Let us forget our differences—Dr. Azikwe

Let us understand our difference—Ahmadu Bello

Let us understand the misunderstandings of our differences—AbdulBalogun Chukwudi

“Misunderstanding the understanding” can refer to a situation where someone fails to comprehend or interpret a concept, idea, or situation correctly, despite believing that they have understood it. This can occur due to various reasons such as cognitive biases, lack of knowledge or experience, miscommunication, cultural differences, or preconceived notions.

For example, imagine a person from one culture trying to understand a complex concept or idea from another culture. Even if they have the best intentions and have studied the concept extensively, they may still misunderstand it due to differences in language, values, or beliefs. This can lead to misinterpretations and miscommunications that can create confusion and misunderstanding.

Another example could be in a professional setting where a manager provides instructions to an employee, but the employee may not fully understand the instructions due to different interpretations or assumptions. The employee may then carry out the task incorrectly, leading to errors and inefficiencies.

In order to avoid “misunderstanding the understanding,” it is important to maintain open communication, clarify concepts and ideas, and be aware of potential biases or assumptions that may affect the interpretation of information. Additionally, seeking feedback and asking questions can help ensure that everyone is on the same page and that there is a shared understanding of the information at hand.

We cannot do the last paragraph above because elsewhere the police say freeze when they want to arrest you, but in Nigeria we say ‘hold it’. The people that say hold it are the same people that by the time you are reading this would have settled whether Vivor of Lagos is Igbo or Yoruba. They are the same group of people that will remind you that Murtala Muhammed was from Edo or one time Vice President Sambo is from Agenebode.

If you understand the misunderstanding, one time an Eboni man was told that he could not be governor in Enugu, same way Biance Ojukwu was once told by the family of Ojukwu she could not be a senator in Anambra state.

We are a people that are no different from our politicians, who are dealers rather than leaders, so it is difficult to understand the difference because we are consciously misunderstanding, no Minister’s kid is looking for a job, no governor’s brother is jobless. No local government chairman has an issue with getting his sister a job.

The political class don’t know that there’s no electricity, because Rimi road, Adeoye crescent, and Mbakwe close all have houses powered by big generators.

While we battle our misunderstanding, the fact is that we don’t understand the pain of a family who’s substantially monthly income goes to purchasing cooking oil (kerosene) or gas.

We believe that the earth is chasing us, so, where did we put our feet while running? I was once told that the fowl on a journey inside the basket does not know where it will end.

You need to understand the misunderstanding that the Nigerian dream, is that you steal much and even more because if you are caught, you need money to settle all the steps of the staircase, police, lawyers, and more. At the court you seek a restraining order and restrain anybody from arresting or investigating you. You pay a handful to protest that you’re being persecuted because of your faith or creed…do you understand or you are being misunderstood.

Stealing government money is no big deal; it’s a dream, after all we have erroneously insisted it is everybody’s money. If you do not want to steal you people would mock you, infact as you aspire, the past records of looting by your predecessor is packaged in phrases such as ‘see the house he built for his mother’, ‘how he buried his father’, and ‘he managed to build us a small clinic too’, ‘it is our turn’, ‘you must put our people in position’ and these are misunderstandings that must be understood.

The Nigerian dream is to have your cough treated in Germany, your kids school in heaven knows where, get all sorts of awards and titles, from the Baba Adini of Adiniland to a honorary degree from a one-storey building college in Maputo, that is after being knighted by one of the numerous churches, countless lesser and higher hajj, and it is all ‘you either understand or you misunderstand’.

The United Kingdom has a Hindu prime minister of Indian descent and a Muslim mayor of London of Pakistani descent. Jeremy Hunt, who is currently Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he was foreign secretary, referred to his Chinese wife as Japanese during a visit to Beijing to discuss post-Brexit trade deals between the UK and China. We do not understand that true diversity is about disrupting the status quo, not enforcing it with zeal. In Nigeria it is a different story.

How do we understand the misunderstanding in Lagos, the Igbo and Yoruba drama, as in the real deal is our dichotomy is not a subject within the shores of this nation that one talks about without understanding, it evokes a lot of passions from the heated arguments which it generates, everyone holding dear to their values, and idiosyncrasies. A lot has been written, on old perspectives likewise new viewpoints; after the elections, we go back into the cocoon and the differences remain and are not tackled.

In our misunderstanding we think as easterners, westerners, northerners, middle belters, all depending on the turns of event. In our sensationalism, we have in every sense approached most problems sectionally thereby creating all kinds of unnecessary petty-cultural-ethnic-religious-parapoism and bourgeois mentality in dealing with our national issues.

There is an ideology of hatred, one that props up again and again, Lagos in West, Anambra in the East, North vs South, Muslims vs Christians. This is a factor that reactionary elements within the system use in battling the progressives. The misunderstanding in the understanding, which really borrows a lot from bourgeois theories, which essentially is directed at confusing our intellect, like we try to argue within the parameters of “anti-class theory”, “theory of undevelopement”, “take off theory”, “theory of cooperation”, “theory of external push”, “end of ideology theory”, “convergence theory”, “the theory of the periphery in the periphery”.

