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