The madness of 2023 politics

“Nigeria is just too dangerous now. Even in how we drive on the motorways, you will see it! The country is smouldering like those sawdust fires… you still remember what happened to Chidi at Timber, don’t you? That is my take as I think about many things happening now in the country and how. We are not at war, yet we are not at peace.” My friend, who has been living outside the country for many years, could not hide his fears. But he remembers the accident that nearly cost our friend, Chidi, his legs as we returned from school one day.

As we walked home, like we normally did, from our beloved Holy Ghost Secondary Technical School, Umuahia, on the fateful day, one unfortunate accident happened. Our way was always through the Timber Shed of old in the town. Umuahia was not yet a state capital then. Chidi’s home is at Afara. So was that of our friend and one other. Ebere and I were going to Ohokobe-Ndume. Chidi took a detour that turned out to be a dangerous bypass. He wanted to explore, like any other secondary school boy might try, a new route. The route was through the Timber Shed sawdust dumps. He was oblivious of the dangers that were buried in the smoke that gently rose from the normal-looking dumps. He walked through some of the sawdust unaware that below the shallow smoke were deep fires. He saw only smouldering sawdust, he didn’t see the deadly vale of fire underneath. His legs were badly scalded and he still livees with the scars and the memory.

That incident, one of the very many accidents we graciously survived as young, adventurous students, has become a candid metaphor for the country. The troubles bedevilling our dear country are deep-rooted, but their symptoms manifest like the gentle smoke of the sawdust that Chidi saw as harmless and sadly ignored. He did not see the smoulder as anything serious because he felt it was simple and peripheral.

My friend recalled that incident in our recent discussion when he came to Nigeria for his holidays. He used it to describe what he makes of Nigeria in his two weeks’ vacation in his home country. It sounded like a warning and a piece of advice at the same time. He did not have to tell that he was always on the edge until he left Nigeria last week for a West African country, the land of his in-laws. He didn’t have to, but daily reports of various kinds of evil, criminality, robbery, corrupt practices, monumental stealing, treachery and the likes have severely battered his oyibo psyche! We are battered too. We are not unmindful of the troubles, but I told him to see Nigeria as a microcosm of our today’s beleaguered world. I had the despicable Texas elementary school shooting in his United States in mind and felt the need to make him understand that we are all in an unsafe, cruel world. He countered that in the United States, as in many other countries, hopes of a redress as well as changes for the better are higher than Nigeria’s intractable despair. He won because he has an upper hand with that argument.

In Nigeria, we are not at war, but manifold events in the country do not make it look like we are at peace either. There are very many reasons to be mentally unhealthy in Nigeria, and the reasons unfurl daily in their disturbing ugliness. Since the beginning of 2022, there has been near zero electricity supply in most parts of the country, but the blitz of 2023 elections has taken over the discussions in the country. Discussions of 2023 elections are punctuated by news of violence killings in the South East of the country, the unrelenting violence in the North and the pervading fear of kidnappers, ritual killers and violent armed robbers across the nation. The icing on the cake of the troubles is the inexplicable economic woes that has kept the country perpetually in a vale of lamentations. All these inundate our brains as easily as they can get and thus torture our minds and mental state. We are not at war, but our mind is not at rest.

For instance, a cusory look at the 2023 politics from one angle would make some editors to recommend a one-word headline or title for this round of our quadrennial politics season: Madness! There are many reasons to resort to this thinking. The reasons are as similar as they are different, it depends on the portion of the divides you are viewing things from. But a common ground is that there more reasons to lump politicians into one whole bin or vat than not. When photos emerged of governors after their meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari recently, some people simply said: “May is for Mayhem.” The photograph is that of governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Mayhem was a word used by a concerned Nigerian to describe the governors’ forlorn but tired faces. They were thoroughly worn; and it looked like it was right from their frames to their minds. I think it was an indication of a meeting which either didn’t go their way or it was an encounter that did not go to plan for the states’ helmsmen.

Some guessed that they were told to go and rest because there would be no primary election to select the standard-bearer of the APC in the coming presidential election. Some contend that it was a meeting where the governors were told to stand down, and were also told to go and work for the success of the party irrespective of what their respective ambitions might be. It was a, overall consensus, a night of long knives, what some Yoruba refer to as ale ariwo (night of shrill cries). The comfortiing thing is that there is equanimity. That is for now… there are contentions that there would be a lot of schism in the political firmament in the coming weeks, beginning from today when Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would elect its candidate.

However, the overall consideration is that they are all fighting for their political lives. These gladiators should remember that ‘he who fights and runs today lives to fight another day’. The country must be alive to be governned. The people must be living to be able to act as responsible and responsive citizens. We all agree that justice is pivotal to peace. Let’s see jsutice flouriish and we would see peace dwell among us. Otherwise, millions of Nigerians would still not believe in the country and would wish they were citizens of other countries.