Understanding the Contours of a Troubled Nation
By Moses Oludele Idowu
There are two dangers, mortal dangers, into which anyone of us can fall; and which we must avoid at all cost. The first is not taking Nigeria seriously. But the second is the worst: taking Nigeria *too seriously* that we allow events to bother us and dominate our personal space and consciousness and rob us of our inward peace. Most uneducated and ignorant people are prone to the former but the educated and enlightened and patriots usually fall for the latter. The great genius and intellectual giant, Professor Ayodele Awojobi made this mistake and it cost him his life. He took Nigeria too seriously and, as a consequence, it led him first to insanity, then to death.
Some Nigerians especially educated people and patriots have confessed in recent time that it is becoming difficult for them to cope and maintain their sanity and peace reading the headlines of newspapers or even on Social Media. And to be sure you can’t read our newspapers today or even stay for sometime on Social Media and not be troubled if you have a soul. This could lead to depression with terrible consequences. I nearly fell into that trap under Sani Abacha’s regime when I would just wake up in the night thinking about Nigeria unable to sleep. In this essay I want to give you a perspective by which you can gain an understanding, a different understanding of Nigeria. This would save you and your soul from disaster because more terrible news are still coming.
The noted journalist and celebrated columnist, Sonala Olumhense asked a question: Is Nigeria a game? Well I want to answer that question here in the affirmative although not in the nature of his own understanding. Nigeria is not a bush game that hunters go to the bush to hunt; I do not see it like that which is how Sonala intended in his essay. Rather Nigeria is a game in another sense – as a thing of sport, fun, entertainment, merriment and exercise or play for a trophy. Except that in this peculiar game lives, destinies and careers of entire generations are being carefully truncated, systematically destroyed and entirely wiped out. The dictionary has some interesting definition of a game as “an activity that one engages in for amusement.” It is for amusement and I can assure you that many find Nigeria amusing. To the generals who collect money for arms and pocket most of the fund without accountability it is a thing of fun. The oil subsidy thieves who told the grand master that he should end the subsidy regime because “they are tired of making money” also see Nigeria as amusement. The senators and lawmakers who take a killing of a salary and allowance for sitting less than a hundred days some of which he is absent, also find Nigeria an amusement. The venal politicians who warehouse the palliatives meant for the suffering of masses also find Nigeria fun and amusement. To all these Nigeria is fun, Nigeria is a game. And it sure is. In a game there are no consequences for losing because it is generally believed that this is thing for fun and amusement and entertainment. No one goes to jail for missing a penalty kick or failing to save a free kick resulting into a loss. In Nigeria too no one pays any penalty for miscarriage or looting.
Has any subsidy thief gone to jail for all the trillions of naira lost, of petrol imported into the country that Customs has no record of its entering into Nigeria? A ministry invited job applicants to Abuja stadium in which 18 citizens were trampled to death. Even the minister didn’t lose his job and the government did not cease to exist. Because in a game there is no consequence and Nigeria is a game. In a game you have two contestants or competitors, and judges and a large mass of spectators. In our own game too we have an Executive and a Legislature and the Judiciary who is supposed to referee them and a largely illiterate, disoriented citizenry serving as spectators cheering them and fighting each other for their sake. Unfortunately for Nigeria both the Executive and Legislature and even a substantial segment of the Judiciary belong to the same Team so they are not playing against each other but against the ignorant masses hailing them and defending them and that is being daily led gradually but steadily to Golgotha. Once you understand this concept and see Nigeria in this light many things will open up to you and you will understand Nigeria including what one Marxist scholar calls “the cyclical character of Nigeria’s ruling class.” Look at it again this way.
In a game you have different people and different activities. When a summer Olympics is coming for instance various things come into the minds of various people and organizations. The conglomerate and multinational prepare to get their products before the world to capture the attention of the world, the athletes go on extra mile to get ready to excel in their area, the hospitality industry put things in order to make maximum profits from the surge of crowds coming…the sex workers too for the expected surge in patronage. The same event, the same place, the same time but different expectations and meanings to different people. Nigeria is such a place; Nigeria is like that game. To some genuine patriots Nigeria is a nation that given the right climate and under the right leadership wll be great; to others it is a tool to achieve their ambition. To some others it is the bequest from their founding fathers to use for domination and to spread their religion and desert culture.
