Sorry State of the Nigerian Nation
Nigeria in every respect is looking more and more like an apparition. Many unreal things happen daily, it looks like a state of nature as described by Thomas Hobbes. Nigeria has been turned to a beggar nation by those who are electedto govern it! Think of anything at all, it is possible in Nigeria. Things are not as they look, and everything is like a fleeting illusion! For those of us outside the country,Nigeria looks like a big jungle where people have the power to act with impunity.
You will see a drunken police, paid with the tax payers’ money, wielding an assault rifle terrorising ordinary Nigerians on the street, and in some extreme cases brutalizing civilians with no consequence whatsoever. Only in Nigeria will a civil servant embezzle public money to the tune of billions. A government minister will purchase or hire a N10 billion jet to fly around, while majority of the people live in squalor. Worst still, the National Assembly cannot even summon the minister for a simple explanation! The corruption and money laundering case against Abacha’s son was withdrawn by the Jonathan administration and replaced with a ticket to fly the PDP’s flag in Kano State as governor in the next election. Only in Nigeria will seven lawmakers chase away 19 other s and usurp the power of the speaker, pass appropriation bill, and approve list of commissioners. There is nothing honourable in what these people did.
Gov. Fayose makes beggars out the proud Ekiti people by distributing fowls and rice to them. I ask, whose money was he using to purchase all those stuff? In the same state, a Judge was assaulted with no finger raised by the powers that be! Only in Nigeria will the Inspector General of Police (IGP) be so overtly and downright partisan.He orders his subordinates to occupy the National Assembly under a spurious and flimsy excuse, yet nothing happened. Not that alone, the IGP referred to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, as one Aminu Tambuwal! The IGP backed it up with further insult that he does not recognize him as Speaker.
Boko Haram wantonly and routinely kills people and operates freely like there is no government charged with protecting lives and properties in the country. Soldiers ask for better equipment and ammunition, they called it mutiny and condemned them to death! What a twist of an irony! People with good conscience should rise up and protest on behalf of these unfortunate.
While I do not support capital punishment, but if anybody should die, it should be in the reversed order! The ship of the country is recklessly making it to the rocks while occupants are scrambling to get a vantage place to sit in! The list of parody taking place can keep going on and on. That is why I equate Nigeria to an Apparition. In a country where a normal government exists, such things should not have happened. Having said this, I can make some exceptions in many states of the country, where we have progressive governments that are making lemonade, while the central government throws lemon at them. History will be kind towards them, and posterity will recognize them.
The late Nelson Mandela said this about Nigeria. “You know I am not happy not very happy with Nigeria, I have made that very clear on many occasions. Yes Nigeria stood by us more than any nation, but you let yourselves down, and Africa and the black race very badly. Your leaders have no respect for their people. They believe that their personal interests are interests of the people. They take people’s resources and turn it into personal wealth. There is a level of poverty in Nigeria that should be unacceptable. I cannot understand why Nigerians are not more-angry than they are.” Mandela had never lived a month in Nigeria up to his death, and he could summarise our leaders’ behaviour so accurately.
Nigeria, a blessed and rich country but with poor people can no longer continue business as usual. The present government has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that it is incapable of leading the country.
The terabyte-level corruption going on in Nigeria is unparalleled.
Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the then Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria broke rank and disclosed that the oil money is not bring remitted, they castigated him, they vilified him, and now, he is His Eminence ,the Emir of Kano.
*this was published in the Daily Times newspaper dated Monday, December 29, 2014
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