Shaking My Head...Our Collective Insanity

By

Prince Charles Dickson

pcdbooks@yahoo.com

Jos, Plateau Nigeria

 

Today, more than at any other time in the history of our nation, we are at the crossroads. Right, left, and center, things are falling apart. As a Journalist and critic, I am a man of simple faith, a lot of things I look at from a commonsensical point of view, even when it has inherent complexities. When things are wrong and do not work I say so, and when it works I do not hesitate to say so also.

 

These days we are living on the edge, when one disagrees with this government, and the government knows it is wrong, it is dangerous, and this is so because we are lacking the fundamentals of good governance and citizen based social responsibility, it is a society that is beset with a temporary insanity gradually turning permanent. Very few things seem to make sense to the uninducted, to the average Nigerian, the more you look, the less you are likely to see and this leaves us with too many unanswered questions.

 

The General elections are fast approaching with barely some couple of weeks to the deadline on submission of the list of party candidates to INEC, sadly nothing seems to be taking shape other than a frenzy of activity without action, IBB turns a mere collection of nomination form into a 'hired' praise singing event, Atiku's expected declaration has over a hundred persons committee handling it and sequel to the declaration, the man has 'disappeared' from his official residence. The declaration proper is just a circus.

 

Donald Duke's presidential train was at the center of a stoning and harassment saga in Maidugiri, Dariye impeached and declared wanted, funny how these men escape after all the hype, where is the security, if they had been so wanted...Fayose is still wanted. How these men beat the eagle eyed EFCC is suspect and leaves one in a state of "wetin dey happen". The Andy Uba saga is a continous one, as the Anambra zun-tun-zun continues.

 

No one word describes the present situation in our nation other than, madness. Leadership has been infiltrated with insane people, citizenry has been made mad by the deeds of leadership. The society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we are being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think we that complain are liable to be put away as insane for expressing this fact. The presidency is yet to come up with any tangible reasons as to why a crooks like Adedibu continue to exist and the likes of Uba, Mantu, and co remain best friends, maladministration occurs on daily basis rather the matters be treated, they are called family affairs. Nigerians deserve no explanations...because we are not members of the family.

 

The other day, one of the Presidential spokesperson laboured to explain why the Presidency disobeyed court orders, sounded like the usual reasons our women prostitute...We seem to climb the madness curve with each political event. Why would anybody want to carry a bomb into the plane, why would rogues aspire to leadership in a society if not madness.

 

Some of us that criticize this government, its policies, style of leadership, its corrupt actions are classified as mad people, see-no-good, unpatriotic Nigerians, who cannot write anything good about one's nation but the bitter truth remains that we are lunatics, simply because we are more intelligent than they are, we take the common stand of the masses, we give the government not only a fair hearing but also allow them the lion share of the media space for their arguments, yet they still persist in their lunacy by virtue of their actions.

 

The madness we have in Nigeria is that which has made us have erroneous perception, yet we reason correctly from them. An airplane crashes and we hear supposedly learned people say.."ehnm...they want blood for 2007". In 2006 government is still run on mere hearsay...for weeks now the Ministry of Education and the Unity School agitators cannot figure out who is insane and really needs attention and so our children suffer. Why have I chosen at this point to sacarstically ask, have we gone mad, I believe all that happens in Aso Rock is madness, if it is not Uba related insanity, it will be Emeka Offor madness, or Obasanjo-Oil Kolomatica, not forgetting the madness which the office of the Vice has become.

 

The present nationwide retrenchment is insanity, for a government that claims to be reducing unemployment...the Federal government retrenched over 10, 000 recently and then asked the Federal Road Safety Commission to absorb 4,000 of that figure, strangely those retrenched were sacked because of inefficiency, disciplinary records, age, unproductivity...so why pass them to Road Safety.

 

Madness, it is the biggest business with this PDP government that aborted the progressive even before it was conceived. How do we take away the madness inherent in us without also taking away our identity. We have seen our leaders promise to build bridges where there are no rivers, we have seen these government take bald-men to the Barbers shop for a hair cut. The absurdity in Anambra has been that of a man claiming that he is three months pregnant. I ask have we gone mad because I know that our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

 

Governance between the leadership and the led is now one cross between a circus, a military campaign, an orgy of corruption, and a high dose of violence and political insolence. Nothing makes sense, we are made to believe that all is well when indeed all is not, and I think this is one of the commencement point of all these insanity. A false sense of stability, a false sense of security, when the truth is that we are sitting on a keg of gun powder. Education is crumbling, adequate, quality healthcare is only the privy of the rich, housing is all now the story of collapsing buildings, road and transportation is a nightmare in the day, and that is why poor man dey suffer, and the nation is threading with insanity.

 

We have remained largely unkempt, unwatered, unmulched, untrimmed, so even the few kept ones are insignificant. I cannot remember who said it but I recall it, that when you sit face to face with with your worst subject in the complete absence of your favourite subject, the worst subject becomes your favourite, in our insanity, the abnormal has become normal because we no longer see the normal thing. On a Monday one buys a measure of rice for N70 and by Friday it could sell for as much as N210 and no one complains, it is just abnormally normal.

 

In our madness we see people live like Pharaohs, and Sheiks from Oman in a land so poor, though potentially rich. Men with no pipe borne water in their villages buy helicopters. Today as long as the corruption, the bribery, the stealing has nothing to do with us, we hate it, that is why a man preaches against corruption but buys examination papers for his son, a man preaches against bribery but offers a Policeman some because his vehicle particulars are not complete. In our madness we cannot produce what we eat ,nor what we wear, but we refuse to go hungry or naked.

 

Apart from leadership, down the ladder we are all part of the collective insanity that is everywhere in the system. A word is enough for the wise...the wise not the foolish...let us positively for once out do ourselves. May Almighty Allah save us.