To others it is a clog in the wheel of their progress hindering them from achieving their own ethnic nationalities’ aspirations… Nigeria means many things to many people. Not every Nigerian wants Nigeria to succeed. Many people love Nigeria for their own sake and for the sake of their religion and only few people love Nigeria for Nigeria’s sake.A game when seen as a verb also connotes manipulation. Nigeria is also game in this sense as a theatre for endless manipulations. Everyone wants to game the system, eat from Nigeria and loot Nigeria. Everyone is involved in a game except that it is a game against the destiny of Nigeria.Shehu Shagari after his misrule in the Second Republic was kept under house arrest by the Buhari junta and they refused to try him. Governors who served under him were jailed for as long as 120 years while he and Vice President Alex Ekwueme were left untouched.
The people began to clamour for his trial. Nigerian Tribune in an headline “Shagari is due for trial”, which led to thd arrest of the editor and detention by that junta. Finally a panel was set up to try and examine Shehu Shagari. He was immediately vindicated and freed and acquitted. Here then is the tragic thing about it and I am revealing this today because of youths who had not been born or who were too young then. As soon as the verdict was pronounced the Shagari Defense Team jubilated, – expectedly so. Then the shock of the nation: even the Prosecution Team joined the Defense in congratulation and joyous moment in a way that suggested they might have been working together for the same answer. Only in Nigeria. They couldn’t even wait to disguise their intentions from the public. We all saw this on National Television. This was the kind of things that threw Awojobi into depression. He took Nigeria too seriously. Nigeria is a game. Those who are playing the game know what they are doing. The Defense and the Prosecution are the same people; APC is PDP and PDP is APC. Labour Party is simply the disaffected members holding the wrong end of the stick; those who lost out in the internal power games of the big league of the major players of the two leprous hands of a diseased body.
In 2010 Jacob Zuma invited Goodluck Jonathan for the World Cup Olympic tournament in South Africa. Off he went to South Africa which is at least understandable. But it doesn’t stop at that because Nigerians have a gift of excess, a genius for deconstruction. 62 senators ( about 56%) out of the 108 senators also left their jobs to follow Jonathan to South Africa at government expenses. Nigeria didn’t qualify for anything and is not playing for final yet a whole Senate nearly shut down because of going to South Africa to watch football. No other nation sent more than 6 senators for the tournament. Germany that qualified for finals didn’t send senators, only Chancellor Merkel and some officials went to cheer their team to victory. Nigeria has no team to cheer, no medal in view and no trophy expected; yet 56% of our senators went there leaving their legislative duties for entertainment. That is Nigeria; a nation where everyone is playing games. Everyone wants to game Nigeria for its own good.It was worse in 2012 at Summer Olympics in London. The Nigeria Olympic Village was a carnival of orgies and entertainment by people who were supposed to be representing their nation in a serious tournament. Every night it was parties galore – all night carnival and carousing. Even King Sunny Ade was brought from Nigeria to entertain people who were supposed to be sportsmen and their administrators.
Every night in other game villages of other nations there was planning, preparation and brainstorming to review the day’s performance and see how they could improve the next. But in the Nigerian Camp it was the sound of entertainment and merry- making as men who have lost their senses danced with women of easy virtues with costly wines under a regime when “stealing is not corruption.” How many medals did Nigeria win or bring home? Nothing. They left with plenty money, large delegation, made so much noise disturbing the serenity of London but nothing at the end. Just sound and fury signifying nothing. They knew they won’t win any medal and they must spend the money allocated to them or return it to the Treasury hence they started spending the moment they got to London. So much so that Hennessey wine gave Nigeria the trophy for being the largest consumer of its brand in 2012. That was the trophy Nigeria won, not the Olympic trophy or medal but the Hennessy medal for drinking. Which is why I am not surprised that this year, 12 years after that event Nigeria got nothing from Paris and 12 billion naira has gone to waste. More delegates than athletes some of who had to borrow items from their counterparts from other parts of the world. That is Nigeria.Did anyone suffer any consequences from the South Africa or London misadventures? None. And no one will suffer from the latest Paris debacle because in a game there is no consequence for failure and Nigeria is a game. That is the reason for the culture of rampant impunity for which Nigeria is now world famous.
