Right or wrong, we have overstretched Buhari’s health issue. May be, if he comes back alive, his party may present his return as a dividend of democracy, a fulfillment of their promise. The schemers of the distraction have out-smarted our intelligence again. We are really bad students of history.
For undisputed five times, death gave Nigerians opportunity to get their aces together as a nation. Three times, it used human agents who were forced to pay supreme price afterwards. Two times also, death changed tactics and adopted natural means to remove smoldering political woods in order to push Nigeria forward. What did we do with the opportunities? Abuse!
After Nigerian independence, Unity Government was formed to set in motion policies and programmes to usher us into the new era. Nnamdi Azikwe became the first Head of State and Abubakar Tafewa Balewa, the first Prime Minister. Not long, the government presented signs of fatigue; the centre and federating regions were anything but prudent. Corruption, nepotism, religious bigotry paraded with pride in public and private offices; anarchy was let loose.
Then a group of reform-minded soldiers decided to end it all on January 15, 1966. The anticipated change did not come as the coup was given ethnic tag and used against Ndigbo. The result was avenging murder of General Aguiyi Ironsi on July 29, 1966. Those who killed Aguiyi thought his death would bring change. Rather than change, it brought civil war where the blood of Igbos flooded highways from Kaduna to Kano and back to the Enugu, the capital of defunct Biafra Republic. The war left permanent sore in our history.
Thirdly, on February 13, 1976, Col Bukar Sukar Dimka’s bullet terminated Murtala Mohammed’s life after the latter ended Yakubu Gowon’s years eaten by locust. Willed or not, the power fell on the bewildered laps of General Olusegun Obasanjo who handed over power to Shehu Shagari. This democratic chapter opened the process of reintegrating Ndigbo back into Nigeria politics. Next, it was besieged by unprecedented corruption which forced military intervention in 1983. From Buhari to Ibrahim Babaginda to Abacha, Nigeria kept degenerating at the same rate Ndigbo were being pushed further away.
Death loved Nigerians. On June 8, 1998, death exonerated all Nigerians and singlehandedly stopped the brutal dictator, Sani Abacha, in the quiet of his bedroom. It was to be another opportunity to usher democracy, but we got a lame one instead. The coming to power of General Obasanjo with undemocratic tendencies sowed the seed of corruption and political impunity which will continue to pose a problem to Nigerian democracy in decades to come.
Amidst vibrant brains willing to reform our polity, Obasanjo fostered an ailing President on Nigeria as punishment for annulling his third term plan. As good hearted as he was, Musa Yar’Adua was just too sick to lead with one kidney a nation of over 250 ethnic groupings with diverging interests. He was made a president at the time, both South-south and Southeast geo-political zones had groaned over marginalization and yet power needed to return to north after eight years of Obasanjo.
Finally, on May 5, 2010, death came knocking on Musa Yar’Adua’s bed and he took a bow. The puzzle was solved as his death paved way for Goodluck Jonathan, a commoner from neglected region. Goodluck like his predecessor was goodhearted but too soft on corruption. The previously neglected people enjoyed political, military and career high offices but the quality of life in the region surprisingly got worse as the positive effects of the appointments did not trickle down to the rest of the population.
Poverty increased instead and basic infrastructures built during military era were even allowed to decay. We came out of the government like wounded lions. No road, no rail, no light! The regime groomed a club of potbellied politicians who today depend on our meager state resources to run their establishments called villas.
My destination? If we are not guided by history, we may wrongly think that our problems will be over as soon as Buhari is dead. True to our demand, we have rights as citizens to know where the leader of the nation is. But as disappointing as we are unable to, we must not lose sight of real issue we are facing- a determined club of thieves with oath to keep all of us and our generations under their control.
Reports across the nation are not encouraging. They are tales of hunger, diseases, poverty, injustice, incompetence, corruption and their consequent social criminalities. These should detect our reactions.
Sadly, we are easily carried away by frivolous status to the forgetfulness of permanent negativities. This is the weapon, our enemies have been using successfully against us. As usual, they have split among themselves and diffused into the oppressed camp to distract Nigerians with issues that will solve themselves while they hatch another plan.
We acknowledge the power of the media in agenda setting. With the advent of the social media, every Nigerian has become a journalist. Rather than use it positively, 90 percent of current social media updates are now on diversionary issues.
Many Nigerians are disappointed at 2Face for cancelling anti-bad governance protest. Not many Nigerians have cared to ask ‘why?’ What it is to be a bat is only known to a bat. If insignificant lines I run on this column can make politicians fume in rage, one can imagine what 2Baba went through.
In the second week of February, I watch with tears a video clip of Nigerian military police mercilessly beating up a crippled in Onitsha for wearing a military camouflage. It was not just the action of the two soldiers but the inactions of the crowd who stood askance screaming ‘eyaaa.’ In a decent environment, that crowd should have overpowered those soldiers and retaliated. If not for the heroic recording of a wise Nigerian, the perpetrators would have gone unpunished.
On Tuesday, February 7, 2017, Operatives of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) intercepted an 18-year-old suicide bomber simply identified as Amina before she could detonate her explosives in Maiduguri. She confessed to have received only N200 to detonate a bomb that could have killed a professor. That tells you tere is no limit to what a hungry person can do.
James Ibori returned on Saturday, February 4, 2017 to a red carpet reception at Nnamdi Azikiwe airport Abuja after years of serving his jail term for money laundering at UK maximum. He was welcomed by cheering crowd of men and women whose money he had laundered as a governor of Delta State. It was possible because we are not ready to fight our problem.
So far, all attempts to tackle corruption in Nigeria have failed for many reasons. First, every Nigerian politician is corrupt. Secondly, and as a consequence of this, there is no true political will to fight corruption. Thirdly, the great ethnic and religious diversity in Nigeria have polarized the masses and there is no national cohesion and opposition to the problem of corruption.
If Nigeria will ever grow, we must wake up to action and do less of blame game or waiting for death to strike again. We have to query our leaders even when they are healthy. How our leaders are elected with our corrupt votes, what our political office holders are paid as salaries and how constitutions are been politically panel-beaten, should occupy Nigerian minds and provoke mass action. We must begin to sound our rejection of the current status quo with loud intelligence.
Protest must not start with 2Face but must begin from every corner we find ourselves. From families where some fathers ignore age-seniority and allocate family land to a rogue younger son who is a politician, to a community where local chiefs sell chieftaincy titles to our looters, we must resist injustice and corruption.
From local government where stakeholders impose their touts on us as chairmen to the state where governors cut workers’ pay and impose heavy taxes on the citizens, we must seek new definition of good governance. We must make our voices heard. We must resist petty issues that will only distract us. Alive or dead, Buhari cannot solve our problems.