By Christie Doyin
Someone said “there is wahala in Nigeria” and I asked why he said so, he flared up and accused me of insensitivity. My response was a cynical smile. What do you expect me to do? I wish he knows what I am going through and hiding behind my infectious smiles. I know people are tense, there is frustration in the land and one can easily incur the wrath of even the most amiable at the slightest provocation or implied sarcasm at his situation.
The irony is that each person seems to think he/she is the worst hit not knowing that some of us are in severe physical and emotional pain but knowing no one is willing or able to help out, we hide behind smiles and stoic bravery.
One wouldn’t know when governments in Nigeria will realise that there is lamentation in the land and that they need to change the rhetorics and be effectively reactive to make positive impact on the citizenry.
Someone in his lamentation said, “I weep for Nigeria”. Actually, he is not alone except that many have had to express their frustration and desperation in different ways or forms. How do you console someone who had lost one or two family members as a result of insecurity in the land or basically because of government’s ineptitude? What do you tell a child who lost the parents and siblings in armed men’s attack right there in their homes and he merely escaped by the whiskers? What do you tell a farmer who took loan and toiled on his farm only to have his farm overridden by cattle herds and his crops eaten by ravaging cows?
Insecurity situation in Nigeria has become so bad that almost everyone lives each day as it comes. Travelling use to be fun and educative but not now. Day or night travellers are full of apprehension, high tension, prayers and discomfort such that if you get home intact, no robbery, no kidnap or abduction, no harassment or accidents, you will want to thank God for His mercies but then, another sets of Ill feelings set in. Will I survive the night, is there going to be an invasion from herdsmen, cultist, other terror groups or armed men?
These are how it is in Nigeria today however, the worst of all indignations is that you are certainly not going to get help from any quarters, not from other citizens like you and most certainly, not from government or its agencies, except in very few or occasional cases. And to say there is hunger in the land on top of it all is an indication that all is certainly not well with the country.
No one need to tell us that Nigeria is confronted by multiple security challenges. What with the unpalatable activities of Boko Haram insurgents, who have virtually taken over not only the north east, but most parts of northern Nigeria, the unrepentant militants in the Niger Delta, increasing violence between herders and farming communities, especially in southern Kaduna and Benue states spreading from the central belt southward, the cultist groups in the southwest and east and the IPOB Biafra agitators. The list is endless but include cattle rustlers and political desperadoes.
Reports have it that other activities that have heightened insecurity in Nigeria include human and drug trafficking, porous borders that allow infiltration of illegal aliens, armed Fulani insurgents from neighbouring and far countries, illegal importation of arms and ammunitions, in spite of border closure which seems to be only effective in the southern parts, ethnic and religious conflicts, political and economic based violence, including periodic outbreak of some deadly diseases such as lassa fever, while the most recent pandemic and fatal being the Corona Virus, which second wave the world, including Nigeria is facing now.
The fact is many of these could happen any where else but the fact that Nigerians are not feeling or seeing government’s effort in checkmating these occurrences make it devastating. Reports have it that over 3000 people (if not more) have died in the hands of Boko Haram insurgents in the last couple of years.
Dr Samuel Obadiah of the Centre for Conflict Management and Peace Studies at the University of Jos, noted that there was lack of political will on the part of government to tackle the issue of Boko Haram head on. According to the don, “So many states of emergencies and the problem persists …” The story has not changed
A time it was when governments at all levels in Nigeria were responsive and responsible. A friend was at a dilemma wondering why our representatives are so insensitive to the suffering of the masses and only in the assemblies to satiate their own desires in economic power and authority while remaining unconcerned with the agony of the people they are supposedly meant to be representing.
My response was actually not farfetched, it was because unlike in yore days, they have taken legislative job as a full time business, where they can make money by milking the country dry while sleeping through sessions.
It made me remember the Kenyan writer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o ‘Petal of Blood’, which also brought to mind those days when we had a mind of our own, when we could make our desires known without hinder once you’re within the ambit of the law. That time, which Ngugi captured thus, “We had power over the movement of our limbs. We made up our own words and sang them and we danced to them. But there came a time when this power was taken from us…. We must surround the city and demand back our share”. This is the time we are in now, when we no longer have power over what is rightfully ours, when some people would come from no where and take over our farms and territory with our government being insensitive to our agony. It has become ” every man to himself”.
Omoyele Sowore, the publisher of Sahara Reporters and his colleagues were arrested by the Nigerian Police and put in jail for a peaceful protest, a fundamental human right but sadly, the court failed to grant him and other arrested protesters bail. And to say we are in a Democratic dispensation. Or perhaps, there is more to it aside the peaceful protest. He certainly could not form his own song and decides his dance steps. He must be cowed.
According to reports, Sowore and four others were arrested during a protest tagged #CrossOverProtest held on December 31 in Abuja and were subsequently arraigned before a magistrate’s court in Wuse Zone 2 on Monday on charges of unlawful assembly, criminal conspiracy and inciting public disturbance. The report stated further that Magistrate, Taye Maibel, ordered them to be remanded in Kuje Correctional Prison detention till the following day when the court heard their bail application.
However, they were denied their bail application filed by Marshal Abubakar from Femi Falana Chambers. She denied the application after the police counsel faulted the submission of a joint affidavit for the five accused persons in the case. This obviously could be viewed as an anomaly.
With our representatives earning such huge lump sum both at the federal and States levels and making representation a permanent job unlike what it was in the 70s and 80s, when the pays were low and legislation was on part-time basis. It is rather sad that now, despite the huge pay, there is almost nothing to write home about their efforts and activities in the assemblies towards their constituencies and districts, except perhaps to their immediate families. They earn, no, they take huge salaries, which they do not deserve and are unwilling to pay those earning their pays what is commensurate to what they do.
My take is, it is about time when political office holders start earning same pay as civil servants and other citizens and then would there be leverage and they can then feel what the ordinary citizens feel as a result of insecurity, high rate of crime and unemployment as well as the economic malady bestriding the nation.
*Doyin writes from Ilorin via e-Mail:[email protected]
