By Brady Nwosu
Why is everything wrong with Nigeria; who bewitched or cast spell on her? These are some of the questions beleaguered citizens ask frequently following the bizarre and other absurdities that daily confront us.
The truth is that nobody cast any spell on the country, rather we have failed to realize that devil can never sire a saint. Everything about us is deceit, the British government laid the foundation of Nigeria on corruption, and so programmed us for failure, and that is the reason for our endless match in retrogression.
Do we have accurate data for planning, why is it that all the known economic models that had worked and catapulted other countries to the sky heaven hardly worked here?
Former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, who while in office applied all known economic theories and formulae that had turned around other nations, but instead took Nigeria downward, and out of frustration, he voiced out surprises on why the nation’s economy had not collapsed completely.
What is the population figure of the country? Why is the north said to be more populated than the South against demographic theories that postulate that the forest region is more populated than the desert region.
Mali and other desert countries that have the same landmass with Nigeria, what are their population figures?
Is Sahara desert more populated than the forest area? The fact remains that population gravitates towards where it could be easily maintained and that is the forest region and not in the desert area.
This was the first evil foundation we inherited. The Colonial master manipulated the first census figures to give the north undue advantage, and the result is the difficulty Nigeria has in knowing its population, which is a sine qua non for planning for development and planning. Similarly, history keep repeating self . The hope to conduct an accurate head count is currently been eroded by the Speaker Yakubu Dogara to carry it over after the general election just to scheme out Igbo man Chief Eze Duruiheoma .
As long as we continue to dwell in this cesspit of falsehood, regardless of the abundant endowments and resources bestowed in Nigeria, we shall continue to march retrogressively. The policies do not support growth, but stifle growth, otherwise, tell me, why we have not been able to breakthrough when other countries that we started together or started after us are far ahead of us?
The irony is that Nigeria prides itself as the giant of Africa. No wonder Africa is the weeping baby of the world. If Nigeria with all its retrogression claimed to be the giant of Africa, and African countries look unto it, then it is pitiable and terrible for Africa. It is based on this false and corrupt foundation that all reports about Nigeria points to negative.
Just pause, and peruse the first two lines of the national anthem: Arise O compatriots, Nigeria’s call to obey.
Who are the compatriots being beckoned to obey? Are they not the victims of state policies?
How can you tell members of the Shi’a Muslim group in Nigeria, led by Ibrahim Zakzaky, whose colleagues, numbering over one thousand were allegedly murdered by the Nigerian military, to arise and obey Nigeria? Never! How do you tell a Niger Delta person to be very happy with the system, when he looks at his backyard to see the level of pollution and environmental degradation caused by oil and gas exploration, and he beholds the beauty of Lagos and the splendor of Abuja and other cities built by the resources from the oil that has pauperised him?
What will make him beat his chest and say this is my beloved country, when he sees arrays of the high rise buildings doting Lagos Island, which serve as corporate headquarters for the oil companies that have damaged whatever that this people stood for?
How would relatives of the Chibok schoolgirls feel, when you call them compatriots in the face of failure of the government to rise to the challenge of setting those girls free?
What of Agatu in Benue Sate, who are being slaughtered on daily basis by Fulani herdsmen. Their offence was accommodating the cattle rearers, but they were later showedthat a guest can sack his host.
Southern Kaduna that had threatened self-determination, would the people answer the call to obey Nigeria? Never! Is it Odi, Zaki Ibiam. Nigeria drips with blood. How would a student who scored 70 per cent in a national examination, but couldn’t gain admission because he came from a state, whose benchmark for admission is 80 percent and above should arise for the country, when his peer from other section of the same country scored 20 per cent and was given an admission? And at the end of the day, this person who scored 20 per cent turns around to boss him. And same has just happened in the SSS recruitment scheme. Shambles!
Then you want to make progress. What progress can you make when mediocrity takes over meritocracy? You hold down a prospective person and allow somebody who is not even bothered about his state, whether his is moving or not to lord it over the person with great ambition, you are sowing the seed of retrogression.
What message of patriotism will you preach to some Igbo youths who were told about the genocide that was committed against their people by the Nigeria government during a-36-month civil war?
The blood of their people killed had not been atoned, and the same polices that led to that war are being taken to higher notch. They started agitating for self-determination in a peaceful way by not carrying arms, but the military started mowing them down with bullets. Crazy!
