Nigeria is in the news and, sadly, the country is no longer on the road but already has one leg inside Somalia.
Nigeria is in trouble because it is alien to equity. A country where governors and its leading lights prefer kinsmen terrorists to people trying to protect their ancestral lands can never morph into a nation.
The much pampered killer herdsmen are unrelenting. The much loved bandits are still doing their ‘normal’ business unhindered. Though the world has confirmed the dreadfulness of Boko Haram and rated it high on the world’s terrorism index, they are, officially, only as dangerous as the Boys Brigade.
Yet those fighting to protect their homeland must be caged like animals because the koran must be dipped in the Atlantic. To be honest, I have no problem with dipping koran in the Atlantic. Because it is a personal ambition that can only be fulfilled if the Atlantic receives it.
I laugh at those who rejoice that Nnamdi Kanu is once again in the gulag. So, Nigeria’s problem is over? Has it brought prosperity to the North, healed the diseased land? How does the hunt for Sunday Igboho stop the Yoruba Nation agitation or the Middle Belt divorcing the North after many years of unholy matrimony? Does Kanu’s arrest solve the looming danger in the creeks of the Niger Delta?
The recently passed Petroleum Industry Bill is a shameful episode that exposes this country as a disparate entity that may never cohere. It cut compensations for host communities from 5% to 3% and redefined host community to mean any community through which oil pipelines run. Therefore, all states that don’t produce oil are now host communities as long as pipelines pass through them regardless of the degradation of the environment of the actual hosts. A new lexicon, “Frontier Exploration”, was also introduced and allocated a whopping 30% of NNPC profits and dedicated to the dubious and fruitless search for oil in the North. What this translates to is that the North alone has appropriated almost 50% of NNPC profits without producing even a drop of oil and shall yet shares in the remaining half with the federating states.
Now, imagine the consequences if the Niger Delta says no more oil exploitation, no more oil flowing anywhere? They have already threatened to blow up everything instead of lying supine while their sea life and ecology is destroyed by those contributing nothing and yet taking over everything? How could a non-producer not only dictate who gets what but also appropriate the giant share to himself?
Nevertheless,I don’t really blame the exploiters. Others may be tempted to do likewise if they know they take Nigeria to their mother’s kitchen and get away with it.
Where were lawmakers from the South when this joke was being cracked in the National Assembly? Couldn’t they have walked out in protest seeing they can never win the vote because of the obviously manipulated domination? What is needed is a conference where all ethnic nationalities would come to discuss and agree on the way forward for the country.
Many may not agree with me that the southern strategy is faulty. It is so because it is bloody and lacks coordination. The only option for the South is to seek alternative strategy without bringing destruction on itself. No part must do it all alone; they need solidarity and collaboration between the South-East, the South-West and Middle Belt and all disaffected peoples to succeed. It is ungodly to waste the blood no man contributed to create. It is also not about blowing up pipelines.
The South cannot shun the available healing balm in pursuit of self and myopia. By the time the entire South bond and get their acts together; by the time they wake up from daydream, they shall definitely stop the madness.
Everybody wants the best for their people, and that is what the North is doing even though their elite also evilly cheat the common man up North. However, what do the southern leaders want for their people? Is it not baffling that the so-called intellectuals (or stakeholders), rather than deploy their intellect and exposure for a better and egalitarian society, get sucked in by the rot in the system? Even those who dare, whether by intellect or daredevilry, soon burn out, as their resistance is weakened by loafers and jobbers around them.
It’s really a pity because while the Southerners struggle to outdo one another, the hyenas make their kill, leaving the state treasury and the people a traumatised carcass. That is why the South, especially South-East, cannot mobilise well enough to tell the North to go to hell and they get away with brazen injustice.
Of course, I know that I may not make sense to some people but I believe the cure to this recurrent lunacy is for the entire South to realise that one should not eat his evening in the morning. The South must not depend on human efforts alone. Rather, it is about taking the battle to the Lord.
I am now reminded of the children of Israel in Egyptian captivity. Before then, they had got so used to the abominations of Egypt they forgot they were a special breed; they forgot the covenant. Therefore, a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph had to ascend the throne for the very purpose of stirring them back to reality. That was when they remembered their God, as we must in these dire times. Trust God to replicate what he did at the Red Sea.
Even crossing the Red Sea was full of trepidation. The Egyptians were in hot pursuit from the rear. There were high mountains on the sides and a seeming impassable Red Sea ahead. The jubilant Pharaoh and his army thought they had boxed them in.
It is the similar condition we are in today but, unlike the Israelites that remembered their God, we are making human efforts that bring nothing but more destruction. Some of the Jews were nostalgic about the cucumbers in Egypt but forgot the 10 plagues and God that set Goshen apart and made their escape possible. Some would prefer Egyptian slavery to Israeli freedom because they did not want to pay the price. Like some of us have already sold out and accepted the king’s poisoned dainties that only destroy destinies, forgetting that Daniel, who rejected it, became meat that lions could not eat.
In fact, my excitement knew no bounds when I came across the Sunday School manual of Christian Pentecostal Mission, and I end with it: “Divine provision is part of creation story. The fishes didn’t have to go looking for water to swim and live in. God provided the water before he created the fishes. The bird had a sky to fly and trees to perch on the moment they came into existence. God provided the dry ground before creating terrestrial animals.”
“Even man didn’t have to provide a garden for himself. God created the garden, planted the trees before He created man. After the fall, man in his fallen state began to make personal efforts to provide for himself. He sewed fig leaves together to make cloths for himself.
“God stepped in and continued His programme of divine provision. He killed a lamb and made coats for Adam and Eve. We enjoy Oxygen unhindered every second. The rains come in its season and the sun never ceased to shine; all this are the proof of divine ownership and provision.
“Why are you living your life as if you are no longer in God’s programme? Why worry as though you created yourself? The understanding that God created you and He is able to take care of you, is the beginning of wisdom and deliverance from high blood pressure. Your worry and anxiety will not increase your fortune; rather, it dries up your spiritual stamina, pushing you farther away from God’s provision.”
So, let us look beyond the Red Sea blocking our view and possession of the Promised Land. We are all in God’s plan. At the fullness of time, the armies of Pharaoh shall surely collapse; it had happened before. If only we trust Him, and not our feeble efforts.