Political & Social Indecency: The Nigerian Factor Part 1 

By

Wale Akin

Luga9mm@yahoo.com

 

Many writers have written so much about Nigeria in time past on various topical issues ranging from socio-political to diverse ethnicity but none has really taken out to take an introspective look at the indecency that has come to stay amongst us. Many Nigerians live daily on the brink of total collapse and with the wrong belief that nothing can be done to alleviate the suffering or better still chart a new course in the positive view of moving the country forward. Many Nigerians also believe that nothing good will ever come forth from Nigeria and as such have devised a siddon look approach to national issues that should have been tackled and nipped in the bud even right from time immemorial. Nigerians are of the general belief that we all must chop clean mouth, a phenomenal decay that has eaten deep into the polity and corrupt the whole rungs of the political ladder and as such every negative thinking Nigerian wants to be elected into a political office, siphon public funds and live a life of luxury forever mostly at the expense of the impoverished masses, how wrong they all are. Most political office holders are hell bent on remaining in office, killing all opposition that might truncate the spending spree and upon vacating the assumed exalted position, put a godson to continue the rulership.

 

Nigeria as we all know is buoyant enough to cater for its well over 200Million citizenry but isolated greed laced with gross selfishness and embedded in what is now known as Na me alone syndrome has really eaten deep into the National psyche, every Nigerian that is opportuned to be in positions of authority wants to gather as much as possible a vast amount of public funds for his/her rainy days and since a large percentage of us have this brain-washed notion, don’t we all think we may as well be in dire need of a holistic help, wherever that will emanate from?  Every governmental position in Nigeria is corrupt, it has become a festering sore, more like a cancerous cell that needs a clinical diagnosis but in our collective mumunic style, we have all been treating a more easy ailment such as eczema and instead of a more intense clinical approach, we have opted for a mere clinical dousing, what a national shame! The Police, Nigerian Police Force NPF, an  eyesore of the present dispensation and a colossal curse to the impoverished masses in its bid to protecting all and sundry have left an unhealed gash on our national epidermal layer, the NPF needs a total re-orientation and revamping, the rank and file of the NPF needs to be washed, tumble dried and ironed, they are bunch of ill-conceived, ill-mannered and unassertive men, they maim and kill at will and at the slightest provocation will truncate the life of a fellow Nigeria  for a mere 20 Naira. There have been loads of extra-judicial killings in the past, recall the recent police gross brutality termed APO KILLING in which Police officers on duty killed a group of Young men coming back from a night outing and stole the cash in the trunk? How on earth will such flagrant abuse of fundamental right occur in a country governed by the rule of law?

 

Charles Alaba Joseph before his callous murder was the CEO of Mobitel Ltd, a telecom firm in Lagos, Nigeria, he was murdered in cold blood on September 15, 2005, and the annoying part of the whole messy murder was the double roles played by the Inspector General of Police viz a viz nullifying the initial autopsy done by Lagos State University Teaching Hospital under the able leadership of Prof. John Oladapo as flawed and then ordered a new done by pathologists selected by himself, what nonsense, who is the IGP to speak on medical matters? The wife of Late Joseph wrote an article recently and raised some salient issues that needed to be answered by the so called Police, let me note some vital ones for objective perusal: 1. What sort of personal misadventure resulted in a gunshot wound as reported in the 1st autopsy? 2. Why was it really necessary to have a 2nd autopsy done? 3. Why was the 2nd autopsy released the very day he was buried? 4. Why did the IGP acted as the judge, Prosecutor and the also as the advocate by declaring the case-file closed?  I feel so sorry for Mrs. Joseph and her children, may God grant them the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss. The NPF have a very poor record and the tech-know-how in the investigation of assassinations, mystery killings and murders, the likes of late Dele Giwa, Bishop Iluputaife, Alfred Rewane remained unsolved cases as a result of gross official incompetence because an average Nigerian Police officer is an idiot, I stand to be corrected!!

                                                                                          

Caustic innuendoes and negative outbursts on the part of our so-called political office and stakeholders is another major worrying trend amongst us, most of these so called politicians talk and chat off guard and without paying due cognizance to public decorum, the latest in this gory category is no other person than Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Gani sent in a very caustic open letter to President Olusegun Obasanjo on the twin tragedy of his wife’s death and the airliner’s crash, he used the opportunity of both incidents especially Stella’s death to rubbish the president, I personally find this unholy avenue administered by Gani as very childish, morally and socially wrong, this is not the right time to write a caustic open letter to a mourning president, no doubt, Gani is an elder statesman and a grand patriot but when an old man sees opportunism in the catastrophic death of the president’s wife, then do we respect such man again? I have written severally in my articles on various social-political websites and I reiterate once more and this very time more loudly that everyone in Nigeria needs a positive re-orientation because if a person of Gani’s caliber could misyan so well, what would an area-boy do?

 

Nigerians dwell so much on the negative side of life and derive exceeding joyous applause doing the wrong thing, Governors like Diepreye Alamieseigha and Joshua Dariye would have been languishing in prisons now if such crimes as committed by the duo happened here in the UK but as a recurrent Nigerian factor, Dariye is still a governor despite being caught in the acts of money laundering and at the impoverished expense of the local masses. Alamieseigha’s ordeal should be a shame to an average Nigerian but as usual we still have people who have drummed up supports for a man who is an agent of evil machinations and a stumbling pivotal block to the collective growth of Nigeria as a country. When he was caught at Heathrow, I had a lengthy discussion with few of my buddies over plates of Nkwobi at the local eatery called BUKA on Kilburn road here in London and was shocked to hear  a good buddy of mine who is a qualified gynaecologist saying and I quote verbatim “ Is Alamieseigha the only thief in Nigeria”, I was so shocked to my marrow to the extent that the tasty cowfoot delicacy became sour and I concluded instantly that we still have a very long way in that country if qualified diasporians could still chat this way. Why do Nigerians have to raise the bail bonds for an agent of maladministration and a clog in the wheels of our collective national progress? Terry Wayas who was part of the money miss road team that helped raised the bonds even went to the extent of publishing a full page advertorial castigating the federal government for witch-hunting the governor, do Nigerians think at all? Do the likes of Terry Wayas think we are all dummies and as if we do not know what he stands to benefit from the coffers of Bayelsa state government when the governor returns home, atleast the embattled governor will be so kind enough to compensate him for a job well done.

 

To be continued…………….

 

Wale Akin lives in Kent, UK and a founding member of a group called Men Now!