Lately I have been
hibernating, while watching events as they occur, it has been a season
of political killings but the government and leadership has continued
its self styled praise despite the glaring failure, only they, see their
so-called success. In the light of gross failure, abject poverty,
deteriorating standards of living, poor security of lives, the present
leadership are too far sighted in the mirage of their reforms or they
are simply blind to the sufferings of the people they claim voted them
in.
In the last few
years this beloved nation of ours has been reduced to a case of just
imagine, a situation of anything goes and something does come, a
situation where a ten year old Nigerian boy is abandoned in far away
Bangladesh. It is a scenario that has left us at the mercy of a
government that is practically at loss of whether B comes before C or
the letter Z actually starts the alphabet.
Just Imagine some
days ago Baba Iyabo the only wise one and all knowing President of
120million and more foolish Nigerians (apologies) made a mockery of
himself and his government during the first Diaspora Day in Nigeria as
he told his audience, that he had gotten in touch with a Nigerian in the
UK that was willing to come home and help revamp the dead Nigerian
Railway. A mockery certainly with less than 10 months to the end of this
disaster by PDP, every year in the last seven it has made one promise or
the other about the institution yet it has been the same story. Back to
square one.
Buildings are
collapsing from Port Harcourt to Lagos and the Authorities are ranting,
while developers are building with sand gathered by the road side,
moulding 500 blocks with bare a bag of cement. The only architects are
the landlords that maximize space building skyscrapers with housing
hundreds without any concrete foundation. In a case of just imagine no
one cares of the value of human life, in my abode in Jos, I see a couple
of buildings waiting for the just imagine to happen. Nigeria, a nation
whose citizens have been made subjects of circumstance and the damage
continues.
Just imagine barely
months to the general election, from the moon as usual someone has
started muting the idea of another ‘Fi idi ha’ a Shonekan arrangement or
the ‘Obele Oche’ syndrome in the name of Interim government, I only just
imagine that it is one big joke. With INEC staffs as PDP members or
having allegiance to the Baba and the Commission demonstrating its
inability to conduct a voters’ register on one hand and on the other
hand its under-funding problem which is an irony of its claim that it
was prepared to conduct a free and fair election.
My attention was
brought to the on-going rave of the moment in which public institutions
actually charge all manners of fees for forms from applicants, the case
of the Armed forces is pathetic, take the Nigerian Navy that is charging
a Thousand Naira per recruitment form…how many forms would be sold, how
many would be recruited and into which account does that money go, and
sadly this is an institution of public service that is funded by the
taxpayers’ monies.
Where do this
applicant get the one thousand from, in cases ministries in the top
hierarchy are entitled to several months of new employees salary or a
percentage and then we have EFCC, ICPC,CCCC and many more Cs that cannot
tackle the big C in corruption.
What can we really
clap our hands at having achieved through the present leadership; every
sector that the government prides itself in having achieved something is
a smelling filthy rag of failure. In Southwest Nigeria, a Psychiatric
Hospital built 62 years ago still houses patients that have been there
for 46 years, that hospital has witness in the last one year a mass
exodus of some 250 Nurses to the UK.
With debt relief,
reform here and there, we still cannot appropriate 5% of our GDP to
health care, so teaching Hospitals strike, Psychiatric homes follow
suit, nurses are not left and then things are said to be getting better.
We are in the
euphoria of the forthcoming elections, pray we have one, all the
presidential hopefuls are trading words or following the slogan
“consolidating on the reforms”. Very few are really setting agendas.
Just imagine Jerry Gana wants to be President, methinks I can aspire to
be World Bank Chairman. Bashir Tofa just imagine woke up from a coma he
entered on June 13th 1992 and wants to be President, Marwa
and Atiku are dividing Adamawa and they want to unite Nigeria. IBB is
seriously working on the script “second chance” while the President is
loosing sleep listen to the music “anything can happen”.
In 2006, just
imagine after all the change in leadership, all the newspaper cuttings
of positive press, a prison that serves about 40 judicial divisions does
so with barely two functional Black Maria trucks. Presently the Prison
Service has six hundred letters for voluntary withdrawal from service
due to poor condition of service. We have had more jail breaks around
the nation; the prison is over-congested now more than ever as crime
rate is gaining blockbuster figures.
Private
universities are opening like GSM recharge card sales points, yet in a
case of unimaginable imagine, the erstwhile Nigerian Universities
Commission Secretary who approved most of these schools says “ lecturers
have shallow knowledge…schools have uncontrolled admission of students…”
but he still insists he was a success.
In Anambra, where
peace for a long while has been on a leave of absence, witnessed the
razing down of a Police station, the State Governor blamed the National
Association of Road Transport Owners; the police blamed the MASSOB men.
In a James Bond thriller after a chase 13 vehicles were abandoned, 2
Policemen killed 15 wounded but none of the culprits were caught.
As I cease to
imagine it’s sad in my hibernation…I see Obj, Kalu, Agbani, and Okonji
sitting in a train…not in Nigeria! They go through a dark tunnel,
suddenly, there is a kissing sound and then a slap. The train comes into
daylight. Obj is holding his face while others looked perplexed. Okonjo
is thinking “men are all crazy; these ones are lusting after Agbani. Obj
must have tried to kiss her and she slapped him”. Agbani is thinking:
Obj must have moved to kiss me and got slapped…but by whom?” Obj is
thinking: Orji must have tried to kiss Agbani, she thought it was me and
slapped me. Kalu is thinking: “If the train goes through another dark
tunnel, I could make another kissing sound and slap Obj again”.
The above
ordinarily is a joke but we have been subjected to a leadership of
jokers, deceitful people and confused bunch. The CBN faults the Finance
Ministry, NNPC holds the nation to ransom while the Revenue people
accuse them. Mr. President spends from Federation account without
approval and nobody thinks it is really bad. The National Assembly is
just there as in there in Abuja doing absolutely nothing.
Rather than
imagine, let us remember that failed states and almost failed states
like Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia, Ivory Coast and co did not just start in
one day. This is not just one essay chronicling the social ills of the
society or the disability of leadership, but it is one that I ask for a
sober reflection, a clarion call that we imagine where all these will
lead us to.
I end by quoting
the Holy Book…the Bible “Except my people that are called by my name
shall humble themselves, seek Allah’s face, confess our sins. He is God,
He will forgive us, and He will heal our land”. Our braggadocios
braggadoism will lead us no where, Almighty Allah save us not because we
deserve to be saved but for Allah’s mercy.