The recent scandal is the Hajj scandal where N90b looted from Nigerian people through subsidy removal and tax payers by a government that has lost its way to pay for some select people to go to Saudi Arabia to stone Satan. And now the pilgrims are back with tales of woes and sufferings from the satans who administered their journeys in NAHCON. Ashayton is not in Saudi Arabia, he lives in Nigeria. He lives right here among you and in your hearts – leaders and led. Oh yes, satan lives right here with you and in your midst and inside you. You don’t know this? Satan is in your leaders, past and present, who put heavy yokes on the poor and the vulnerable without lifting it with their own hands; who asks for endless sacrifices from the people while they and their wives live in majestic splendour and unconscionable luxury and maniacal opulence. These are the real satans you should stone. Satan is your politicians who keep palliatives for themselves and cronies and watch hungry people in the streets dying of hunger.Satan is your occultic pastors who build their altars in human blood and human sacrifice thus denying the Message if the Cross and denying the Blessed One Who gave all for Humanity. Satan is your Alfas and Mallams who are so bigoted it is a wonder they still live among humans. It is one of such who said “a dead Muslim is better than the best Christian.” It is another of such who said a First Lady should be assassinated because she is a Christian. Fools, anarchists, illiterate bigots, enemies of God and men. These are the real satans, the ashayton that you need to stone if Nigeria will cease to be mere game and fulfill her destiny as a nation. They are here, not in Saudi Arabia. In one day bandits wiped out an entire battalion of soldiers in Niger State. Bandits stormed the capital and prison and freed their men from prison, took train passengers hostage for months and shot at a Presidential convoy under a government headed by one who is supposed to be a general of the Army.And what happened thereafter? Nothing. Now consider the opposite. Only the abduction of three Israeli soldiers on Lebanese border forced an emergency Executive Council that night. By the next day Israel with fury from land, sea and air, artillery and infantry poured into Lebanon leading to an invasion of another nation to bring those bastards to justice and bring justice to those who aid them. Just because of three soldiers none of which was even an officer! But a battalion was wiped out here and nothing happens. Bandits have sent citizens to IDP camps and living in their villages in Benue and Plateau State and it has not even merited a mention from the seat of power.
What is the difference? Israel is a nation, Nigeria is a game.Atiku Bagudu is being accused by United States of helping Sani Abacha to loot billions of dollars in the 1990’s as his budget minister. Though not convicted by any court but he is alleged by US Justice Department in an ongoing lawsuit before a Federal judge in Washington, according to William Clowes, of being part of a group headed by Sani Abacha that “embezzled, misappropriated and extorted billions from the government of Nigeria.” Now despite the fact that the new powers in APC were aware of this they still made him a minister of government. Possibly he is being brought into government to do for the new Hegemon of Bourdillion ( sorry, Aso Rock ) what he was alleged to have done for Sani Abacha. That is Nigeria – a game meant for amusement and entertainment. This is a government that says it will fight corruption. Every Nigerian government claims it is out to fight corruption except those headed by Babangida and Abacha. At least these were honest enough not to promise what they knew they would never deliver. That is why when the history is written Babangida and Abacha will have a better place than even Buhari with his self- deluded hypocritical self – laden turban of anti- corruption.What happened to the $12.4b Gulf Oil windfall? The Okigbo Panel Report is still in the Archive. Under Jonathan government loans were taken and Abacha loots returned that could not be accounted for in a time when oil sells for more than a hundred dollars per barrel. But anything could happen when “stealing is not corruption.” Under Buhari $3b loan from IMF was taken that cannot now be traced. What did Buhari do with N72 trillion?Quietly the CBN probe and investigation by the Tinubu government has been discontinued. It wasn’t meant to unearth anything.That is another aspect of Nigeria as a game. In Nigeria probes are not meant to unearth the truth or recover money but to douse public fury and temper public anger.Abacha set up the Okigbo Panel on the Gulf Oil not because he was interested in getting to the root or recovering money but to buy credibility against NADECO. As soon as the power was consolidated in his hands he jettisoned the report and took Nigeria on a new heist unknown to history.
Obasanjo did the same with Kolade Report on Abubakar regime. Under Yar’Adua andJonathan attempts were made to probe the $16b that was thrown into the bottomless pit of power. Buhari has done the same with Jonathan but what came out of the probes? Tinubu has also used this game to buy credibility and sympathy from people. Now that the power is firmly in his hands he has discontinued the CBN heist under Emefiele and how a whopping sum was squandered under that regime. Probes in Nigeria are not for fact- finding or to unearth any facts or recover money but to keep the public from excessive anger and irrational actions just as in a stadium you erect barricades to keep the public away from the main arena. NIGERIA is a game.It is not only about the leadership even the followership is the same. An elite that is bereft of a culture of honour, a youth segment that is disoriented and lacks any meaningful purpose except hedonism, religions that cater only to gratify self and selfish motives, a business class that is also out to game the system… These are the ones that reinforce Nigeria as a game. Who will save these ones? Who will teach them, unfortunate products of a wasted generation ; untrained and poorly trained and miseducated children of a fatherless generation? Consider this story which is fact from a post whose source I can’t remember and see how youths respond and what interests Nigerian youths. You know a people by what interests them.In a Big Brother show, a common favorite of our youths, an housemate was caught having sex with another. When this was posted it drew the following responses: comments (60,700), likes (100,300), shares (70,300)In the second case the news item that Nigeria Government signs power generation contract with Siemens of Germany to boost electricity attracted dismal response: comments (4), Likes (2), Shares (6)How about that? The sexual immorality and permissiveness on display attracted more response and reactions and passion than the solution to one of the major problems facing Nigeria on the quest for industrialization. That is the youths that Nigeria is railroading into the 21st century. Total number of votes at Big Brother in 2018 was, it is alleged, 170 million while the total number of registered voters that participated in the 2019 election is 27 million.Yahaya Bello was accused of stealing 80 billion naira of Kogi State money. Witness how many lawyers stormed the court to defend him? 500. That is another dimension of the game: out learned men.
