This week is about no worries. There’s nothing to worry about Nigeria. Mr. Femi Adesina said so. He said there’s no need to worry about growing concern among Nigerians about security, which has caused schools to hurriedly shut down in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and environs. There’s no need to go into empathy with some of our worried and confused children in their final classes in primary and secondary schools, who would have posed for photos with their families, friends and teachers at their botched end of session ceremonies. There’s no need to worry that a band of terrorists had the courage and audacity to launch a deadly attack on soldiers in our president’s guards brigade in Abuja and killed some of them. If you worry, you are an anarchist, don’t you know that? Femi Adesina advises us like that.
Mr Adesina is Special Adviser to the Nigerian President on Media and Publicity. He lives in Abuja. He must have been hearing that there are security threats in the federal capital territory. In August last year, terrorists went to the Nigerian Defence Academy and stormed the Officers’ Quarters of the elite military training institution. In that attack, two people were killed and one was abducted. Mr. Adesina did not see that as a desecration of a holy military ground and a condescending sneer at our cherished Defence institution. Rather, he wrote, lambasting Nigerians who saw it that way and garnished his thoughts with a jibe at the media. He agonised that the incident was reported in a slant that showed that the country is filled with hatred for the Buhari government, for humanity and hatred for even God. Oga Adesina wants beleaguered Nigerians to roll out the drums and institute a dance party to massage our lord’s wounded ego and assuage that feeling of shame and loss.
This is July 2022. We are approaching the twelfth calendar month after that shameful NDA incident. The terrorists have spread to Abuja and fears are, again, being expressed by concerned Nigerians that Abuja is now under the pressure of mounting insecurity. Mr. Adesina, who described the NDA attack as “evil, pure and simple”, must have heard of the shooting said to be between bandits and Nigerian soldiers in Zuma Rock. That’s interpreted to mean that Nigerians and others in Madalla, Zuba and indeed in many other areas of Abuja will not be at rest. There is growing anxiety, but he has charged that we should not worry. He has advised that we should trust that the government of Buhari is indeed doing something about it all.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed has also said that the terrorists are joking. He said that their threat to kidnap the president, which they issued via a video, is ‘laughable’. Governors Nasir El-Rufai (who is on the list of the targets) and Bello Matawalle didn’t describe the terrorists’ threat as laughable. Perhaps, they know better than Lai Mohammed. Of a fact, I agree with Alhaji Lai that the threat is laughable. However, not all laughs are derived from joy. The Yoruba ascribe laughter to unspeakable things, preposterous words, they say, come with laughter. I remember the wicked laughter by one of our teachers in Amizi Oloko Community School in the 1980s. He was Mr Nwosu but we called him Sir Ekwensu (Sir Devil) because of how merciless he was, especially when he laughed at you while you think he was laughing with you. Many things are laughable, but they are real and actual. Is it not said that from and in the midst of playful jibes comes the truth? To Alhaji Lai Mohammed, we should not worry because it is laughable. But those who know as e dey go have informed the president.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, has also charged us to shed our worries. She expected a round of applause when she announced that the government of President Buhari has done very well when compared with the previous governments before he came in 2015. She even boasted that we descended into depression twice and came out of it. We came out of the first depression within three quarters while the second one, induced by COVID-19 was defeated in a few months. That’s actually commendable, Madam Minister… It’s just that we still don’t know why we feel like things are just getting worse by the day. We have heard all the technicalities, all the financial and economic jargons. But we still don’t understand ‘GDD (PPP)’ ‘Gini (Income Distribution)’ ‘HDI’ ‘FDI’ etc, when they don’t translate to realistic purchasing power and a useful N30,000/month minimum wage. We understand that university students are at home, because the financial and sundry agreements the government reached with ASUU have not been honoured. If those are not what the technical terms mean, then we need to learn more because Nigerians are tired and weary. There is hunger in the land and people are despondent. Nigerians want to feed their children and be able to meet their basic financial needs. That is what we understand and that is what would translate to meaningful governance in the country. Any other thing is just irrelevant English. But, Mrs. Ahmed says our finances are beautiful even if you choose to see a white sepulcher. So, don’t worry, be happy.
Mr. Femi Adesina, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and Hajia Zainab Ahmed might as well have saved their words and tell us their ‘don’t worrys’ by singing Bobby McFerrin’s popular song, “Don’t worry be happy”. Babagana Monguno, was even more realistic. He is the National Security Adviser. He noted that Nigerians no longer trust the perennial meetings and repeated parleys the president and the security chiefs keep holding. He said Nigerians are already tilting towards self-help, a euphemism for ‘Nigerians no longer trust us’. Actually Monguno is wrong, Nigerians have long resorted to self help. They have since exhausted the long rope given the Buhari government had been hanging on to. That’s why we have vigilantes and community night guards here and there. Of course the National Security Adviser knows that Nigerian communities provide many things for themselves, including security. That is why a street or avenue could be gated and such gates locked with keys to restrict human and vehicular movement. That may appear simplistic, but it’s self help sir.
The best self-help might be Robert Keith McFerrin’s Grammy-winning al capella “Don’t worry be happy.” The 1988 song rose to world acclaim and one music critic noted that the song came as a balm to soothe and assuage. Indeed, it is fit as a “formula for facing life’s trials.”
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The PDP spokesman recalled how the opposition party had on various occasions alerted that the APC government had ceded sovereignty over a large portion of our country to terrorists, “many of whom were imported into our country by the APC.”
He further stated: “From the video, in a brazen manner, terrorists as non-state actors boldly showed their faces, boasting, admitting and confirming their participation in the Kuje Prison break, some of whom were former prison inmates who were either jailed or awaiting trial for their previous terrorism act against our country.
“Nigerians can equally recall the confession by the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai that the APC government knows the plans and whereabouts of the terrorists but failed to act.
According to Ologunagba, about 18,000 Nigerians have been killed by terrorists between 2020 and 2022 “as the criminals continue to be emboldened by the failures and obvious complicity of the APC and to which the PDP had always drawn attention.”
“This is not politics; this is about humanity and leadership, which leadership sadly and unfortunately is missing in our country at this time,” he said.
The PDP added that it is appalled by “the lame response by the apparently helpless, clueless and deflated Buhari Presidency, wherein it told an agonizing nation that President Buhari “has done all and even more than what was expected of him as Commander in Chief by way of morale, material and equipment support to the military…”
“This is a direct admission of incapacity and failure by the Buhari Presidency and the APC. At such a time, in other climes, the President directly leads the charge and takes drastic measures to rescue and protect his citizens.
“In time of adversity, the President transmutes into Consoler-in-Chief to give hope and succour to the citizens. Painfully, Nigeria does not have a President who cares and can stand as Consoler-in-Chief to the citizens.
“It has now become very imperative for Nigerians to take note and realize that the only solution to this unfortunate situation is to hold the APC government accountable. We must come together as a people, irrespective of our political, ethnic and religious affiliations to resist the fascist-leaning tendencies of the APC administration.
Ologunagba called for an urgent meeting of the National Council of State to advise on the way to go over the nation’s worsening insecurity.
“Our nation must not fall. The resilient Nigerian spirit and ‘can-do- attitude’ must be rekindled by all to prevail on the President to immediately and without further delay, accede to the demand by the PDP and other well-meaning Nigerians to convene a special session of the National Council of State to find a lasting solution since the President has, in his own admission, come to his wit’s end,” the PDP spokesman declared.
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and then