ROTIMI Chibuike Amaechi is a distressed man just like millions of football-loving Nigerians. That is the belief among many. That the Nigerian Minister of Transportation is in distress is the current assumption going by how he sounded after that disturbing bombing of a section the Abuja – Kaduna rail line and the blowing up of the locomotive engine and destruction of coaches. Rotimi Amaechi might be worried that terrorists have destroyed the property of his ministry, but he was more devastated because of the loss of lives, abduction of yet-to-be-ascertained number of passengers and injuring of 25 others. That’s how many have felt about Amaechi when he made his lamentation of that Kaduna-Abuja railway invasion by (now ubiquitous) terrorists on Monday night.
While speaking during a visit to the epicenter of the attack, Rotimi Amaechi, Nigeria’s Minister of Transportation said: “I warned that lives will be lost. Now, lives are lost. Eight persons dead, 25 persons in the hospital. We don’t know how many persons have been kidnapped. And that cost of that digital security and crime prevention equipment is just N3billion. The cost of what we’ve lost is more than N3billion. We’ve lost tracks, we’ve lost locomotives and coaches. We’ve lost human beings.”
Who is Minister Amaechi referring to? Is it that those he warned did not know what he was warning them about? Does Amaechi think that his warnings had a meaning to the real decision makers? Does the minister think that what he is saying, or what he had said before regarding this, form any part of the issues that worry of the super powers he sent the warning to? Does Amaechi not see that he is an orphan like us? He must realize that, at best, he is alone in his thinking while sitting up there with those he sounded a note of warning to, because they don’t care about him or his warnings and dogo turenci? Perhaps he would now think again about the fact that, like millions of us, we don’t really count and don’t really matter? They know us and refer to us as noisemakers. The worst we can do is to make noise. And is that not what we have been doing – making noise, shouting that the country is dangerously drifting and disturbing the sleeping King?
If we counted, or if we and our opinions mattered why would they give us the opinions? That’s how Sam Levenson explained it in his autobiography. He said his father’s words to him whenever he disturbed him that he had something to say was: “Son, when I need your opinion, I will give it to you.” Mr. Femi Adesina has decried the Kaduna bombing and killing and rained curses on the terrorists just like we do. He has also said that the only thing left to be done by President Muhammadu Buhari about the rampaging and, again, ubiquitous terrorists, is for him to sling his rifle and move to the hideouts of the terrorists and personally engage them. Adesina said the president has repeatedly given orders that the terrorists should be flushed out of their hideouts and sent to “their master, the devil”. Oga Femi only didn’t say that he knew that when you do something the same way over and over again, you would get the same results. He didn’t say that he knew that when you throw a knife up two hundred times, it will always land on its sides. He didn’t explain what it might mean for a President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to give the same orders to his armed forces over and over again… It’s worryingly instructive, and reinforces the belief that we are on our own.
“The President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government has taken some right steps in response to the tragedy. The President has summoned the service chiefs, and the inspector-general of police, giving the marching orders once again. You know what he once said at a Security Council meeting? ‘Wipe out these evil people. Kill them. Eliminate them. Nigerians love me, they trust me. That is why they keep voting for me. Wipe them out. Kill them. Eliminate them.” These are things we have heard before. We have heard these orders before, and thankfully, Femi Adesina himself stated that. What has been following the repeated orders? Instead of the leaf of the coconut tree to wilt, it keeps getting harder and stronger. Our President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has been giving orders to the Armed Forces repeatedly, and he has given it again.
Are the president’s orders really about getting things done? If so, why have the orders remained impotent, like the horse drawn in pages of a book? Why will the president give orders that would not be obeyed or carried out? If the president gives orders and they don’t count, and he repeats the orders and still gets the same results, then, obviously, it means that something does not count. It is either that the orders or its giver or the people they are means to protect don’t count. Something is surely not right somewhere.
Perhaps, that was the reason Amaju Pinnick left us in our pains after the crash of the Super Eagles in Abuja and went to Doha in Qatar. If Nigerians amounted to anything to Pinnick, Shehu Dikko and Segun Akinwumi who jetted out to Doha on that fateful Tuesday night, disregarding the sorrow of millions of Nigerians worldwide were groaning in. That World Cup 2022 ticket was about the only thing that would have helped us in licking the pains inflicted on the country by terrorists. But he has acted typical. Pinnick, Segun Akinwumi and Shehu Dikko left us in our pains and went to Qatar in t’eni bàjè ò kàn mí (I don’t care whose ox is gored) style… Mmíri magbue ndí n gara ahia, nne m o gara aga? (The rain can drench those who went to the market for my mother is not a party)
Other FA chairmen have been taking the honourable step of quitting in the face of obvious failure. Algerian FA chairman has resigned, citing his inability to take the country to the World Cup. The entire FA board of the country quit with him. That is honourable. Heads have rolled in Egypt, Italy and so on. But Amaju Pinnick is that shameless and inconsiderate to have been looking for fall guys. He’d say football should continue to thrive in Nigeria despite our losing the World Cup ticket. However, this is to let Amaju Pinnick and his bumbling Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) know, in case he didn’t, that he is one of the worst things that had befallen our football in contemporary times.
Ibrahim Galadima was the man in charge of our FA when we failed to qualify for the World Cup in 2006. He didn’t resign and he was even nursing the dream of returning as the FA chairman during the Congress of the FA that year. But his dream died with the death of our World Cup ambition. Amaju Pinnick is angling to return as the FA chairman in the FA Congress expected to hold in September. There may be nobody openly eyeing his position now, but as they say, ‘dreams die first’.
and then