Wonderful sociological concepts that do very little in helping us shift in the way of progress because only few theories work for us…”theory of corruption”, “theory of bad governance”, “chop I chop theory”, and “killing for god theory”, “WIKE”, “Obi, and Elu Pee theory”, “Balablu theory” and now the “BVAS theory”. Do you understand or you are misunderstanding me.

Interestingly and instructively when we fulfill the Nigerian dream like stealing, we have no religion, no tribe, no fights, all is good so long it ends well, we only fight when one attempts to out steal the other. It is the misunderstanding that we do not understand, and we never will until the ordinary Nigerian becomes the focal point, it will almost never work. The dream for a better, strong and virile nation lies in our hands. Sadly we are refuse to understand it, and choose to misunderstand the difference, we continue in our wild goose chase, till when—only time will tell.

The post <strong>Misunderstanding the Nigerian Understanding</strong> appeared first on PostNigeria.

abati1990@gmail.com

After the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections, now heavily disputed, Nigeria goes to the polls again on March 18, 2023 to elect Governors and members of state legislatures in 28 out of 36 states of the Federation. There would be no state elections in Kogi, Anambra, Ondo, Imo, Edo, Osun, Bayelsa and Ekiti which are in the off-cycle election belt. However, this weekend’s elections were meant to hold last Saturday, March 11, but the polls had to be rescheduled on account of the disputes that arose from the February 25 Presidential election and the orders given by the Court of Appeal acting as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal. Three political parties – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), acting in self-defence in its case, had gone to court to seek permission to be allowed to inspect the materials used for the election by the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) which announced the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as winner of the election with 8. 974, 726 million of total votes cast.

The Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubaar, and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party had challenged the results as declared by INEC. The court ruled in their favour on Friday, March 3. By Tuesday, March 7, the ruling APC and its candidate, now president-elect, also sought the leave of court to have access to the election materials. INEC also approached the court requesting that it should vary the order it gave earlier permitting PDP, LP, to inspect election materials, by granting it leave to reconfigure the Bi-Modal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS) ahead of the Gubernatorial and State legislature elections scheduled for March 11.

Counsel to INEC had told the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal that their client would need a minimum of five days to reconfigure the BVAS. As it turned out, the two other matters were determined on Wednesday, March 8. The court granted INEC’s request to reconfigure the BVAS, but it did not rule that this should have any effect on the March 11 date. The Court granted APC its prayers. But in yet another matter, it refused to grant the Labour Party its request to inspect the INEC data base, and oversee the reconfiguration of the BVAS. On its own, after a review of the Court’s ruling, INEC announced that “it was far too late” for the reconfiguration of BVAS to be concluded within two days in over 170, 000 polling units nationwide. Consequently, the Commission rescheduled the Gubernatorial and state Assembly elections till March 18. INEC promised that it would obey the orders of court: grant the petitioners access to inspect election materials, and also upload data to its back-end server and make Certified True Copies of same available to all parties in the matter.

It is now election week again, as Nigerians are expected to troop out this Saturday to participate in state elections. They would be doing so against the background of the drama generated by the elections of February 25. As various international observers have pointed out: Chatham House, Ambassador Mark Green, Ambassador Johnnie Carson, the US Observer Mission, Financial Times, Bloomberg, New York Times, South Africa’s Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), Reuters, YIAGA Africa, The Guardian UK, BBC, Chinese News Agency, Washington Post, Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, the African Union Election Observation Mission to Nigeria, ECOWAS, EU, UN, and the West African Elders Forum (WAEF) among others, the emergent consensus was that whereas the people of Nigeria showed much zeal and determination towards the polls, the entire exercise fell short of the people’s expectations. In other words, INEC disappointed the people. I have already offered a catalogue of the sheer incompetence and poor performance put up by INEC in an earlier commentary (see “Nigeria: February 25 and the Aftermath,”ThisDay, Tuesday, March 7).

Things have gone so bad that in fact the People’s Democratic Party led by its Presidential candidate and other party leaders had to stage a protest from the party’s headquarters to the Headquarters of INEC, on Monday, March 6.  They asked for a cancellation of the election, and submitted a protest letter. A week later, the Labour Party in a statement issued by its Chief Spokesperson, Dr Yunusa Tanko, is also threatening to call out its supporters on a peaceful protest to challenge INEC’s refusal to obey the order of Court to allow the party to inspect election materials. Tanko insists that the court order was duly served on INEC and a reminder was also sent to it. But whereas INEC is busy reconfiguring the BVAS, it has ignored other court orders. It has failed to keep its promise. Other political parties are aggrieved. It must be noted that on three previous occasions since 1999 that elections were postponed, Nigeria usually cited either security or logistics reasons: 2011, 2015, 2019, but in 2023, INEC’s excuse is that it has to reconfigure its equipment!

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Under pressure we wail under pressure

Under pressure black people under pressure

Under pressure nigerians under pressure

No food in we belly

No money in ah we pocket

No bed we lay we head

The people dem are suffer

In ah ghetto, in ah city

Everywhere dah me go oh

Me see them, some are cry, some are die

Some are weeping! Some are wailing!

