No road to 2023 here

IT’S a funny season for foxes Nigeria is afflicted with as its leading politicians as they foam in the mouth all over the place spinning yawns that do not correspond to the pathetic reality in our ground zero as the country is wobbling and fumbling on perdition lane.

At a time the country is daily disintegrating and social collapse staring us in the face and hope fading fast, our overfed politicians are totally inured from the imminent catastrophe and only interested in political permutations that have no bearing on our dangerous careering to the edge of the precipice

A diary of deaths published by Vanguard last Sunday showed the depth of a terminal crisis Nigeria is enmeshed in at the moment. The report partly read: “2018 has been a harbinger of death, tears of blood and gnashing of the teeth for a host of people and families in all parts of the country. No state was spared the anguish of gruesome murders. Literally, Nigeria could be described as a killing field in 2018 as no fewer than 6,562 Nigerians, according to Sunday Vanguard’s checks, were slaughtered through the Boko Haram insurgency, herdsmen and farmers’ clashes (a misnomer), cult clashes, sectarian and communal clashes, kidnapping, ritual killings and armed robbery, among others. The Boko Haram insurgency and herdsmen and farmers’ clashes (again!) accounted for the bulk of the deaths. The North-Central, North-East and North-West zones were the apex theatres of the killings with states like Borno, Benue, Plateau, Zamfara, Kaduna, Kogi, Nasarawa and Taraba being the epicentre of the killings. The death figure is conservative because it is based on but not even limited to reported incidents and deaths. Many killings were not reported or the casualty figures were not disclosed. If those who died in the custody of kidnappers were added, the tally would be much higher. The 6,562 deaths recorded since the beginning of 2018 exclude those who died from illnesses, accidents, flooding, infant mortality, Lassa fever, malaria, HIV/AIDS, etc. Those killed include civilians and security agents as well as the insurgents. In the first 10 weeks of the year, as tallied by Sunday Vanguard in March 2018, no fewer than 1,351 people were mowed down. In January, 676 Nigerians were killed, and in February, no fewer than 517 people died violently, across the country. For the remaining months the death tolls are as follows: March, 485; April, 670; May, 508; June, 639; July, 357; August, 363; September, 926; October, 1,033; and November, 388 “

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While we are still mourning the mass murder of our soldiers in Metele by the “technically defeated” Boko Haram, a new terror group emerged in Sokoto in the past week with residents of Tangaza Local Government Area of the state owning up to the fact that an armed group is currently imposing compulsory levies on them and punishing  defaulters. The armed group, carrying sophisticated weapons, is currently in control of the council by applying “strange laws” and punishing those not cooperating.

A resident of the area, Mallam Bello Tangaza, said the armed group was invited by the leaders of the communities few months ago. He said though only 10 members of the armed group were invited for security purpose, they have ended up with mob reportedly from Mali. The Federal Government has yet to make any statement on the development as I write this. We are in a season of anomie of a sort.

But for our political merchants, it really does not matter what ails the county, it’s only power calculation that matters, the reason they would want us to continue on this road to destruction deluding themselves that we will somehow get to the year of their ambition.

Minister of Power, Works and Housing (we have not seen much in any of the three), Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, was in such mood when he declared at a town hall meeting in Ibadan recently: “You know that power is rotating to the South-West after the completion of Buhari’s tenure if you vote for him in 2019? Your child cannot surrender her waist for an edifying beads and you will use the bead to decorate another child’s waist. A vote for Buhari in 2019 means a return of power to the South West in 2023. I am sure you will vote wisely.”

His counterpart in the Ministry of Labour and Employment (all distressed), Senator Chris, who is also one of the Igbo leaders canvassing a second term for Buhari, equally said Igbo must vote overwhelmingly for Buhari in 2019 to be able to negotiate well for the 2023 presidential ticket.

“Our people should vote for Buhari so that we can produce the Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2023,” he said.

For these politicians and their ilk, it does not matter that we are now the global secretariat of poverty with six Nigerians going into extreme poverty every minute. That we are losing four million jobs annually is not an issue. We should not bother that there is no economic direction at the moment. That human blood is the cheapest item in the land today makes no difference to them. The many fault lines being widened by an insensitive and incompetent leadership can continue to fester for all they care. It has been said that part of the driving force for some politicians from the East of the Niger running into the Villa at the drop of the hat and speaking words that don’t make much sense is the calculation that four years of the pains on ground now is shorter to the rat race.

Citizens who are not blinded by the kind of political desire that is so cold and detached from the temperature of the polity must be able to see the situation clearly and act wisely. Nigeria, as presently constituted, is fast disappearing and unless the drift is arrested, there may be no country in which any 2023 ambition can be realised by any section of the country, given the fact that Nigeria has become a stalemate project. The more debt the country acquires now, the worse things are, against the known law that injection of capital makes a business better. Nigeria of course has become a bad business.

For it to become viable again, 2019 is the year to rebuild the business through retooling by restructuring the country so we can go back to the era of productivity. We need a leadership that accepts the fact that we can’t go on like this if we want to renew the lifespan of the country.

We have travelled so long on this wrong road of running a country as diverse as this from a central point. It’s time to make a U-turn. We must prune the 68 items on the exclusive list to less than two dozens and allow powers to go to the federating units, especially in the areas of mining mineral resources, law enforcements and running local affairs culturally.

This is the imperative of 2019. If we don’t address these issues, we may not be able find our way to 2023 as a country. The earlier we ignore the 2023 guys and address 2019, the better for us.

FEEDBACK | Re: Metele horror and our challenged humanity

Dear Mr Odumakin,

I am a regular reader of your column and, boy, do I enjoy them! They are historical, factual – one can always doublecheck, and well written.

Permit me then to go on a historical excursion as it relates to the ‘Metele horror and our challenged humanity’ – Tribune, November 27. I am particularly smitten by this sentence in the article: “What has made the humiliating attack on our troops more heart wrenching is that our response to it as a polity has been more disastrous than the very act itself. It took our government six days after the bloody attack to find its voice.” You captured the disgrace succinctly. Indeed, one cannot but agree with Senator Akpabio when he said recently: “Warsaw saw war.” The result is now history.

Contrast this to the response of the Roman Emperor Augustus who, when news was brought to him about the rout of three Roman legions in the Battle of Teutoburg (Germany), in 9 A.D., spent the next several weeks in stupor calling on the defeated general and repeatedly shouting the phrase “Give me back my troops!” He cared passionately for his soldiers and never fully recovered from the loss.

And here we are, over 2,000 years later, with President Buhari and Atiku throwing barbs at each other on the massacre of over 100 soldiers in Borno State! This is the dilemma of our nation as it is evident in the poverty of leadership. We are never adequately prepared to respond to calamities timeously. By now the Commander-in-Chief should be demanding answers to what happened to his troops.

We have learned nothing from history and, alas, the world has left us behind.

I choose to remain anonymous please.