NIGERIA has moved into adulthood or maturity judging by her age. At 60, she had celebrated six decades of independence anniversary. No doubt, she has journeyed through experiments socio-economically, even leadership wise; to the point that she has so much in her history which show that, like other nations of the world, Nigeria had advanced chronologically through leadership cum socio-economic phases that now grant her a special identity.
But truth be told; if a thorough assessment of Nigeria is conducted transparently by any credible organization this time; manifestly, the result will present a land replete with ominous signs as an entity whose sovereignty is threatened by immeasurable and unmanageable scary criminality and a defeaming silence of the state, in the face of excruciating misnom.
Glaringly, there is no better way to highlight a country so invaded unleashing violent crimes while the authorities stand helpless. Disappointed citizens are left to conclude that the widespread age long afflictions ravaging the citizenry are state imposed, due to the helplessness of the entire Nigeria Police and the Armed forces as the hydra-headed national vicissitudes rampage and roar.
That Nigeria now wobbles like a vehicle headed for doomed cannot be blamed on the heroes of independence. Because they envisaged the benefits and beauty of self-rule and fought zealously for it, and left a template which should have aided subsequent leaders to create a roadmap for monumental development.
But rather than that, indiscipline, ethnic differences, religion bigotry, nepotism, favouritism permeated the leaders whose misdeamenor lured the military and warranted rulership-by-the-guns system that inturn, bred the kind of civilian leaders that now bestride the walls of leadership carelessly, further creating chaos and inviting anarchy through the politicization of everything.
Attempting to x-ray Nigeria’s socio-political past in this episode will amount to making efforts to capture an ocean in a bottle.It is therefore pertinent to tailor this discussion on what Nigeria has become when it should be one of the greatest nations of the world.
In today’s Nigeria, death of energy, unemployment, high level inflation, religion intolerance, politics-motivated ethnic rivalry, corruption, hook or crook political ideologies or culture, insecurity from terrorism, robbery, kidnapping etc. have colossally contributed to the terrifying moral decadence and unpathrotic ways-which have in turn created a catastrophic environment where no one sleeps with the two eyes closed.
Despolitation from the political leaders eventually rendered citizens hopeless, leading many to embrace all forms of economic sabotage and sundry criminality, condition which made the Nigerian nation a scapegoat tortured mercilessly by her own citizens inexplicably.
The state of the nation is gruesome at 60 and several parts of it (especially the North West) are almost totally under the control of bestial criminals who now commit terror at will in the presence of a handicapped military.
Before the year 2015, during the administration President Goodluck Jonathan, the Boko Haram terrorists, brazenly circum-navigating the terrains of the North East, outmaneuvered Nigeria’s security architecture, invaded the govt owned institution in Chibok, Bornu State, and took hostage of about 200 girls. The rest story is what all of us can tell.
At that point, unpatriotic, self-seeking Nigerians seeking political domination took the matter with a pinch of salt and used it as a campaign advantage to oust the government of Jonathan.
The insurgents at that time who operated from the forests and outskirts desperately usurped the soft landing offered by a highly politicized and quasi-controlled country, and penetrated more Nigerian provinces, which stunningly included a mobile police formation, chasing state security forces to the shock of citizens dwelling helpessly impoverished and unprotected.
From the look of things a few years after then, the terrorists have built a sentinel and have achieved fortes from where they freely roam, roar and reign, even at city centres, to the extent that they have written (at least from what we heard in the grapevine) to warn and alert Abuja over their planned invasion of Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory.
If anyone wishes to gainsay that, or argue the possibility of it, would that same person shy away from the fact that the convoy of an executive governor was recently blocked by the terrorists who killed dozens of Nigerians who included military personnel? Quite horrifying you cried? Well, the scenario points to the fact that the terror of terrorists is enveloping the nation, because their lethal or terminal activities touch nationalists and disrupt agro business and other economic activities that heighten and increase huger and hardship.
These apart; at other areas of the South and West – the rampaging herdsmen are terrorizing and destroying lives in guerrilla fashion, to the amazement of all.
With this development, Nigerians at this side of the divide who saw the demolition exercise of Boko Haram as a northern plague have been taught that ‘What goes around, can actually come around’ when we maintain a deafening silence in the face of injustice.
Nigerians in their father land are like fugitives, running from pillar to post. It is so dumbfounding an experienced police force and armed forces where whooping sums of the commonwealth of Nigeria are invested year in year out.
To now highlight the activities of kidnappers and other deadly criminals is to reveal the viciousness of the Nigerian Society where disappointed citizens, nation would be a total paradigm shift from this existing chaotic system that defies the interpretation of observers and critics.
Unfortunately, political leadership usurpers of this odd democracy have continued to pay deaf ears to the cry for rebirth coming from concerned citizens, due to their sublime desire to sustain his statusquo which confers supreme authority upon anyone close to Aso Rock, and grants economics grace to only a few – to the chagrin and pain of the majority citizens. And this has created a new consciousness in the civil populace who are now dancing to the rhythmic tunes coming from new agitators who calling for the balkanisation of the Nigerian State into different sovereign components in order to protect lives of the people from the worsening socio-political realities that today apparently hold the present Nigeria tightly in the jugular, attempting to suffocate her and decimate her citizens through insecurity, despair, hunger and hardship.
As Nigeria celebrates her 60th birthday as an independent entity, the sounds and beats from all quarters (except from govt. quarters) are tat of frustration, fear, pain and worry. And the helplessness or unwillingness of those in charge to visit the drawing board to bring the expected panacea show that all is not well, and that the nation is threatened!