Everywhere dah oh eh

Under pressure we wail under pressure

Under pressure everybody under pressure

Ras Kimono Under Pressure

You see the Nigerian looks upon Nigeria as a theatre and the entire population representing and manifesting the full spectrum of acts and actors. In this revelry, life is the theatre; the nation is the stage upon which we perform. The politicians and a few of us are the actors, very often mediocre. When stars appear, it is more often because a play must have a star rather than because the player is possessed of some dramatic genius. We saw it with Obasanjo, we saw it with Mr. Yar’adua, and with the shoeless one, we are seeing it with the soon-to-end Mr. Buhari. We falter and we muff our lines; sometimes our performance takes on an aspect of the grotesque-nobody takes this seriously because it is perceived as being the nature of the play. Our people become the audience.

I once watched with bemusement, a deaf and dumb boy who caught his mom with a stranger in bed. When his father came home, the poor young boy was at loss on how to communicate his discovery. After several futile attempts, the boy ceased trying. The father on the other hand patted him, walked into the bedroom and was scolding the wife, he asked her why she was sick, rolling on the bed and could not call for help from the neighbours or the family doctor?

I am not going to talk about the currency redesign brouhaha, because as good a policy it supposedly is, again it has exposed the gross behavioural nature of some Nigerians. The Central Bank, the Commercial Banks, the Bankers, the PoS Operators and the general populace are guilty of varying degrees of culpability.

And, then the fuel palaver, same one that once upon a time Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said: “This is the winter period. There is always more demand for refined products from petroleum during winter in the colder countries. This is what we are experiencing now.” Today, I guess it is winter in those places again. And at the black market, the usual trend, certainly high petrol price, unavailable and weak Naira, low minimum wage and increasing poverty.

Legislators neither here nor there, governors’ not sure where they stand. In all the noise the product disappears. Transportation fare increases, food prices sky rocket…a nation that has a disconnect between the ruled and its rulers, like the deaf and dumb boy, his mother, the stranger and his father.

Fact is, our currency wahala, and fuel palaver is not the government’s problem. What are we really subsidising, is it the high cost of energy or unavailable petroleum products. Nigerians are tired, hungry and not in protest mode. There’s no fuel scarcity but fuel criminality because leadership lacks will.

Where are the refineries promised, all gone with the wind called Turn Around Maintenance! There is no PMS in the fuel station but unregistered marketers/blackmarkers all have the commodity… a continued rationalisation and justification of absurdities like a commentator put it. It is even more disheartening when the intellectual effort and voice of elites are at the heart of such theatricals due to ethno-religious cleavages birthed on economic disenfranchisement.

Our major problem is the lack of leadership manifesting itself in every facet of our human endeavors. Some of these areas may be fixable in future if we get the right people with the right policies but how do you fix the future of the mass population of our children who are not getting educated today?

The future of Nigeria is bright, interesting, but scary if we reflect about it. Teachers are illiterate, students can’t go to school because schools are closed down and alternatives are unaffordable, the change is bleak…

The fuel management chain is a lucrative cankerworm of corruption, our banking system is not exactly different, a serious government can yet tackle it, it’s beyond committees and white papers. Its action, only action can stop the rot. Nigerians can, I believe we can but we don’t know that we can, doubt if we are ready.

The reason is simple…we are not just part of the problem, in some cases we are the problem, when Sunny Okunsun sang

which way Nigeria

which way to go

I love my fatherland

o yeah

I want to know

Yes, I want to know

I love my fatherland

which Nigeria is heading to

many years after independence

we still find it hard to start

how long shall we be patient still we reach the promised land

let’s save Nigeria

so Nigeria won’t die

which way Nigeria

every little thing that goes wrong

we start to blame the government

we know everything that goes wrong

we are part of the government

which way Nigeria is heading to

inefficiency and indiscipline

is ruining the country now

corruption here there and everywhere

inflation is very high

we make mistakes in the oil boom

not knowing that was our doom

some people now have everything

while some have nothing

which way Nigeria

which way to go

I end with this encounter, a politician was charged with profanity for calling an opponent a bastard: the politician retorted, “When I call him s.o.b I am not using profanity. I am only referring to the circumstances of his birth”. What is the circumstance of the birth of Nigeria, can anything be done to bring destiny and fate to conjure up some good for us all?

The elites are having a field day but each fleeting moment , three facts of life beckons, the rising of sun, setting of the moon and truth—Only time will tell.

The post Buying Naira with naira, rantings and musings appeared first on PostNigeria.

(‘A person is dead, but their spirit lives; if you poke the iris of their eye, they still come alive’)

Democracy has a dream-like character. It sweeps into the world, carried forward by an immense desire by humans to overcome the barriers of indignity and social suffering. When confronted by hunger or the death of their children, earlier communities might have reflexively blamed nature or divinity, and indeed those explanations remain with us today. But the ability of human beings to generate massive surpluses through social production, alongside the cruelty of the capitalist class to deny the vast majority of humankind access to that surplus, generates new kinds of ideas and new frustrations. This frustration, spurred by the awareness of plenty amidst a reality of deprivation, is the source of many movements for democracy.

