When Peter Tosh sang his classic song, “Equal Rights,” in which he said, “Everyone is crying out for peace, yes, None is crying out for justice,” he was thinking way ahead of his time. Perhaps he was thinking about Nigeria, particularly the current dreadful situation, the hardships, the injustices, the widespread bloodbath, the ritual murders, kidnappings, banditry, rampant looting of the public treasury, indiscriminate acts of adultery by religious and irreligious men and women, sickening exposure of underaged children to deviant sexual acts, and other unimaginably horrific crimes that are committed in Nigeria every day.

Right now, Nigeria is looking like a strange place decent enough for anyone to work, live and play. While civil society and the government are screaming for peace and security, no one is campaigning vigorously for equal treatment of all citizens, the need to grant equal rights to people from diverse cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds. Not even in the platoon of politicians campaigning to be elected President in 2023 do we find genuine critics of injustices.

Shortly after his election in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari said openly that, based on the voting pattern in that year’s general election, no one should expect him to accord equal rights and equal treatment to all Nigerians. This implied that people who did not vote for him or his political party had no right to expect favours from him, or the right to scrutinise the way he governs, the way he appoints people into federal positions, and the way the government hands out national resources to people in various states and regions.

In a somewhat coded language, Buhari conveyed the message that people or regions that did not vote massively for him during the presidential election should expect to be abandoned or marginalised. People who did not vote for Buhari were conceived and represented as worthless men and women who had the temerity to exercise their fundamental right to cast their votes for the presidential candidate they fancied.

It is perhaps only in Nigeria that people are castigated, punished, persecuted or witch-hunted, and denied their fundamental human rights because of the way they voted during national elections. The practice of ostracising, ignoring, shunning or snubbing people because of the choices they made during national elections contravenes the core principles of democracy with all the privileges and guarantees of freedoms that are associated with it. In a democracy, people are guaranteed freedoms such as freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom of movement and freedom of assembly. All these are regarded as the hallmarks of democracy. They are used to measure the political health of a country.

For the past seven years, Nigeria has been troubled by so many problems, including breakdown of law and order evidenced in rising criminality, arbitrary murders, pervert behaviour by people who were previously perceived to be responsible and above board, endemic corruption, unrestrained pillage of the national treasury, and open appropriation of public property. Every day, Nigerians wake up to new threats to their lives and livelihoods. The government hardly attempts to address urgent issues that deserve national priority attention.

In the North-East, North-West, Middle Belt, South-East, South-South, and South-West, bandits, kidnappers, ritual killers, money doublers and magicians who make false promises to transform impoverished people into instant millionaires have taken over our social space. Prominent citizens and self-appointed leaders who ought to speak out against spiralling violence and growing drums of war keep silent as the situation deteriorates. Some others take to the pulpit to preach about forgiveness and the power of prayers, none of which has really solved the problems.

In 2018, former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, undertook a nationwide prayer tour, which he said was spurred by the rising cold-hearted murders occurring across the country, particularly in the Middle Belt, his region of origin. In Owerri, where he met with the then governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, Gowon said he was overwhelmed by pain caused by mass murders of innocent people by Boko Haram militants, callous Fulani herdsmen and other rebel groups.

Gowon said, in the manner of a coward, that the destruction of human lives by bandits, herdsmen and Boko Haram insurgents could be solved through prayers only. It is through prayers, he preached, that God could transform the hearts of the agents of evil.

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Gowon’s call to prayers surprised many people. A nation challenged by atrocious massacres of human lives by various criminal groups should not surrender their destiny or slip into long prayer sessions that are unlikely to end the existing difficulties. It is good to pray but even prayers have limits. Gowon argued that God was the solution to all problems. That is true but I believe that Gowon has taken the biblical teachings about God too literally. Surely, Gowon must have heard about the saying that God helps those who help themselves.

During his visit, Gowon said: “God can touch one’s heart and change the person into becoming a vessel of peace…That is why we seek for God’s intervention.”

Gowon should note the following facts: The criminals and rebel groups who terrorise and engage in coldblooded killing of innocent citizens in various parts of the country do not understand the meaning of prayers. They don’t believe in prayers. Their mindset is totally different from the mentality of lawful citizens who recognise and respect the sanctity of human lives.

When Gowon referred to God as a mediator who would end the dreadful killings in the Middle Belt and other parts of the country, he reminded us about Olusegun Obasanjo’s classic reply to a question about how Nigeria could solve the difficult problem of volatility in electricity supply. When Obasanjo was asked by a journalist how Nigeria country could aim to overcome electricity supply problems, he retorted that whatever we could not solve in the country should be left to God to resolve for us. That was Obasanjo’s eccentric answer to a serious problem that required careful thought and systematic analysis.

Within Africa and outside the continent, there is widespread concern that Nigeria has broken, that elected officials have failed to govern effectively, and that government has abdicated its responsibility to secure the lives and properties of citizens. In this free-for-all environment, government has failed to provide for the safety of citizens, including people’s basic needs and welfare. Regrettably, what people refer to as basic needs have become luxuries that only a few can afford. These include food, water, clothing, housing, education, and healthcare.

The mood in the country is melancholic. Many people are living miserable lives. Most people cannot understand whether they are going forward or retreating. Confronted by poverty and hunger, many people find that life has become meaningless in Nigeria.

Currently, people have suspended their lives for an uncertain future. No one is thinking about the present challenges but about the future, particularly the likely attributes of a new government to be elected next year. Sadly, there is no guarantee that voters would be judicious enough to elect in 2023 the dream government that would improve their socioeconomic conditions and perform much better than the current team.

We have reached a point in which it is now legitimate for people to ask pertinent questions such as: How did we get to this point? What kind of government do we want in 2023? Anyone with valid answers must be a magician.