we are a people? Maybe! A people wrongly wired. A country of abundant absurdities. The reason we strive hard to perish. How do we explain this? We consciously make concerted efforts to fail.
That’s what we do, all the time. It is our deliberate policy to bite the dust. We do that with uncanny relish. We have everything in abundance. And suffer in great want.
We act the Bible’s Hosea 4 verse 6 for the wrong reason: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
Ours is not for lack of knowledge. No, far from it! That’s not why we fall consistently. We have all it takes. Even at the palms of our hands.
Our knowledge and understanding have no bounds. Our adeptness, and grasp can’t be faulted. Our proficiency and mastery are serious envies to others.
We excel in foreign countries. We shine outside our porous borders. We conquer with ease. We have got the whole world in our hands. We are stars in other climates. And that is where it stops.
We are what we are today strictly by our own undoing. It’s a choice. What a tragic species we are. We have virtually nothing working for us. Almost all things work for us in sordid way. Nobody but us!
Severe lack in the midst of endless plenty. Are we cursed for real? We have everything. Yet, we suffer everything. What have we not have? Nothing. What have we not suffered? Nothing.
That is the tragedy of our existence as a nation. What we have aplenty is exactly what we lack equally aplenty. Stranger than fiction!
The list is legion. It’s limitless and endless. We have oil everywhere. Even in Bauchi-Gombe axis? We boast of oil in super fluidity.
At the same time. We suffer unending fuel scarcity. They shamelessly hang it on subsidies. Even when they never believed in it. It’s government’s mischief to sustain our suffering.
Peter Obi put it succinctly. And in the proper perspective. He told the Nigerian Guild Editors in Lagos on Monday: “Subsidy is organized crime.” He is right, yes against the citizens. Obi is on the ballot for the president. He is running on the platform of the Labor Party.
Come to think of it. We have fertile lands, yet we are in dire need of food. We suffer critical food shortages as if in drunk or famine.
That drew anger from President Muhammadu Buhari. He was angry we are hungry. He did not hide his fear: “Since we have farmland and God has blessed us with rain, what reason does a Nigerian have to say he’s hungry? If you are hungry, go to the farm.”
He claimed we were responsible for our predicament. He wouldn’t understand why farmers deserted their farms. What would make them do that? Hey wondered aloud. That was curious to him.
We are equally surprised he was surprised. Buhari easily forgot the evils the killer Fulani herdsmen did and still doing. The atrocities of bandits, terrorists and their likes. How they overran farms. Killing, maiming and raping anything on sight.
All of these make farming dangerous if not impossible. What about the floods that came ravaging thereafter? As usual, Buhari feigned he knew all this:
“I’m aware that floods have ravaged some farmlands this season. But we are still selling rice made in Nigeria and we can feed ourselves.” Our President appears blank. Pity!
Buhari would not want us to mention this. We have to. we must It is germane. We refuse to be caged, cowed or cajoled. It is the root of our quandary. Anyway, that is no longer feasible.
What he wanted hidden, Abubakar Kawu Baraje exposed. He did that more than two years ago in Ilorin, Kwara State. We won’t forget him in a hurry. He graciously obliged us this vital piece of information. And on a silver platter!
Government was beaten to its dirty game. Outright! It could not muster enough courage to contradict Baraje. It dared not. He was not ambiguous in his confession:
“We brought foreign Fulani militias to Nigeria.” That is profound. It’s insightful. He didn’t mince or mix words.
Baraje is a former chieftain of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC). He has since returned to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), his first love.
He insisted, APC brought the foreign Fulani militias to help it win 2015 election. They were ferried in from Sierra Leone, Mali, Senegal, Niger and Chad:
“After the election, the Fulani refused to leave. I and other like minds wrote and warned those we started APC with that this was going to happen but nobody listened.”
Baraje once served as PDP national secretary. He was also chairman, breakaway fact of the party. He had been one of them. He knew it all saw it all and said it all.
Since he spoke, the government has lost its steam. Baraje threw it off balance. It remained dumfounded, bewildered ever since.
Now. This glaring exception; bad leadership! It’s the only item we are not lacking. It is not contestable. We have that evil product in surplus supply. It overwhelms us.
Certainly not in short supply. It’s a choice commodity. We cherish it with glee. Very precious and dear to our hearts. Our heartless leaders are such a priceless gift.
We have these awful and perverse leaders in reckless abundance. We never lack them at any point in time.
They are phenomenal. They’re the crude export we have.
We have worn-out leaders in commercial quantity. Unfortunately, there’s no viable market for them outside Africa.
Even the African market is not profitable. Most African nations have their own share of this similar appalling leadership. They too have them in careless opulence.
Where do we go from here? Nowhere in particular! There is even this palpable fear. We may end up electing kidnappers as leaders. Doubting it? Quietly possible.
yes In a Nigeria where anything goes! Nothing is impossible. We are capable of springing unthinkable surprises. That’s our area of core competence.
Dr Oldayo Tade is a criminologist. Without being particular. Neither did he point accusing finger at anyone. He merely sounded a note of warning. He called us back to our senses. Never to take things for granted:
“As things are going, we may elect kidnappers in 2023, with the successes they record from their operations around the country. We all should know that they now have so much money for them to do whatever they like. As you know about Nigerians, they may even vie for political posts.”
Tade is a university lecturer. He gave the warning in a recent lecture; “Rising Cases of Kidnapping: Beyond Ethnic Stereotypes, Mirroring Local Causes and Solutions.” He did it in Iseyin, Oyo State.
God bestowed on us a rare grace. He blessed this country like no other nation. We have good reasons to showcase His exceptional favour. Alas! We keep messing up. Are we truly under spell?
We have quality, best materials. They’re in good bountifulness. But we always opt for the quacks. We prefer the laughable. We elect the very opposite among us.
We are comfortably at home with inferior stuffs. This is how we awkwardly packaged ourselves. And we want things to work as it works in other climates. We goof!
It’s odd, wild and weird. Isn’t it?
*Lastline
Sincere apologies for the two-week break in communication. It was unavoidable but not intentional.
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