Habits of colonial thought mislead many to assume that democracy originated in Europe, either in ancient Greece (which gives us the word ‘democracy’ from demos, ‘the people’, and kratos, ‘rule’) or through the emergence of a rights tradition, from the English Petition of Right in 1628 to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789. But this is partly a retrospective fantasy of colonial Europe, which appropriated ancient Greece for itself, ignoring its strong connections to North Africa and the Middle East, and used its power to inflict intellectual inferiority on large parts of the world. In doing so, colonial Europe denied these important contributions to the history of democratic change. People’s often forgotten struggles to establish basic dignity against despicable hierarchies are as much the authors of democracy as those who preserved their aspirations in written texts still celebrated in our time.

The large mass demonstrations that laid at the heart of these struggles were built up through a range of political forces, including trade unions – a side of history that is often ignored.

In much of the world (as in Brazil, the Philippines, and South Africa), it was trade unions that fired the early shot against barbarism. The cry in the Philippines ‘Tama Na! Sobra Na! Welga Na!’ (‘We’ve had enough! Things have gone too far! It’s time to strike!’) moved from La Tondeña distillery workers in 1975 to protests in the streets against Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship, eventually culminating in the People Power Revolution of 1986.

In Brazil, industrial workers paralysed the country through actions in Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, and São Caetano do Sul (industrial towns in greater São Paulo) from 1978 to 1981, led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (now Brazil’s president). These actions inspired the country’s workers and peasants, raising their confidence to resist the military junta, which collapsed as a result in 1985.

Fifty years ago, in January 1973, the workers of Durban, South Africa, struck for a pay rise, but also for their dignity. They woke at 3 am on 9 January and marched to a football stadium, where they chanted ‘Ufil’ umuntu, ufile usadikiza, wamthint’ esweni, esweni usadikiza’ (‘A person is dead, but their spirit lives; if you poke the iris of their eye, they still come alive’). These workers led the way against entrenched forms of domination that not only exploited them, but also oppressed the people as a whole. They stood up against harsh labour conditions and reminded South Africa’s apartheid government that they would not sit down again until class lines and colour lines were broken.

The strikes opened a new period of urban militancy that soon moved off the factory floors and into wider society. A year later, Sam Mhlongo, a medical doctor who had been imprisoned on Robben Island as a teenager, observed that ‘this strike, although settled, had a detonator effect’. The baton was passed to the children of Soweto in 1976.

The above ranting for me captures the frenzy in the lead up to the Nigerian General Elections next month, whoever it is one supports amongst the three musketeers, the fact is that not much will change because Nigerians still dey play… The Nigerian worker is at a crossroads, there is a potpourri, people who want to see real change. He is the one that will play a crucial role in the general elections by exercising his right to vote and selecting the candidate who they believe will represent their interests and address the issues affecting their daily lives. It is also important for workers to actively participate in election campaigns and advocacy for their rights to be recognized and addressed by elected officials.

Sadly, at the other corner, countless corrupt Nigerian workers are engaging in unethical or illegal practices, such as embezzlement, bribery, or nepotism, for personal gain. This behavior undermines the integrity of the workplace and can harm the reputation of the organization and in this case (the Nigerian state) and the individual. It can also negatively impact the economy and society as a whole. The government and private sector have a responsibility to take measures to prevent and address corruption among workers.

But we dey play, the POS Operator is charging 2K for 20K if you want the new currency, no matter  who wins the next election, we will remain the same, because Nigerians contribute to over 50% of their sufferings, like play we fundamentally exploit our crisis against the common man. The #endsars movement looked close but it lost steam and lacked leadership and as such the powers that be had loopholes to exploit and truth be told, we don’t seem ready for a movement.

Listening to Hugh Masekela’s ‘Stimela’ (‘Coal Train’), the 1974 song of migrant workers travelling on the coal train to work ‘deep, deep, deep down in the belly of the earth’ to bring up wealth for apartheid capital. I thought of the Durban industrial workers with the sound of Masekela’s train whistle in my ear, remembering Mongane Wally Serote’s long poem, Third World Express, a tribute to the workers of southern Africa and their struggles to establish a humane society.

– it is that wind

it is that voice buzzing

it is whispering and whistling in the wires

miles upon miles upon miles

on the wires in the wind

in the subway track

in the rolling road

in the not silent bush

it is the voice of the noise

here it comes

the Third World Express

they must say, here we go again.

‘Here we go again’, Serote wrote, as if to say that new contradictions produce new moments for struggle. The end of one crushing order will not herald a new beginning if we are not ready. It was the workers who brought us this democracy, and it will be workers who will fight to establish a deeper democracy yet. Here we go again, if February elections will change our play mode—Only time will tell

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The new president will be sworn in on 29 May and will be constitutionally mandated to manage Nigeria’s security governance architecture between 2023 and 2027. This election – the seventh since the country’s return to democracy in 1999 – will significantly impact policy direction.

Public safety and security in Nigeria are in a bad place – due mainly to the many armed groups active in the country. Over the past seven years, the government has invested over N12 trillion ($26.5 billion) in military assets, expanded the armed forces and focused on degrading violent extremist groups in the North East region.

Ironically, security has worsened in other parts of Nigeria: bandits and gangs are rife in the North-west; separatist agitators are causing conflict in the South-east; a herder-farmer crisis is ongoing in the North-central states; and urban violence is rife countrywide. Boko Haram’s two factions have expanded from the North-east to North-west and North-central states.

