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Nigeria We Nail Thee By Fadare Akeem Aderemi
Reading with interest seems to have become my hobby when Nigeria is either in the writing or on the air. This is not because of interest in what people write but one of the resultant fears for the life that we live as Nigerians from its leadership excesses. Hope I have read somewhere is usually a good meal for breakfast, but when it become a meal for dinner it could be dangerous. Despite all odds in the face of failed promises, despite unbelievable trust reposed in our leaders in view of their conflagrant negative attitude; we keep the trails of hopes upon hopes for things to get better. But painfully so, the Nigeria’s proverbial knife seems recurrent in the way it lands when thrown up or better still, it has assumed a nature of permanent slip in view of the hammers and nails in the hands of the carpenters (our leaders) who are perpetually at work to ensure Nigeria’s permanent confinement to the cubicle of corruption yet the vulture looks on in its patience.
It is highly commendable for those who have written to either expose or espouse on corruption which has rendered us a people of absolute negativity in the realm of development towards global trust. Nigerians’ cries for change have been eclipsed by the mighty corrupt powers occupying both the corridors and offices imbued with absolute democratic sycophants who could have done a little if not more to launder our battered and sinking hopes of positive recovery from their precedented human excesses. Rather, the Nigeria’s proverbial witch keeps giving birth to daughters who only engender witchcraft continuity. Again, when we thought we had seen that ray of hope, from incarceration to the open, with suveniour of prison brutality and human wickedness, it was believed that the time was dawn, for a new NAA to be piloted by a ‘been to’ for a save landing. What we did not know was that, the past continuous taxiing that first grounded Nigeria’s fleet would be rekindled and apparently, taking off as ever for Nigeria will again assume the known trait of failure. Now, the question to ask is; are we truly THE CRIPPLED GIANT? as referred by Prof. Eghosa Osagie. This obviously points to you the leaders who know of ways to make the crippled nations walk again, but your excesses towards personal gains is the clog on your way of ensuring this.
The rumoured palpable and socially-sanctioned attraction to perks attached to holding elective offices in Nigeria which is believed to have created a culture of acute dishonesty seems to have manifested. It has now given birth to fierce competition for political offices as an itinerary to socio-economic ascendancy and consolidation. Nigeria, our only hope, is now an integral part of the society reflecting class division that do not only exist at any given time, but also had to be protected by the emergent political elites for future task in the realm of political support. On the contrary, this popular notion may have been overturned by the only common trait that has apparently been the unifier of the ruling class as found in corruption across ethnic and religious divide and frontiers.
Now the unimagined has come alive in Nigeria, the unofficially official kingmakers sit on the corridors and decide who is who in their domain. They sit back and wait for royalties like descending manners from their beneficiaries who must not do otherwise. Somewhere in the east, a governor was kidnapped by his alleged financier, and another of not too distant past ousted through parliamentary coup in the west (Oyo State to be precise) as engineered by the state’s number one political tug turned lord who seems to have rewarded his skirmishing tools with brand new cars to the tune of 50 million Naira supposedly out of the largess from above yet this meant nothing to the man in the oval office inside the rocks. Presumably, this is another added negative achievement to the truly illiterate but corruption-educated think tank political lord of Oyo State who lives, eat and thrives on politics and will not allow anyone, not even all Nigerians to stop him in his way of good political business. I only hope that the negatively synthesized and locally intelligent man of Lagelu politics has not forgotten the story of ADELABU peculiar mess (penkelemesi); although we did not see but we heard of his demise.
Our dear country is bleeding and the down-trodden are the ones who are not only feeling the pains but moves around in tattered flesh. Things are unavoidably and guardedly falling apart, the centre seems to have been componently repelled on a permanent basis and the consortium of these has produced the known satisfaction for the ruling elites who are nothing but the proverbial “ARIJE NI INU MODARU” (those who revels in the midst of confusion) Our dear country seems to be in the grip of modern “BASHORUN GAA” as found in our negatively modern rulers. We know it is a your right to be free and have life as societally allowed and chosen by you, it is however important for you to realize that doing this through a phantom and cosmetic official astuteness that ends in neglect, impunity and negative masterminding of a people’s indigence may not be a good idea.
First, it was Oputa Panel (of amusement I believe), now it is Ribadu’s EFCC. We are not amused by the former and those unheard of ad hoc panels of investigation; the latter which would have taken us on the right track looks more of a toothless bulldog as designed by the powers that be. Go to South Africa, they do less with panel of inquiry, once corruption is alleged it is straight to the court. Jacob Zuma (former Deputy President of South Africa) is a classical case that proves this. Please, stop this mockery of our national pride; do not allow our life line elasticity that has reached its threshold to snap. Stop taking us on these expensive but fruitless journeys that only you understand. However, if it is true that “voice populi voice dei”, then, the God of Nigeria that has kept and sustained the people’s lifeline will do something about the Hitlers in Nigeria.