The government doesn’t want to hear about Biafra, but is doing everything to push the Igbos out of Nigeria. Thank God Nnamdi Kanu was just released with terrible sequestered bail conditions. The struggle continues.
You don’t decree unity by fiat. It is negotiated. The establishment of military bases in the Southeast to force the Igbo to be in Nigeria doesn’t hold any water, but when the come comes to become it will come. Every Igbo is Biafran and supporting the agitation either covertly or overtly. Biafra is no more a long distance realisation.
Nigeria has never been one and will never be. The North had considered Araba, because to them then, there was nothing like Nigeria and in their own selfish economic interests, the British cobbled Nigeria together without consulting the constituent parts. That was why late Chief Obafemi Awolowo before he died referred Nigeria as mere geographical expression. Go through history, all the countries the British cobbled together without their consents had gone their separate ways. It is only in Nigeria that the experiment even though has failed is still subsisting.
The same hypocrites, British government that said it would not watch to see Nigeria break up, helped to suppress Biafra by supporting Nigeria along with one or two European countries. Those were the days, and things have changed.
Granting that the United Kingdom is reputed to be a conservative country, they have on their own demonstrated acceptance of changes.
For example, they allowed Scotland to do a referendum on whether they will continue to stay in the United Kingdom or not, even more significantly, they were standing by and encouraging the break up of former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR); they were standing by to see the break up of Czechoslovakia; Yugoslavia and Sudan. These countries went their various ways.
They were standing by when the sub continent of India gave birth to Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Even more recently, they decided to pull out of European Union.
Scotland is also preparing another referendum to pull out of Great Britain and remain with European Union.
Nigeria is seen as unending construction site where every worker, looter retires to his ethnic enclave and be hailed and protected. Illustratively, to Niger Deltans and specifically within boundaries of Delta State , James Ibori is Sheikh and hero. He was likened to biblical heroes and saints because he brought money and goodies home from the Nigeria’s working site. Otherwise, beyond his native Delta he’s a felon , a jailbird and a Nigerian by citizenship. Check out the SSS Director Lawal Daura’s ( the Imperial majesty ) own way of taking goodies home from the working site and his outrageous vision for Nigeria in the latest agency’s cock-a-hoop recruitment mark up in favour of his Kastina State in particular and generally north over southern Nigeria. Craspy!
We have had conferences upon conferences on how to live peacefully and move the country forward but to no avail, because no race believes in Nigeria, except of course the Igbos, who see every part of the country as his constituency. The Yoruba hardly invest outside the Southwest, likewise the Hausa Fulani outside the North.
Any discerning mind knows that things have fallen apart in this country.
History is gradually repeating itself. Like Bishop Matthew Kuka observed that Nigeria has not been as divided as we have it today, even during the civil war. What led to the collapsed of the First and the Second Republics stares us in the face.
There is hostility everywhere; orphaned monies are being discovered here and there. Huge sum of money was discovered in southern Kaduna belonging to former MD NNPC Andrew Yakubu , he stood firmly and demanded that the money must be returned to him . Yakubu is not afar from the fact , because none have been prosecuted and sentenced for financial crimes in Nigeria. Perhaps and sadly enough, the money must have disappeared into several personal individual pockets of nation’s security agencies. The Ikoyi discovery will of course fissile same way. Protecting the evil empire and stealing dry into oblivion of the evil empire.
Treasury looters are seen as villain at the national space, but they celebrated at home. National conferences had not addressed the problems. Nigeria has gone into extreme opposite and desperately in need of extreme measures and actions for normalcy and to sustain unity . Even when many people wouldn’t agree with me because of our past experience, but we have one more last opportunity or chance to remedy Nigeria.
That extreme measure’s action is , military to take over and set up an interim government and within two years organize a sovereign conference, with a no-go area agenda, where ethnic nationalities sit and discuss the Nigeria project; the terms and conditions under which we shall live together. The tenure of the Interim government will not be more than two years.
This will signpost our march to greatness. Outside this, we will continue to be in barber’s chair syndrome – all motion and no movement.
Right from history and biblically, the military has been used to restore order. When there was crisis in heaven, God had to dispatch Angel Michael and other battle angels to push Satan out.
Brady Chijioke Nwosu writes from Abuja