The corruption and abuse of security spending exacerbates Nigeria’s security crisis. Funds are provided to federal, state and local government officials to disburse at their discretion. Transparency International estimates that ‘secretive, unaccounted-for cash expenditures’ add up to over $670 million a year.

The new president must grapple with a broken state dominated by armed groups and socio-economic problems. This calls for a radical departure from old approaches. The drivers of banditry, violent extremism, kidnapping and other crimes must be confronted head-on through economic development plans that stem rising poverty and youth unemployment. The security and defence infrastructure also needs modernising, starting with police reform and better accountability in the military.

The current government has been criticised for presiding over Nigeria’s worsening security, but the top three candidates’ commitments mirror existing strategies. And the manifestoes of all three cover similar policy issues.

Mr Tinubu’s manifesto builds on the APC’s successes at the national level. He proposes extending ongoing security sector reforms by redefining Nigeria’s military doctrine and practice. He wants to upgrade weapon systems, establish anti-terrorist battalions, improve soldiers’ welfare and revitalise the forest and border guards. Mr Tinubu notes his security reform achievements as former governor of Lagos State as evidence of his abilities.

Disappointingly, his manifesto is not explicit on some of the most important issues. He fails to commit to the size of an increased police force and is silent on decentralising the policing system to allow sub-national units to own and fund their respective policing outfits.

Mr Tinubu does not take a stance on any of the following: using private security to protect national assets; how much of the national budget should be committed to defence and security; and engaging the armed groups driving Nigeria’s crisis.

The security proposal of the PDP’s Atiku is scant in detail and lacks action plans against banditry, terrorism and kidnapping – Nigeria’s primary national security threats. However, it does make some bold policy commitments.

Atiku promises to increase the size of the police force by more than 70 per cent in line with international standards. He also commits to strategic engagements with state and non-state actors, and to removing policing from the exclusive (federal) to the concurrent (federal and sub-national) list. Overall, his proposal is uninspiring and doesn’t present credible policy alternatives.

The manifesto of Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s ‘progressive alternative’ to the two established political parties, blends security, national cohesion and inclusive governance as a theme. This raises questions about his grasp of the severity of Nigeria’s security woes.

Mr Obi acknowledges that banditry, terrorism and organised crimes are central to Nigeria’s insecurity. His most significant commitment is the extensive reform of the Nigeria Police Force to allow all sub-national units to establish and control their own policing teams. Other proposals are vague and indistinguishable from the current government’s policies.

The three candidates agree on the multidimensional threats to Nigeria’s statehood and propose various interventions including police reform, better resourcing of security services, upgrading weapons systems, community engagement and economic empowerment. But they all fail in one area. None have costed their security plans or the investment needed to realise their manifesto promises. And this is in the context of Nigeria’s declining revenue.

This questions the viability of their plans. A registration drive has added 9.5 million Nigerians to the pool for this election, and voters will be swayed by promises on health, education and economics. But without a security revamp, improving these sectors will be difficult.

Given that the leading candidates’ proposals are inadequate on security, the next president must quickly review his campaign promises and prioritise comprehensive reforms that make Nigeria safer.

Oluwole Ojewale, ENACT Organised Crime Observatory Coordinator – Central Africa, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and Tosin Osasona, Senior Research Associate, Center for Public Policy Alternatives, Lagos, Nigeria

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One who believes that the earth is chasing him, where did he put his feet while running?

The Driver

Many years ago, I was driving back from Gombe, and on the highway was this public/commercial Opel car carrying 5 Nigerians. It was at ‘high’ speed, I overtook the car, blocked them in commando style and came down.

I asked the driver, “do you want to kill these passengers, is your speed check working…” and I turned to the passengers to scold them for not warning the driver.

Before I could finish, they descended on me, “Oga how e concern you, (what’s your business), get out of our way, bla bla and bla.”

I left them, jumped into my car and drove off, thirty minutes later in front of me was a ghastly motor accident, 2 dead, others with various degrees of injuries.

The driver survived, the car, totally damaged. Don’t ask me how I felt, and what I told the survivors. If I waited to help and all that emotional homily.

However, I can tell you that, between that stretch of road, were a couple of police checks, Federal Road Safety Marshals, so how they navigated all these with such speed to meet death remains the story of Nigeria, and before I forget to tell, there was no hospital of minimal standard, and the closest primary healthcare facility was not even good enough for description as a chemist.

The Gas Station

For a nation that was promising that fuel crisis ‘may be over next year’ in 1977, it is 2023 and we still have fuel crisis, and the unbelievable fact is that we have the same man, running the Petroleum Ministry in 1977 doing it in 2023, so with fuel scarcity for the hundredth time, this is the final corner in the long eight years that promised refineries, removal of subsidies, free market for energy products, and delivered none. And here I was at the gas station to buy PMS, and for the umpteenth time I noticed that only two of the machines were working, it was supposedly a “mega” station, and we know what mega means.

And that cost me an extra one hour on the ‘short queue’ (and yes I must say ‘short’) and Nigerians know what I mean. The two machines that were working had only two pumps with attendants, instead of four.

So, do the math if the four machines were working, that would be eight attendants, and yet we complain of lack of jobs. Do the math, and tell me how much I have lost in time and productivity, tell me the effect on my mental health.

