Beirut’s blast and Borno’s bombing

As the city of Beirut, Lebanon, boils from the ruin of the blast that took about 200 lives, critically injured 600 and destroyed properties worth billions, Lebanese from across the country woke from slumber to take their destinies in their hands.

The blast resulted in the eruption of powerful and earth shaking protest demanding a holistic change in the country’s deeply divided, fantastically corrupt religious but ungodly society. The time seems to have come for the country’s cabal to take a bow and pave the way for a real transformation with the people as its centrepiece.

Already, the prime minister of the small Mediterranean country has been forced to resignation with few courageous acts from various quarters signifying the country might be walking towards total freedom from the clutches of corrupt and powerful elements who have held the country by the jugular for years on end thereby stifling progress and slowing development.

The Story of Beirut’s blast, though heart-wrenching, is not so different from Borno State in Nigeria where internally displaced persons  litter the state territorial demarcation with starvation, suffering and sickness almost in droves, primarily caused by the dreaded Boko Haram insurgency.

Both cities’ ruin exemplify the inherent danger of poor and bad leadership with looting, stealing and lying to the people as a branded style thereby making life pretty difficult for the masses. Indeed, the destruction and damages done in the Northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe with kidnapping of schoolgirls both in Chibok and Dapchi is enough a reason to force a responsible government out of power and bring in new minds with fresh ideas on how to fix the rots in the system, salvage the country from the mess of corruption and rescue it from the brink of destruction.

While the Beirut’s blast typified government’s entrenched flagrant disregard for precautionary measure despite years of warnings, the case of Borno and other war-ravaged states in Nigeria shows the non-challant and lukewarm attitudes of the country’s leaders to the plights of the people.

From worsening insecurity,  mounting unemployment, beatification of ethnic chauvinists and adulation of religious bigots, the country, a resource-rich and the continent’s most populous state tipped to lead Africa to the Promised Land has indirectly led her people to hell and perdition with administrative malfeasance and mind-blowing corruption almost across all strata.

Indeed, the political change that swept the country in 2015 has neither met the yearning and aspirations of the people, neither has the country’s infrastructure deficit and leadership incompetency been addressed to meet international standard. Except a drastic approach takes place in areas of insecurity, corruption, unemployment, education and other integral part’s of the country, happenings in Lebanon might just be a child play to what Nigeria might witness.

Muftau Gbadegesin

[email protected]

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