without heroes and iconic leaders to be emulated. In a situation where the security agencies- the police and the armed forces – the bastion of discipline and patriotism, descend from these lofty ideals to indulge in criminal activities, surely we are in trouble. In this cesspit of corruption and conundrum of insecurity added to grinding poverty devastating the land, President Tinubu must extricate himself from the hostage position he found himself, reboot and reset the entire security architecture and machinery of governance if he wishes not to be remembered as one of the worst presidents history placed on Nigeria. He should disabuse his mind from the big grammar and pretence of those surrounding and deceiving him with phantom lies and juvenile propaganda dished out by some of his senile and insincere aides and political associates to the oppressed people from their secure and comfort zones. For Nigeria to move forward out of the quagmire it found itself, President Tinubu should strive and listen to the voice of the people.
The country needs a strong and independent Presidential National Security Committee comprising dedicated and committed retired officers and other ranks to proffer solutions to the lingering security challenges. We have to plough selected retired security personnel into the system to strengthen the records for the good of our country!Lastly, in any community where there is no sincere and committed leadership, the community readily and steadily becomes target of attacks from all angles through internal collaboration. Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Taraba, Niger, Imo, Anambra, Zamfara, Yobe and Sokoto States are some of such unfortunate communities where there was no determined leadership for reliance. There was absence of committed leadership to address the plight of the people other than the usual concocted security reports to government which in some cases, the governors hardly peruse through for action.A cross-section of the people are abandoned to their plight as victims of series of ethno-religious, insurgency and banditry attacks from different angles without robust resistance despite the presence of few ill-equipped deployed security personnel.
The so-called elected and appointed leaders are in their respective comfort zones busy pursuing contracts, shortchanging the people and laughing in silence while their people bleed to death to their admiration as sadists.
It is only few of their sons and daughters that pay visits to console and condole, the people but neither the state governors nor national assembly members always deem it necessary to pay periodic solidarity and condolence visits to commiserate with the devastated communities until the electioneering campaign period approaches. Are the people genuinely desirous of peace or violence? I mean the natives of the troubled areas and the marauding bandits? It is only in Nigeria that bandits and terrorists have the confidence and audacity to impose levies on communities to have their peace. Who then has the capacity in government to restore confidence in those frightened and threatened communities? But definitely not those with the responsibility, and have already failed in the onerous task. It is only God that knows!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues.
