its unbelievable that Nigeria has ever been in this state, where life means nothing. last month alone only God knows the number of lives terminated in the violence that has become a daily happening in Nigeria. Another peculiarity is that no class, tribe nor demography are spared in the abnormality.
The nation woke to the slaughter of over 43 hardworking farmers on Sunday. That gory incident happened on rice fields at Zabarmari, in the Jere Local Government of Borno State. That is an area where Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa insurgents have held the country hostage in the past decade or so. That such an event happened, despite authorities’ continuous insistence of the sect’s degradation is an indication of where the rain is falling on the country uncontrollably.
Two days earlier, a first-class traditional ruler in Ondo State, Oba Adegoke Adebusi, the Oluifon of Ifon, was shot dead alongside two other people. A few hours later, wife of the chief of staff to the state governor, Olugbenga Ale, was kidnapped.what a shock!
Five days before, Chairman of the All Progressives Congress in Nasarawa State, Philip Shekwo, was found dead hours after he was abducted from his residence. He was indisputably, one of the most influential persons in the state.
On October 13, 26 women and girls were taken from their homes at Dan ’Aji in the Faskari Local Government of Katsina State. They were in the den of kidnappers until November 3 when their community reportedly mobilised sums totalling about N6.6m as ransom for their release. They were allegedly raped and beaten repeatedly. In the end, their families coughed up a ransom while government waited to claim glory. This was in the North-West where Kaduna is another state under the torment.
A respected uncle told me that kidnappers have become rampart in calabar,cross river state.He said kidnappers now strike for as little as 50,000.
The point here is that not Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, rich, poor, old or young is spared of this latest unleash of crime.Nigeria no longer sleep with both eyes closed.
Yet, this is avoidable self-affliction! This violence and wanton disregard for the sanctity of lives are a result of years of the neglect of the most critical factors of nation-building. Successive administrations only paid lip service to the important issues some of which many perceptive citizens enumerated to the point of sounding like broken records over the years.
Name as much as you can,you will see everything symptoms of bad and failed government .failure to manage the population,failure to give the masses quality education,lack ofdelibrate focus in reducing the rate of poverty and most importantly,the age-long failure to give every citizen a sense of justice and fairness that can create unquenchable loyalty to fatherland.
The current situation is compounded by an economic recession, which bookmakers describe as the worst in three decades. Naturally, that situation, which is not peculiar to Nigeria, portends increased poverty and hunger. But the mindless killing of farmers, which has gone largely unchecked for years, is sure to worsen Nigeria’s condition, driving more people into crime and plummeting us deeper into the pit, unless something useful is urgently done.
Nigeria leaders do not posses any capacity to offer relief.The few who understand the exigency at hand claim to be too helpless for effectiveness,Most Nigerian leaders have no fidelity to the country, after all nearly all their children are citizens of some other well-run countries, so when the trees come down on Nigeria, they fly away like bird in the air.
There are leaders who see the current level of insecurity as just the manifestation of a weak security architecture. They imagine that the only solution is the decentralisation of the police and increasing the firepower of our armed forces. While this is truly a factor, governors and other levels of leadership in Nigeria should be advised that nothing promotes crime and rebellion like poverty, hunger, joblessness and the frustration and hopelessness that attend them.
What to do is for the President, Major General Muhamadu Buhari (retd.), to urgently convene a meeting of leaders (across party lines), which will not just speak about law enforcement but also how to urgently and comprehensively address the social dislocations that dog Nigeria’s path to progress.
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