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Dilemma of a nation

By Christie Doyin
It was Thomas Jefferson that said, “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty” and my take is nothing can be more truth than this, especially in the present day Nigeria.
For crying out loud! Wouldn’t it be right to say the nation hitherto held in high esteem and considered as the giant of Africa has fallen from its big brother role to become detestable and of no consequence among African nations in particular and across the world in general.
I often hide my face in shame when I chanced on discussions about Nigeria and usually would not want my country mentioned in any discussion because after the throwing back and forth of any discussion, it usually goes back to the centre point and that is corruption and leadership failure.
It’s no news that Nigeria may soon top the chart of corrupt nations apart from being headquarter of poverty in the world. When it comes to insecurity, human rights abuse and violations, indiscriminate sanctions and arrest by security agencies and the likes, there is tendency for resistance, protest and especially, revolts as well as disobedience to constituted authorities.
In Nigeria of today, we tend to have more protest, agitation and resistances across the country. This is basically as a result of perceived injustice from government across board and its ineptitude.
To say that the government is either deliberately inept or has merely taken fiendish pleasure in hurting the citizenry and using moral coercion to subject them to timidly accepting the lies and pretences.
What Nigerians are going through now can only be experienced and not explained. It can be concluded that we have over 95% of citizens on the poverty line and if these are reviewed, we will have about 90% of them below the poverty line.
Yet, our government want us to tow the line doing the needful when of course those up there are not ready or willing to play their expected roles to the governed.
What we are going through in terms of insecurity, economic hardship, poor (if not outright lack of) social amenities, breaches of rights, social injustice, substandard education, high poverty level and wide margin of social inequality among other numerous deficiencies, all bore down to leadership failure.
For all I know, leadership failure has been the bane of most African countries and to say Nigeria is leading the pack in this regard will certainly not be an exaggeration.
The COVID-19 and subsequent lockdown as well as the supposed accruing lockdown benefits can stand as one of the points of reference.
Another was government ineptitude in governance and promotion of as well as indulgence in orchestration of violence before and during elections. The Kogi, Ekiti and Bayelsa’s previous elections were case studies and templates for the Edo and Ekiti elections.
From events so far recorded, there have been alleged political killings and truancy. Drafting and deployment of soldiers for elections matters are definitely not it. There have been series of misdemeanors with alleged collaboration at the federal level while the onus of disproving this is on the Federal Government.
There are other occurrences to use as referral. For instance, there are allegations that the hotel where Governor Nyesom Wike, lodged in Benin City where he went for the Edo state election is surrounded by over 300 policemen. What for? The truth is there is no sense in police laying siege on and at anywhere, and in that large number, if it is true, when there are obvious insecurity everywhere else in the country.
When there are cases and people that need police protection and presence. It should be noted that Wike is the appointed Chairman of PDP’s National Campaign Council for the Edo state Governorship Election. It speaks volume.
There is a trending cartoon where it was said that hunters are being sent to fight terrorists while policemen and the military are sent to guard ballot papers. To say the least, isn’t that embarrassing enough?
When we talk about perversion of justice, abuse of human rights and flagrant disobedience of the rules of law, there is none here that majority of our leaders at various levels are not guilty of. Election misdemeanors, wanton and extra judicial killings are not the least and the people on their part have remained complacent and become culprits as a result of what I termed general carelessness.
Sadly, Nigerians are also guilty in so many areas. Often, I tell those who care to listen that citizen to citizen crimes and wickedness is sometimes worst than what government and other leaders are doing to us. But that is for another day.
However, until our leaders learn and decides to allow justice to prevail, respect human rights across board and effused good leadership traits that include selflessness, there will continue to be protest and resistance. There are various instances of government insincerity to the governed and distrust cum intolerance of the governed towards the government and supposed leaders. One could only say, “it’s unfortunate”.
Unfortunate for the fact that we as a people have leech on to mediocrity and have refused to learn from other nationals who have taken their fates in their hands to effect positive changes in their lives and countries. There is rot everywhere, across board really, though unfortunately, the government that ought to be cleaning the Augean stable is deeper in the rot than the country’s citizens it wants to cleanse.
Already, the President has been severally tagged, especially in the face of the increasing and unchecked insecurity and terrorism. It makes matters worse when it is allegedly the President’s kinsmen that are more often than not the culprits and he as a leader is either not doing anything about it or he is finding it difficult to do something, whichever it is, hinges on ineffective leadership.
A few days back, I was reading Lt. Gen. Alani Akinrinade’s ‘We may end up without a country’. Lt. General Akinrinade is a former chief of Defence Staff of Nigeria and I would say he knows his onions.
In a message he sent to the Commander in Chief, General Mohammadu Buhari through the incumbent Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai, who was in Osogbo recently, Akinrinade had urged President Buhari to allow restructuring of the country now, otherwise, he said, there may soon be no country.
He said inter alia, “The first is this pervasive belief that he is an ethnic bigot, an irredeemable religious fundamentalist, that he firmly subscribes and promotes the possibility of his ethnic Fulani to take over the country, the reason he does not interfere in curbing the brigandage of the Fulani herdsmen, that he gas performed woefully in the fight against the terrorist Book Haram and that he cannot rise to the occasion when it comes to reflecting the heterogeneous composition of our country when it comes to appointments to sensitive positions in his government.”
If anyone tells me this, coming from Lt, General Akinrinade is just an ‘off chance’, then there is need yo send such a person on referral to a brain specialist. This retired General know what he was talking about. He is a retired General and former chief of Defence Staff and we should give it to him.
The former chief of Defence Staff went on to say “These are difficult matters that cannot be addresses in the abstract. The whole buck stops on his table”.
As a matter of facts, my take is it is time for all concerned, government and the people, to decide what we want for the country and how we can make it happen. The best time is now! Are we getting a Yoruba nation, Biafra, Middle belt nation or we are remaining one? The best time to act is now and any delay could be dire.
*Doyin writes from Ilorin via e-mail: [email protected]

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