The Bank

Similar to the gas station was the experience at the Bank, plenty of customers, and few tellers. The teller space was seven and only three were functional with humans. I refused to use my ‘bulletproof’ influence, so I spent 40 minutes in the bank for a six minutes transaction.Add that to the whole drama of new notes, you drop the old notes at the bank, and then use an ATM POINT and it dispenses the old notes again. We are the only country that gives deadlines on matters that are civil, fallout of decades of military rule and civil dictatorship.

Add that to some saucy and ill-mannered tellers. The reason for their frustration as much as they vary are clear for all to see, some have been tellers for years, and still on some very inhuman labour contracts that defies logic. They could serve us better, but how can they, when they work every day, 24hours away from the sack from an industry that declares crazy profits every year and the economy remains bad.

We are in the digital age, but the kind of fraud, and inefficiency that plagues our mobile banking is second to none yet our banking system seems to function better than our political and governance space because you could get a card that functions anywhere but cannot get a voters’ card in the same manner!

My neighborhood

If you have lived in the North, we call it ‘angwa’. 

In my hood, my street, my angwa, there’s no water, and yet my house overlooks the water management board saddled with the responsibility of providing potable water (sic), the roads are bad, and the security is best described as ‘hmmmm’.

The two DISCO transformers are often vandalized, local crooks break into houses when you leave the house without a living being or at least a dog, they pick items and the trauma of coming home to a vandalized home is better imagined than experience.

We blame the National Assembly, at the local newspaper shop we argue about the merits of that presidential candidate and the other gubernatorial candidate, and demerits, and yet we are saddled with all the problems of the angwa.

We are simply blind to the problems under our noses.

Finally Whose Business

In the case of the driver, the road was not exactly bad. But he just would not obey the speed limits, he lost control, two lives were lost, he was reckless, it really was not the government. It was our business, not the government. Not Nigeria but us.

Maybe the Road Safety’s presence on the highway could have helped, maybe available/functional speed cameras would have saved those two lives and the carnage.

But the truth is, if the passengers valued their lives, and been responsible, a collective caution from the five passengers could have done it.

Their lives as Nigerians was their business.

In the gas station, and bank, the key issue was ‘us’. From investigation, both were cutting costs, they refused to employ more hands. It was about profits at customers expense. It was about greed, not Nigeria.

For all the blames we put on the government, we are the government. The enterprise called Nigeria is our business, not some folks in Abuja or state governors (both those that stay in their states, and those abuja and foreign investor nation based governors).

If my angwa is to have good roads, it is the council man/woman, chairman/woman, state legislator who should be liable. It is about a small conglomerate of leaders close to me. It’s our business not some ‘bullet proofers’ far away. 

We can’t change if we are not the change we want. There can’t be change if banks can’t treat customers right. When gas stations cheat by a litre, by two/three naira. When banks charge some phony verve enhancement fee amongst many mysterious charges.

We can’t complain about the government in Abuja when we don’t know who our ward councillor is, when we have never confronted local government leaders. When governors are alleged to be corrupt, we keep mute because they are our kinsmen, and when they are confirmed looters we say leave them because we are of the same faith.

How many times have we boarded a vehicle and the driver insisted on two in front instead of the mandated one. Did we complain, and insist the right thing be done.

Have you contributed towards your local security by calling locals to enforce certain simple rules. We are the government, so Nigeria should be our business.

We pray to a Christian God at the beginning of a function, and close the same with a prayer to a Muslim AILah and then in the same function discuss how to steal because really it’s nobody’s business how anything is run. 

It is not just leadership problems that worry Nigeria. No, it’s the problem of you, me and us. The ‘you’ that becomes a Minister and suddenly you need a bulletproof car, and you get two. We are plagued by our lack of simple ethics. We are willing to offer a bribe even when not asked, because often than not we are guilty until presumed innocent. So we blame our ineptitude on every other person but us.

When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich… we are not there yet, to treat Nigeria as our business, and not some prodigal orphan, we may be just going round in circles, as it is, we are just a people with some personal interests, for now, is there a Nigeria, and whose business she is, remains a question–only time will tell.

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By Prince Charles Dickson Ph.D.

It all happened in one day. One day he could choose his tee time at the nicest golf course in the country; the next he couldn’t even be the caddie. One day he could Learjet across the country to see the heavyweight bout at the Las Vegas Mirage. The next he couldn’t afford a city bus across town.

Talk about calm becoming chaos…

The first thing to go is his empire. The market crashes; his assets tumble. What is liquid goes dry. What has been up goes down. Stocks go flat, and Job goes broke. There he sits in his leather chair by his soon- to-be-auctioned-off mahogany desk when the phone rings with news of calamity number two: the kids were at a resort for the holidays when a storm blew in and took them with it.

Shell-shocked and dumbfounded, Job looks out the window into the sky that seems to be getting darker by the minute. He starts praying, telling God that things can’t get any worse… and that’s exactly what happens. He feels a pain in his chest that is more than last night’s ravioli. The next thing he knows, he is bouncing in an ambulance with wires stuck to his chest and needles stuck in his arm.

He ends up tethered to a heart monitor in a hospital room, his only companion the beeps and alerts of medical machines.

Not, however, that Job lacks for conversation.