Corruption has eaten so deep into the fabrics of our nation, Nigerians worth less than the most degrading level of humanity wherever they go, once they step forward and produce their green bar-coded pride of passport at any point of entry, it is nothing but suspicion. The world seems to have understood the Yoruba adage that “ile laa ti n ko esho rode” (charity begins at home). How are you different from the Tafa Baloguns and Alaiyemiesingbas? You gallivant from one continent to the other under the pretence that you are serving us at our expense, you move across the globe and see what other good governments are doing. You move in the white man’s branded parachute (AGBADA) with your eyes wide open and you see positive service delivery at its highest. You wine and dine with your contemporaries abroad; you are officially like them, but productively different because you feel you are beyond the learning process despite our natural and human resource endowment.
Because of you and what you have turned Nigerians into, we are treated with disdain for fear of injecting our corruption virus into the people on the outside. Nigerians are even given special treatment in all negativity; he/she is frisked, emotionally and momentously tortured in the name of security (from corruption I guess) and as such subjected to a fate never told in human history. It is now a good thing that we are seen as reflections of our leaders so if you are given a grand reception anywhere you go know that you are also under surveillance. We are watched through the eye of the eagle, not to suddenly turn the existent aura of near pure honesty met in our places of destination or transiting for our corrupt convenience. As such, there seem to be no difference in the way we and suspected terrorists are treated.
Why has the Nigerian democratic experience been nothing but nascent despite the country’s 45 years of independence from British colonial rule. The series of government change from imposed military president/heads of state to elected civilian governments which were expected to have produced some form of growth along democracy dividends, if not also deepen democracy in the process seems elusive. In the same vein, it has always been a new beginning with any change of administration through organised elections or when democracy is stolen at gun point. Nigerian voters in regards to the former face the same hurdles at any given political dispensation while they are pecuniarily aided to graduate from being vote vendors to spectators in their own affairs in the latter case. Hence the political stagnation in the country continues unabated since the country’s democratic experimentation flagged off with parliamentary or Westminster democracy on 1st October 1960.
It is now a known fact that corruption exist in Nigeria only when the leaders say so, corruption is noted and accordingly dealt with if someone in his/her official capacity found so has gone against the powers above him. It has become a continuum that only those who have the might to prosecute it does not only understands but also decides how, when and what of corruption in Nigeria. Between 1985 and early 1990, Nigeria, our only hope, was taken through a government run like a family affair. Prior this time, (between 1993 and 1995) it was a case of “the fear of corruption is the beginning of wisdom” for all Nigerians, things seemed to be heading the right way, but all of a sudden, the con-man of Nigeria’s civil-military elitist effigy got on the steering wheel and things have never been the same for us in Nigeria.
High hopes of a better life kept on the sinking side and by the time he left, corruption assumed a human posture and took its abode in the centre spreadsheet of Nigerian politico-socio-economic life. Yet nothing incriminating is seen in the special man of Minna as he enjoys his “aso rock” in Niger State probably as reward of his never to be forgotten years as military cum president rule that channeled our course as a nation to this point. From all appearances, to people on the throne, there seem to be “nothing wrong with … plunder, exploitation, corruption, mal-administration, mis-governance and tyranny…" in the words of Sheu Musa. Nigeria is the only country on earth that allows a man with all these negative qualities to come back to contest for the nation’s number one seat unless those who are presently the occupants of his place of interest are also not different.
We know it is your decision to be who you are and not of God, we know you big guys up there are beyond our probing and we are aware that though you cannot make, but you have the human might to mare. We live at your mercies in Nigeria and abroad, we cry and you, in your known feeling of indignation see no need for improvement but you must know that Nigeria from inception was not your creation. You must also know that being societal celebrities of “heroic rogues” does not give you the true happiness that you may seek in life. Please do not forget the Yoruba historic AGBEKOYA, remember apartheid and the people’s victory in South Africa, please bring back to your memories the failure of Hitler to accomplish his devilish desires against the European Jews, be jolted by the events in Uganda under Idi Amin, Zarie under Mobutu and Samuel Doe’s Liberia. Wake up to situations in the Philipines during the times of Ferdinand Marcos (1986), and Estrada, Peru under Alberto Fuji Mori (2000), and Somalia under Said Barry. These were classical cases of people reaching their levels of threshold.
The Nigerian vulture seems to be getting out of its known immediate environment of tranquility for things to rot. It is indeed getting out of patience; the pent-up anger in all and sundry seems to be raging like a wild fire, even if this does not make a difference to you, just know that it is a foolish man that leaves his roof on fire and go to sleep. Fighting in silence to win as it were now may not endure for long, but remember Sanni Abacha, his exit was not glorious and the evil that men do definitely lived/lives after him. Make hay while the sun still shines, use the other end of your hammer and free our only hope for a renewed people’s social contract with you, to make a positive meaning and move us in the right direction. Make the CRIPPLE walk again.
Fadare Akeem Aderemi (Mr.)
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