Nigeria is sliding fast. The people’s dreams are transfiguring to nightmares. The hope Nigerians once had has turned forlorn. Misery reigns in high and low places. Despondency has become the citizens’ lot. Hopelessness is driving young Nigerians into peril in their search for a more luxuriant pasture. They want to be anywhere but their fatherland. They believe in any country but their native land. In their desperation to bid Nigeria bye, they brave the hunger and the danger of the desert, the terror of Libya’s slave camps and the turbulence of the Mediterranean Sea. Many have lost their lives while searching for the elusive Golden Fleece. Many have lost limbs. Many have been turned into slaves. Yet more are determined to travel same path. Even those once rescued have returned to their land of slavery.
How shall we tell the President that our young men and women are losing faith in their fatherland? How will the President know that he needs to arrest this situation? Shall we send Alhaji Lai Mohammed? Or shall we ask Lauretta Onochie to tweet at him?
Perhaps the President does not know that our value system as a nation is being daily eroded by the corruptive inclination of his appointees. How shall we tell the President? Shall we send Katsina elders to him? Or shall we give the task to Colonel Hameed Ali (Rtd.)?
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo once bailed Nigeria out of serious indebtedness. His administration, after effecting part payment of the huge debt, got $18billion debt forgiveness for the country. But according to the DMO, Nigeria’s debt stood at N21.7trillion as of December 2017. Warning about the consequences of the debt-piling attitude of Nigeria, IMF last year said over 60 percent of the country’s budget goes for debt servicing. How shall we tell the President that our country is regressing into economic slavery?
How shall we tell the President that with merely 34 percent left of our budget after debt servicing, development will remain a mirage in our land? How shall we tell the President that racking up debts today is a recipe for a difficult time for future generations? How will the President get to know this? Shall we send Mallam Nasir el-Rufai or Alhaji Yahaya Bello?
IGP Ibrahim Idris flouted the President’s directive to relocate to Benue State after the gruesome killings by herdsmen in the state, yet the President was oblivious to this. After being intimated with this gross misconduct whose obvious consequence was more killing in Benue State, the President has been too genial to wield the big stick. Mass killing has become a daily occurrence in Nigeria, yet the President is either too busy to stop the killings or too timid to punish dereliction of duty. The President has been too engrossed in self adulation to hear the gush of Nigerians’ blood. Despite relentless bloodletting in the country, the President was so satisfied with his performance about securing the country that he rated himself better than Dr Goodluck Jonathan. But how shall we tell the President that this is not what those who voted for him in 2015 expected?
How shall we tell the President that those who trekked from Lagos and other places to Abuja to felicitate with him did not envisage this? How shall we tell the President that he is losing grip of the nation? Shall we send the First Lady or do we trek to Abuja to express our frustration?
By the government’s own admission, over 80 million Nigerians live in abject poverty, which makes Nigeria home to the largest concentration of poor people globally. In addition, over 10 million people are in need of food assistance. More people slide into poverty at an unprecedented rate in this country. While other countries are moving their people out of poverty, we seem to immerse ours deeper in it.
How shall we tell the President that he needs to save Nigerians from poverty? Who shall convey to the President the need to save our children from the pangs of hunger? Shall we send Musa Daura? Or shall we send Abba Kiyari?
Amidst all these, a survey showed Nigerians as becoming happier. Is this mirth in the midst of misery? Or is it what Fela Anikulapo called shuffering and shmiling? Can the people become happier when they are getting hungrier? Can they be happier when they are getting poorer? How can they become happier when their hope gets dimmer daily? Shall we tell the President before the government rolls out the drums in celebration of this report that the rating agency probably mistook the deriding laughter that trailed the announcement of dead people as chairmen of government agencies as a measure of the citizens’ gaiety?
