State of a Failed Nation (1)

by Taju Tijani
saraki

Today, we have to pull and push Nigeria on all sides. Today, we have to embark on flesh-and-blood distillations of the many aberrations pummeling Nigeria and making a supposedly great nation into a shithole.  Nigeria is a non-starter. 20 years of our democratic experiment has not scratch the surface of our long-running political, social and economic dilemmas. Where are the fixers? Where are the thinkers? Where are the rain makers who will bail us out of our profound inanities? Where are the prayer warriors who will deliver Nigeria from demonic oppression, arrest and control?

What is going on in Nigeria? What are the problems that have defied solutions? What is our ancestral sin? Twenty years after democratic governance, why are we back to square one? Why is majority of Nigerians becoming discouraged, despairing and hopeless? Why is it that every talk about Nigeria in the cafeteria, living rooms, classrooms and on the social media, is all about our evil, our wickedness and our cluelessness as a nation? Why is this massive absence of trust, compassion, kindness, care and love in a nation that has the largest churches in Africa?

Why are we forever fractured along tribal lines? Why are we quick to buy into tribal hatred, animosity and jealousy? Why do we generate polarities, contradictions, hatred and disconnections from one another? Why do we closed down every space for kindness, unity, harmony and selflessness? Why is the powerful muscling the poor and the weak? Why is might becoming the currency of social acceptance than gentleness? Why is money and the acquisition of humungous wealth the value that matters above anything else? Why is vanity and the ability to display more vanities among the rich, the elites and the looters more celebrated than intellect, public service and integrity?

Let us disinter these aberrations further. President Mohammadu Buhari, the leader of Nigeria, is today a hate figure. Call him a lame duck president you are damn right. Buhari has polarized Nigerians mainly on tribal and the deliverables. He sold the dummy of change to Nigerians. We bought it with glee, especially when it became the right thing to do after the darkness of PDP misrule of Nigeria for 16 punishing years. Collective hope translated into action when Nigerians voted out Jonathan and his brood of vipers who looted Nigeria dry.

Under Buhari, yesterday’s hope has turned into despair. He has tarnished his integrity with weakness for tribal clannishness. He has demonstrated his weakness for his Fulani clan. Nigeria is standing still under Buhari. He has been hampered by a tiny cabal who daily put fetters of chain on his hands. Under Buhari, looters are becoming bold to even accuse his government of incompetency. Yesterday’s thieves have regrouped to truncate his desire to fight corruption. The media have colluded with the looters and have turned their news platforms to looters to abuse, respond and dare the government of Buhari.

The war on insurgency and terrorism is in stalemate. Old claim of victory over Boko Haram has turned out to be fake news. Buhari will further deplete the treasury with a request for $1billion dollar to fight a rag-tag Islamic fighters who continued to shame the fabled might of the Nigerian Army. There is secrecy on the implementation of the war. Ex-General Danjuma has gone a notch further to think the unthinkable. He has accused the Nigerian Army of collusion with the enemy. There has been denial and counter-denials. The Army is miffed and challenged at the same time by the accusations.

The commander-in-chief, President Mohammadu Buhari in response to the collusion has made the biggest gaffe. Now, insurgency is being financed and insurgents are being trained from the grave by Gaddafi of Libya. The lies, the dishonesty and the misinformation of the Boko Haram insurgency is astounding. The integrity of the president is tarnished with this Boko Haram infamy and the herdsmen killings. Nigerians are reeling with unemployment, disease, illiteracy and social anomie, yet President Buhari wants to buy military hardware costing $1billion to fight a war he said has ended. Something is fishy about that request. There is even a popular sentiment that the $1billion dollar is meant for electioneering purposes and campaign. Buhari’s son had a mere motorcycle fall and he was flown to UK for treatment. This is Buhari’s moral quandary.

The National Assembly is a dissembling institution. That assembly has the greatest collection of corrupt, unpatriotic, selfish, cantankerous, arrogant, deceitful, scheming, money-minded and unrepentant set of revisionists you could imagine in our crude form of public politicking. Their body language, comments, deliberations, decisions and laws are firmly against the progress of Nigerians. Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, the president of the Senate, is the de facto ruler of Nigeria. If morality and high standards have always guide our politics and public service, Saraki will not be on that seat. Senators have little interest in the unbundling of Nigerians from poverty, illiteracy and social inequality. They are more voracious and vicious when it comes to swallowing money just like the celebrated WAEC snake that we were told swallowed millions of naira. We have hooligans in the National Assembly. We have jokers. We have ritualists. We have drug barons. We have gun runners. We have looters. We have sexual predators. We have unpatriotic and haters of the people among them. Buhari’s strongest and unrepentant adversaries are in the National Assembly.

Omo-Agege, an Edo senator, is suspended from the National Assembly. Why? This man stepped on the toes of powerful, unpatriotic and evil schemers who are planning to derail our democracy through wicked machinations. Omo-Agege, a pro-Buhari politician, raised alarm and a genuine concern that the plan to rejig the order of election was a way to short change Buhari and disfavor him in the 2019 election. Immediately, this man was gagged. The question now is this: Is Saraki and his cohorts running a National Assembly that censors dissent and disagreement? Omo-Agege’s suspension for 90 days is the embodiment of Saraki’s arrogance, his controlling spirit, his evil scheme and his blatant hatred for Buhari, the APC and the level playing field that is supposed to guide any form of democracy.

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