NIGERIA IN DIRE NEED OF A CONCENSUS

For the past three months I have been out of public life due to a situation and circumstance of life beyond my control. During this period a lot of happenings were going on in Nigeria as usual that ordinarily should not have happened in a sane and civilized society, ranging from Yanya Bombing, Abduction of Chibok Girls, the protest, and public, government and international reactions to all this dismal incidents, bombing in Jos, a city that have enjoyed a few months of relative peace for some times now, constant bombing, killing and kidnapping in Borno inspite of fake state of emergency declared by the ruling political jobbers. The LASU fee hike and students’ protest that followed, the international community reactions to the cluelessness, weakness and lack of capacity of the government of the day to address the impending problems talk less of proffering solutions to the problems. So many happened that time and still happening even on greater scale that space will not permit me to document it but out of it all and unfortunately I cannot make any contribution then, one major event that caught my attention and also birth this write up is the consensus that was built around abduction of Chibok Girls with this slogan #BRING BACK OUR GIRLS. Nigeria government in its characteristics manner don’t show any serious concern to any issues that bother the people, from which they derived their power and ability to govern. If not for the efforts of the civil society, right activists, concern citizens, the press, social media and crying mother who came together to build a consensus on this issue until the irresponsible government become responsible a bit, the little efforts shown will not even surface at all. Until the citizens of this country come together to build a national consensus around every lingering national issues that affect our collective being and survival, this vultures in power (VIP) will continue to take us for a ride, continue with their usual looting, corruption and wastages that have become the characteristics feature of Nigeria government. To my surprise, the citizens that need to be concern about their life, their wellbeing and survival within this contraption called Nigeria are daily seen looking away when their rights are trample upon, when their life is wasting away, sometimes they are seen putting a baseless defense for the failure of the government. I can see poor people behaving senselessly, for example in Ejigbo where three women were allegedly captured for stealing pepper, what did the poor people do? They tortured them to the verge of death. The Alu four (4) University students who were tortured and burnt alive by the poor people. The same energy that they should have directed and use it to confront the cabals that runs their life down were now wasted and exerted on the poor people like them. What a country and what a people? Petroleum Minister was reportedly stolen billions of dollars and the citizens or the poor people can’t organize themselves and exert the same energy used to punish themselves on these gangs of power drunk that preside over Nigeria. Today the petrol is being sold above the pump price and government and the people just pretend as if nothing is happening. What a country and what a people? We urgently need consensus if we have to continue and survived, we are in dire need of a decisive consensus. In Nigeria the ruler raped the citizens day and night and to my surprise all of us went to bed without any proactive measure. We are have been lied to everyday and to my surprise, even the intelligent men, I supposed still queued behind the absurdity of the ruler. We are told corruption is different from stealing and the next day Chairman of a commission back it up and I ask myself that, what kind of people are these? I need to be going around with my dictionary so that these gangs of ruler will not corrupt my mind with their usual blunder and absurdity. Dotun George

NO LONGER AT EASE

The only people who cannot see that the times are fast changing are those fat cats who are feeding fat on public funds all over Nigeria. And they are eating with impunity and without any iota of shame. In the process, most of our youths have been left despondent, hopeless and helpless. Many generations of unemployed and possibly unemployable graduates are roaming the streets, rudderless and defenceless. In deference to the laws of stimuli, they are forced to take to all manner of crimes. The natural instinct of man is survival. Not everyone can stand the scorching heat of suffering. Meanwhile our men of power continue to behave as if nothing would ever change. All it takes is to go through endless charades of elections, and declare whosoever they endorse as winner. They are already warming up for another round of rigmarole. For them, elections must be treated as a theatre of war. All, they say, is fair in war. But must it always come to this? Why must an attempt to serve the people become a matter of life and death? Why must a tiny minority, and not even the best amongst us, continue to hold all of us to ransom? The reason is simple. For too long, we have considered politics the exclusive preserve of never-do-wells, upstarts and nonentities. It was the same attitude that made us to send the dregs of our society into the army and police for so long. We didn’t realise that one day soon, the falcon would no longer hear the falconer, and everything would fall apart. We have now reached that state of Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease. Accordingly, anarchy is reigning supreme. What is worse is that our children living abroad are not able to return to the old kingdoms, where they can visit their aged parents, eat organic meals that are washed down with original palm wines. In the modern kingdoms, the Obi Okonkwos are not able to return to the ancient villages of Umuofia because the kidnappers are hovering in the wings and ready to pounce on any careless returnee. Such is the tragedy of our land overtaken by the pestilence called politicians in our clime. We are governed by people who obviously hate their country with uncommon gusto. Nothing seems to work and it matters not to our tin gods. No one seems to know these leaders and where they come from. The youths have been stupidly patient. Now they seem to have exhausted that patience. And they are expressing it in different forms such as militancy, kidnapping, terrorism and all sort of crime. The elders think it is a joke. They are saying they are yet to see good examples among the few ones in their midst. But they forgot that they handpicked their godsons, and that a reptile would always give birth to a reptile. It is in the nature of all reptiles to crawl. Besides, most are harmful and deadly. Many of our youths are world class. They’ve conquered the world. They have been flying like Angels. But back home the demons of democracy are making it impossible for the eagles to soar into the skies. They are frustrating every attempt, and thinking the ravening clouds would always be victorious. They have forgotten the sonorous words of Albert Luthuli in Let My People Go: “No nation can live perpetually in servitude”. There was an end to slave trade. Apartheid collapsed before our very eyes. A black man became not just an American president but the most influential man on planet earth. It is high time to tell the tyrants men in power that every day will not always be your day, a radical change may be inevitable in the days to come if the myriad of problems facing this country is not resolve on time. Just a little change and adjustment in the way we are govern and the way rulers rule this country will save us a lot of evil that is looming. So tell me who can stop the eagles whose time has come. It is time to unfold those incredible wings, and begin to fly higher and higher. These eagles are ready.