First there is his wife. Who could blame her for being upset after the week’s calamities? Who could blame her for telling Job to curse God? But to curse God and die? If Job didn’t already feel abandoned, you know he does the minute his wife tells him to pull the plug and be done with it.

Then there are his friends. They have the bedside manner of a drill sergeant and the compassion of a chain-saw killer. A revised version of their theology might read like this: “Boy, you must have done something really bad! We know that God is good, so if bad things are happening to you, then you have been bad. Period.”

Does Job take that lying down? Not hardly.

“I’m not a bad man,” Job argues. “I paid my taxes. I’m active in civic duties. I’m a major contributor to United Way and a volunteer at the hospital bazaar.”

Job is, in his eyes, a good man. And a good man, he reasons, deserves a good answer.

Job reminds me of the Nigerian security personnel, in whatever uniform, and service to the nation, Job’s life echoes it, a group of people who deserve our praise, our compassion and more, and despite the bad eggs amongst them. How do we really treat them, on this year’s Remembrance Day, do we remember them?

Nigerians are short fused, they learn slowly and forget very quickly, we are never fixated on any real problem, we either never remember or we choose to totally forget, a country of scattered rains, with no staying power, to push through an issue or go through substance, our strength or determination to keep going until we reach the end of any matter is lacking. Everything is about one narrow leaning or the other. And may I again state a people that major in minor and the reverse…

Our case like the, “Mocking bird, you are accused of insulting the king.” It asked when would it have time to insult the king, seeing that it must sing two hundred songs in the morning, two hundred in the afternoon, and two hundred at night, mixing it all up with some frolicsome notes?

Reporting on the 22 of November 2018, News agency Reuters quoting sources said that Militants killed around 100 Nigerian soldiers in an attack on an army base. The insurgents attacked the base in the village of Metele in north-eastern Borno state, the epicentre of a revolt by Boko Haram and its Islamic State splinter group.

Four years earlier, it was Kabiru, and on this occasion it was Lt. Col. Sakaba and other gallant soldiers. And this January 2023 twelve security personnel (7 Civil Defenders) paid the price at the Kuriga mining site in Birnin Gwari LGA of Kaduna State.

Before I go far, let me say that in all the battles and warfronts, the Nigerian armed forces, the police (which these days are awol), the Department of State Security, Civil Defenders, Prisoner Officers and other security personnel have been compromised. There are moles, double agents etc, so a hard task is made even harder.

As these men are killed their kids are left without a father, loving wives are widowed, parents lose their sons. Families’ grief, the nation is losing humanity but we care less, choosing to focus on the feisty irrational hateshop of a “general election”. I recall when Col. Salisu was killed, as a Muslim, on his phone the status read—The originator of heavens and earth. When he decrees a matter. He only says unto it. “Be-and it is”. If only we know this singular fact.

Men who already fatigued, spending countless days on combat uniform. We might say they signed for it, but these are the heart of our security apparatchik being cut off in their prime.

Strangely I dare say because many of us never knew these fine gentlemen, soldiers and officers. We just don’t care much.

Many of these men loved their job, and loved the nation. They have paid the ultimate price, Muslims, Christians, pagans inclusive…they died so that you and I reading this can live.

I have been opportune to see how poorly armed these men and officers are. Yet they fight on, we have issues of poor allowances; we have reported delays running into years before benefits are paid to families of deceased officers. As it was ala-Jona, not significantly much has changed with the Buhari era, and the next one and next one…

It is rather sad that in the midst of all these killings, Nigerians are battling each other along religious and ethnic lines. Like the Mocking bird making unnecessary excuses and noise.

I would end with these words on marble by late Alh. Nurudeen Lemu, of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs “Every ethnic group is an oppressed minority somewhere. Every group is a religious and ethnic minority somewhere. Every majority or settler is an indigene somewhere. In one way, we are all settlers; we just don’t remember where we came from or why we came. But ultimately, we are all visitors to this planet, from God we come and to Him we return.”

Again, “On behalf of a grateful nation, the family of all those wardens that were shot during prison breaks, DSS officers that were killed years ago in Nasarawa, that dude that was killed in Niger, the ones that were killed in Taraba, Col. Kabiru, Lt. Col. Sakaba, Civil Defense personnel and all our gallant troops who lost their lives in the line of duty, service of the nation and protecting people of Nigeria- please accept our deepest and most sincere condolences and know that the entire nation is with you in this dark hour and that we will never forget your loved one’s honorable and faithful service – thank you…for your efforts—time will tell.

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I don’t have enough time to live my own life!

I reached this conclusion after trying to follow all the advice given on a morning news show one week in January. It seemed like a smart way to start my day. I figured I’d tune in, get the forecast, learn the headlines, and maybe hear a celebrity interview. I wasn’t expecting all the show segments telling me how to live my life better because it is the beginning of the new year and all those rituals that we often engage in the dance of new beginnings.

Most of these segments offered the promise of deliverance: “Financial Freedom Is Closer than You Think” or “Four Secrets to Better Communication.” Others, I decided, were designed to scare the socks off of me: “Food that you should not eat this year” “Six Health Risks Every Person Faces” or “Thieves You Cannot See — Avoiding Identity Theft.” Motivated by this combination of hope and fear, I compiled a to-do list of ways to improve my life and its management according to the experts. The more I listened, learned, and listed, the more behind schedule I felt.

