Year 2017 and the Committee of 127

IT is not my practice to go public with my predictions and prophesies. But those close to my chambers know that I have been making very accurate predictions and prophesies since over 50 years ago. Those with deaths hanging round their necks and those that would be governors and ministers up to 10 years after my prophecies and predictions have had my predictions actualised.

Nobody needs any prophesy about Nigeria in 2017. Morning shows the day as the saying goes and the morning for Nigeria has shown not only the day, but also the days to follow. The country or the landscape called Nigeria is in dire straits but unfortunately, all those who should know or are in position to do anything about the situation are merely chasing shadows. They are busy applying medication on craw-craw while their body is being swallowed up by leprosy. They are talking of fiscal federalism, restructuring, return to parliamentary system, state police and regionalism. The problem on hand of course is greater and more encompassing than all those details. The first problem is to dissolve the unholy alliance called Amalgamation and agree, if we must, to live together in a country to be forged. This implies that the peoples occupying the landscape called Nigeria have voluntarily agreed to create a country and live peacefully in it.

Let us go back to what 2017 portends. Readers may want to Google what I wrote for year 2016 titled 2016 will be tough and rough. That was my prediction, not prophesy on January 3 2016. 2017 shall be worse than 2016. Unemployment will double and suicide rate will also be doubled. More marriages will break up and single mothers shall face serious agonies and frustrations as there would be no shoulders to lean on. The media will experience their worst year ever as many newspapers and magazines shall fold up and a great number of brilliant journalists shall be forced to find something else to do. Radio and television houses shall lay off substantial number of their staff and many families shall be in disarray.

Banks and similar finance houses shall face serious threats and such threats will lead to many banks and financial institutions folding up. Naira will hit the roof at about 800 Naira to the dollar and import-dependent businesses shall fold up in drones. Many ‘Nigerians’ will try to leave the country but unfortunately, the Western world which itself is going through similar mess shall stiffen their immigration laws. A good number of students in tertiary institutions shall drop out because parents and guardians will not be able to pay fees. In similar vein, hundreds of thousands who shall be qualified to proceed to tertiary institutions shall be denied admission. Those admitted will not find fees to pay. The cumulative effect is that armed robbery and kidnapping will reach unprecedented heights and daylight abductions shall be common and rampant.

Anybody who thinks that these predictions are over-exaggerated are certainly ignorant of history. Countries that collapsed went through these stages, and we are on the very last stage of our collapse as a confused colonized entity that was put at the disposal of internal slave masters. There will be more agitations, demonstrations, confrontations, civil unrest, religious extremism, and clamour for secession in 2017. In fact this place called Nigeria shall be dragged to both the UN and the World court in 2017. The only thing that can save this place called Nigeria from going up in flames and tatters is the immediate composition of a 127 Safe-our-Soul Committee to address all issues dating from Year 1914!

For now let our president be a Visionary leader and a Man who will make history. He should for a moment forget that he is Fulani and belongs to the class of favourites to whom Lugard gave the tail of a tiger tied to the post. Our President should recognise this place called Nigeria as an entity in chains, and about to fall into ruins. Our President should be made aware, that is if he is not already aware that most of the nationalities that make up the territory called Nigeria are just waiting in the wings. They have their match sticks with them and are only waiting for the right moment to ignite the bomb of rebellion; Southern Zaria is a case in point while the indigenous people of Plateau are fed up completely.

Members of the 127 Committee shall be drawn from the six geopolitical zones with each zone supplying 20 people. The remaining seven shall be made of one each from the Bar, preferably a retired Chief Justice, the Media, preferably the oldest and most distinguished practising journalist, the Engineers, preferably a retired leader from that constituency, from the Military, preferably a four-star General that never participated in any coup, the medical profession, preferably a politically articulate senior member of the NMA, from the arts, preferably a renowned theatre practitioner, the National Council of Women Societies, preferably a former president of that body, and from the tertiary institutions, preferably an untainted former NANS/NUNS President. Labour shall provide the Secretary of the Committee.

The terms of Reference shall be [1] whether the nation states/nationalities/indigenous peoples that occupied/occupy the landscape called Nigeria wish to live together in one country and [2] in what form/format do they want to live together in freedom, equality, and justice and [3] Whether they want to retain the title/name of Nigeria. All the talk of corruption or anti-corruption, agriculture and famine, education; whether nomadic or sedentary, whether Quranic or Biblical and the fight against insurgency and terrorism, and all the other big grammar about structure and restructuring will only have meaning and relevance after, only after resolving the National Question.

In about two weeks time, and before Common Sense compels us to convoke the 127-member Save Our Soul Committee, let me welcome all of us to Year 2017 of continuous agony and suffering, continuous suicides and collapsed marriages, continuous mass unemployment and scarcity, continuous youth restiveness, continuous armed robbery, kidnapping and ritual killings; continuous celebration of large scale corruption and senseless and insane stealing; of more frivolity, perfidy and disloyalty and the total drowning of the helpless orphan, the Naira.

• Chief Adeniyi is a veteran journalist