A politician steals enormously and prodigiously he then hires a certain number of SANs to defend him or prevent his prosecution through all manners of alibis and shenanigans. That is the game in Nigeria. Lawyers put obstructions on the path of justice against their own Fatherland and their own people helping criminals to escape justice. That is the game in which we are all playing. Someone is thinking of tomorrow, there is no tomorrow with this kind of youths, tomorrow actually died yesterday. Unless the Mercies of God intervene Nigeria is a lost Cause. The only sad thing is that this is real and this will lead to the loss of lives and destruction of countless destinies because human lives are involved.I do not blame soldiers when they desert in the battle front or resign their commission. It is callousness to expect a man to fight without giving him the tools to do so. A soldier posted the food that was served on the battle front on Social Media, so bad that even people won’t give to dogs. These are the men we expect to fight to keep a nation together. Have you seen the kind of weapons our policemen carry? Compare that with the AK- 47 that terrorists and bandits wield. And you blame them for removing their uniforms and running away? Man’s first instinct is for self-preservation and you can’t blame a man for saving his life in a difficult circumstance. That is not cowardice, it is self-preservation. If Nigeria wants them to fight give them the required tools to do so.
Have you seen the Israeli policemen and women or the American police in formation? Which robbers would frontally come against them except he wants to commit voluntary suicide?
This brings me to the last aspect of this essay as I round up. Nigeria is a game and no one dies because of a game. As long as Nigeria is administered the way it is, as long as the rulers of Nigeria refuse to answer the real questions of nationhood: accountability, justice for all, equity, fairness, just and judicious distribution and redistribution of commonwealth, equality before the Law etc., it is a waste of lives to die for Nigeria. No one should die for a fraud. Human lives are too precious and too rare to waste on a game. Nigeria, as it is run and administered and operated today is not a nation; it is a game. And no one should die because of a game. I do not recommend it. That is not being unpatriotic; I want to serve and love a nation but a real nation not a mere plaything of the scoundrels and a toy of the hypocrites. If Nigeria were a real nation none of the men who have shot themselves into power in the last 20 years won’t even have a chance. And we have not seen the end of the decay and the debasement. The tunnel is darker through and through and who knows where and when?
The unfortunate thing is the world now know what I am saying here but they are too polite to say it to us. They know it is all fun. Only Nigerian officials collude with outsiders to defraud their own people and nation. A minister of government was expressly ordered to stop action on a contract because it was improper and beyond his statutory capacity as a minister by the Federal Executive Council; yet the following morning he went ahead writing on the letter head of Nigerian Government to commit Nigeria to a contract that she does not need. That has now become a case for international arbitration.
Everyone wants to swindle Nigeria, everyone wants to game the system and steal for himself. It is just as if Nigeria is in the hands of her enemies. We have had a government that took loans for which Nigerian people will pay to build roads and railway and bridges to other nation and in other nation. Enemy actions.
Contracts are entered into frivolously and without any thoughts for future generations, loans are taken and looted thus enslaving future generations to a life of penury and hardship.
But sometimes it backfires. The evil we do comes back to us too. People reap what they sow too. It is pleasing that it is an APC government in Ogun State that unilaterally cancelled a legitimate contract with a Chinese company entered by a previous PDP government that has now backfired leading to the seizure of three Presidential jets for which an APC Federal Government is now in trouble. At the rate it is going and loans are being taken and procured they wont come one day to seize the Nigerian Coat of Arms and even sovereignty.
That is why you should be careful about Nigeria. Don’t lose your peace or patience. This is indeed a trying time for the true patriots and nationalists. We are in a tunnel and it is dark and darker through and through. But it will not end this way. Something keeps telling me that this nation will survive her numerous enemies and keep her appointment with destiny.
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August 17, 2024
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