English language is elastic, ever growing and a generous borrower. Recently, it enlisted some Nigerian words and, today, our popular okada, tokunbo and mama put, among others, have been accorded a pride of place in the womb of English dictionary. Great!
However, I wish the English would go further to enlist, at least, one more Nigerian expression, accident(al). English dictionary defines accident as “an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.” But for the carnage, I don’t think this definition is in sync with developments in Nigeria, where what we see is more of deliberate action masked as accident. In other words, the word accident should have one more meaning, a Nigerian variant, revolving around careless and deliberate tragedies.
For instance, in Nigeria, many articulated vehicles (I really wonder how articulated they are) ply our undulating roads with unlatched containers. Many a time, the containers have fallen on other motorists, claiming many lives and maiming others. Yet we call it accident. Is it, really? Where are the road safety officials when these mass killers zip across our roads? Sometimes, too, in places like Lagos, untrained men of LASTMA have led many to untimely graves when they struggle for the steering with some drivers they want to arrest or insist on driving such vehicles they had neither competence nor licence to drive, and we call it accident?
Nigerian men are prodigiously randy. They poke their nozzle into every available tank and when the tank over brims, they deny culpability or even tell you it is unwanted pregnancy; that is, accidental pregnancy. Really? It makes me laugh. How could you lay a woman and claim the resultant pregnancy is accidental? Funny people, what did you expect to result from sexual binge without safety guards?
Talking about safety reminds me of our security personnel. I used to think that these guys stayed in their barracks. These days, you see gun-toting security men – Army, Police, Customs, NSCDC, and other amorphous bodies – roaming dangerously wild among the civil populace. You see them at motor parks or roads extorting money from motorists and poor okada riders. They have wasted lives because someone refused to part with as little as N50. In Nigeria, life is cheap. This is a funny country where the Customs would go to markets to raid people’s shops for goods they were induced to pretend not to see, as they were smuggled across the borders. And, usually, when there are casualties, we describe it as accident.
Our soldiers and policemen are no longer content with official jobs. They can be hired at whim as escorts for some nefarious characters out to oppress and impress local communities. They leave the citizens at the mercy of criminals while on illegal duties. Some of them are even legally assigned to such questionable assignments by bosses too brain dead to understand the implications of their actions.
The annoying thing is that despite these ugly tales invading our public sphere daily, the authorities do nothing. Life has been so cheapened in this country that the only respects it gets is mere rhetoric or feeble vitriol when it is lost. Nothing is done until next time. Government has done nothing to rein in murderous gangs, wasting lives either as security personnel, terrorists, bandits or sundry criminals and hitmen. The spate of insecurity in the country is frightening and has been growing steadily over the years without abatement. It is really shocking to hear that President Muhammadu Buhari said he was shocked by this. It either means he is not getting the right briefs from his aides, is uncaring or overwhelmed. It is does not speak well of a man we put in place to see that lives and property are secured.
Strangely, overzealous aides have gone after Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe’s head for calling for the President’s resignation. In reality, between Abaribe and the President’s toadying aides, the senator deserves plaudits for advising the President to wake up to our security challenges. The President needs truthful men around him, not insincere, stomach-famished men.
That is why I doff my hat for Amotekun, the gallant leopard from the South-West. Someone said its emergence was illegal but had to quickly bite the dust when he sensed how resolute the people were this time. They failed or ignored the illegality in marauding herdsmen, destroying lives. They did not see the illegality in the ‘amotekun’ already existing in some areas of the North, until some section of the South decided to take the bull by the horns. I just wonder when Amotekun would arrive the East and South-South. The good news, however, is that, now, local policing has received official seal even though it is being rushed. The government did not have to be stampeded by Amotekun to rush this demand that has dragged for years. It should ensure proper planning and training if we don’t wish for more casualties of accidental discharge.
I don’t believe in accidental discharge theory though, especially concerning the recent daylight murder of Ndubuisi Emenike, aka Ototonwa, at the home of Princess Maryam Onuoha, during her victory celebration for winning the Imo North Federal Constituency re-run election. Emenike, senatorial candidate of the Action Alliance for Imo North in the last election, was mowed down by personnel of Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) attached to one of the visitors at the event. He was a frontrunner in the race to replace Senator Benjamin Uwajumogu, who died recently.
Here was a very vibrant, promising young man, a great light for his community, Nsu, in Ehime Mbano, just wasted like that and added to the elongating list of avoidable deaths all because of government ineptitude. It is quite unbecoming how our security personnel handle arms in this country. To control mere traffic, or clearing the roads for their patrons, you see them shooting in the air.
In the Emenike debacle, there was even the silly tale that Sydney Ogundero, the man who shot him, was hit by someone and because his hand was already on the trigger, the bullets pumped into Emenike. Tell this implausible tale to the marines! Why should his hand be on the trigger of a gun he did not want to shoot? Wouldn’t the gun remain inoperative unless corked? Why was it corked? So, why was the gun not in safety mode? Forgive me, many stupid questions, perhaps, but it goes to show how unprofessional we are with matters as grave as this.
In Nigeria, police orderlies of real or suborned VIPs shoot randomly in the air while escorting their principals. Even on village roads where there is no traffic congestion, these hirelings blow siren, scaring innocent old men on their bicycles out of the track roads; yet the government does nothing. In moments where professionalism is required to control crowds, they resort to shooting; even innocent protesting students are mowed down needlessly. As it was during the Ali Must Go protests decades ago, it happened lately in Ekiti, meaning that we never learn as a nation.
It is quite benumbing that a personable bright light like Emenike was extinguished in his prime. He may not be the last victim, unless government does something fast. So many theories are being woven around the wicked and untimely killing of this young man, including assassination. Emenike’s kinsmen have charged the government to thoroughly investigate his grisly murder, warning that it must not be swept under the carpet.
However, the greatest tribute to the young billionaire philanthropist is that government must not be distracted by diversionary theories and should not gloss over even the minutest detail. Above all, it must ensure that never again shall this forest devour its own.
NB: Part of our problem in this country, unfortunately, is manipulated hatred. What can one make of the seeming demented fellow in a trending video clip, Amotekun Republic(?), vilifying the Igbo and labelling them as enemies and killers of the Yoruba? He should be told that Ogundero, his kinsman, has just killed a prized Igbo son but the Igbo are not as stupid as he is to accuse the Yoruba of sending him. Certainly, the more bile of hatred weird characters spew against the Igbo in this country, the more the Igbo grace increase.