In the name of Nigeria

Is there anybody out there who can talk for these people in authority to listen? Nigeria is gradually grinding to a halt and the price is getting increasingly unbearable. Things are deteriorating fast and fast. They are going out of hand and it appears that the state whose major responsibility is the protection of our lives and property is exhibiting some measure of hopelessness.

Yes, hopelessness because what we see and hear across the country is murder and arson from restive groups and individuals while the state which posses the legitimate coercive apparatuses is fast joining the chanting crowds and is pointing fingers and singing in different tunes reminiscence of evidences of either helplessness pry failure.

What is really happening is the question that millions of our citizens are asking and answers do not seem to be coming from the right quarters.

I am worried that it will appear that our government at the highest level is still giving the national crises some negative political interpretations. It appears that those who ought to make us feel safe are in the region of creating more fears in us and the result is the growing national suspicion, tension and apprehension.
At times of major national challenges as the one Nigeria is facing at the moment, what makes the difference primarily lies in the quality, capacity. Sincerity and resolution of the leadership. I have argued time without number that in the past, the nation found itself in moments of crises but each time, the character of leadership determined the outcome of the moment.

This was more during the military era than civil rule. We have seen for instance how President Yar’adua attempted and reasonably addressed to some extent the crises in the Niger Delta region. Several Nigerians thought it was the wrong way to go but eventually it was a series of vindication because oil production increased, violence subsided and the criminals were given the voice to express their decent even in official quarters.

What we have today is a direct reversal of that brinkmanship and instead, what seem to be in the horizon is a palpable partisanship of the state in the management of even more endemic national issues.

Nigeria cannot overcome this national catastrophe unless there is deliberate push from official quarters to forge unity of purpose amongst the citizens and mobilize the society into accepting that any attack on the other person is directly proportional to an attack on all. This is not the approach at the moment.

On Monday or Tuesday night this week, armed men went into a village in Sanga area of Kaduna state and killed tens of people. This is outside the theater of murder in the North East. Then, on Wednesday evening, a bomb was detonated at the all time busy Emab Plaza in Wuse 11 Abuja with heavy casualty recorded.

Most of the victims were believed to be passers by at least I know that Sulaiman Bissala of the Trust Newspapers was a passer-by and was caught up in the dastardly act and he is no more. This is what Nigerians are exposed to on a minute-by-minute basis. It is dangerous top be anywhere at anytime in this country today.

It is frightening and we have said it time and again that the failure to address this mayhem in the areas that are worst affected has the collateral implication of super-imposition and spread to those areas that we are thinking are safe. This corroborates my routine thesis on the view of those at the top that this crisis is either political or limited in space. It is not. It may be political but not in the dimension that the powers that be seem to be looking at it.

It is clear from the extent we have come so far that this crisis is not limited in space because it is equally hitting the seat of government in the country and if it is allowed to continue, those who believe it will not extent to the other crannies of the country might as well be day dreaming. If precedence and antecedence are features of science, then, we are yet to see an end to this unfortunate national calamity.

Something has to be done and urgently too in the name of Nigeria. There is the need for reappraisal of the existing strategiesagainst the crises and the successes achieved or failures recorded. There is the need to minimize the politicization of the national calamity especially by the ruling party and breast up to mobilize the citizens into accepting and seeing these developments as national and sectional and a resolve to face it head on. That is one way we can begin to achieve result. That is one way the citizens would have confidence on their government and increasing the level and horizon of patriotism and any other means, which further divides the people in the heat of insurgency.

The situation Nigeria finds itself today is saddening and if the right dose of treatment is not given, it will continue to aggravate and God forbid what the future of our children would be.

I doubt the conspiracy theory being peddled around as to the complicity or otherwise of the state and its coercive apparatuses. The lackluster attitude of the government and seeming careless disposition to the outrage and continued violence in sections of the country in my view seem more of incompetence that tacit approval.

The political will and muscle to deal with these endemic national catastrophes seem absent. This gives room to rumor mill taking the lead and apathy setting into the polity. The country cannot afford to allow things to continue that way if it is survive. It will have to survive before it strives to face the challenges of growth and development.

What the absence of coherent national policy on insurgency means is that Nigerians are condemned to backwardness and instability and would have to continue to endure with backwardness in every facet of life. This is unfortunate.

Leaders across the globe own up and shoulder responsibility for societal failures, ours is the other way round. They are ever ready to defend and apportion blame on any matter that faces the citizens and the nation straight. They pass verdict of no guilty to themselves after any major national outrage.

This is irresponsibility and must be reversed in the name of Nigeria. Those who allocate our resources must be responsible and responsive to the yearnings and aspirations of the people. 

God save Nigeria.