The topics on my list ranged from health maintenance to home maintenance to car maintenance. I was informed I need to eat certain foods every day: four veggies, three fruits, two proteins (preferably chicken or fish), and I think a partridge in a pear tree. I also need to get enough fiber, calcium, Vitamin D, B, C, and Beta-something-or-other. This is Nigeria, if you have the time, you won’t see the fruit, fiber, veggie, and if you find anything at all, you won’t have the money.

I need thirty minutes of cardio a day (but apparently with the right exercise product this can be done in ten), fifteen minutes of strength training, and ten minutes of stretching. Plus, some extended time for meditation so that my body and mind could align. I’m told a germ-resistant mat is needed for that. I need to bust my stress, nurture my creativity, and improve my posture. And I am getting old!

I need to pay attention to my finances. Save and invest. Spend frugally — yet somehow also buy the cool gadgets they review on the show.  I need to check my credit report regularly. Shred important documents. Back up my computer. Meet with my financial planner. And read the information that comes with our kid’s (underfunded) college fund as we pursue scholarships. That, by the way, depending on the school, comes in pages of legal and financial mumbo jumbo in eight-point font, single-spaced. I suppose I need to meet with my attorney to understand it. And that creates two prerequisite tasks to add to the list: find an attorney and find a financial planner. In Nigeria all I mentioned is a luxury, only the rich, high and powerful and in some cases sensible dudes may have this, not every Sule, Emeka or Abiodun has a CFP, a CPA, and a JD on speed dial. I am myself running a few debts neck deep and Nigeria is!

The list continues…

Change my oil every 3,000 miles and my transmission fluid every 30,000. Test my smoke detector batteries biannually. Change my air filters every other month. Replace my toothbrush every three months. Flip my mattress every six. Buy new pillows every three years — I think this is for my posture, but it could be to get rid of dust mites. Check my skin for irregular moles. Check my yard for moles too. Weed and feed the lawn each spring. Grow houseplants to cleanse the air. Save last night’s roasted chicken bones to make my own chicken stock for the pups at home from the last yuletide. I may buy undervalued international stocks. Sell some before it drops. And prepare for the next possible Nigeria made, facilitated disaster.

Fertilize, amortize, floodrize, maximize, scrutinize, ethnicize, religionize, politicize. Suddenly I realized: I don’t have time to live my life!

Looking at the list of things I was supposed to do to live my life right, or well, or whatever all this was going to do for me, I felt defeated. The list that was going to improve my life left me overwhelmed. In my moment of defeat all I wanted to do was go surf. ’Course the list said I should put on a high-SPF sunscreen and take along a BPA-free water bottle to keep me well hydrated. Filled with filtered spring water, of course.

This is the story of Nigeria, sadly we are not likely to do any, from the simplest such as changing toothbrush every other three months would be a herculean task, because we have made a meal of even conducting the next general elections over a few weeks, Automated Cash Cards would get to the remotest part and is made available in a day, and polling stations would be at every nook and corner but franchise legitimacy taken away from Nigerians by all sort of bulabalo.

In search of a new beginning, Nigeria has no time, the country is not even committed to one small change at a time, especially if we are to pay N77trillion and with an election year, in which seemingly every advertisement, social media post, or well-meaning loved one is quick to remind you how your PVC is the only way to refresh, a restart, a rebrand for Nigeria. We are simply suffering a “fresh start effect.” When the slate is wiped clean in any capacity, people feel more compelled to conquer a challenge. The Obi effect, the Tinubu blues or the Atiku union, whichever one, our Nigeria has a bad rap for being notoriously unattainable to get it right, you recall the no-shoes effect, or the body language syndrome. What challenge do we desire to conquer, do we have time?

Who will help Nigeria navigate a people that aren’t great at sticking to changing anything, not because we don’t want to but because we failed to understand that the process we take in reaching the goal holds more weight than simply making a choice to change.

We have very little time to make meaningful, value-driven resolve that we want to change direction, Nigeria has no time and in a twist of irony we have time, it is a case of when—Only time will tell

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Someone who has sold an old woman before knows the price of an old man

Yes, like Prophet Jeroboam, of Wole Soyinka’s famed Jero Plays, I danced, with eyes closed and spoke in tongues not known to me and ask the higher powers what is in store for Nigeria, the clouds I saw were misty, it was moving like this and like that and ghen-ghen.

I saw that Nigeria will not break, Nigeria will not fail or fall, because it already has. We are not united, but we are one in corruption, one in greed, one in maladministration and misgovernance. And very well united in our religious and ethnic brinksmanship.

The year 2022 was a long year, a year that a lot of us want to forget for so many reasons and others would not forget for the obvious reasons. But either way what more can we do than be happy that we were finally able to navigate it somehow. There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic this year as well as a lot to be pessimistic about, a lot of us would be watching with an eagle eye as events unfold towards the General Elections, on the international scene the drama would certainly continue from where it stopped last year.

This essay would be a thrust of all I expect would be confronting us this year as a nation and as a people, it would be a confabulation of issues that if tackled can take us closer to the promised land and if neglected as usual will only be ingredients for disaster and a continued slide towards doom. And the signs show that the latter is inevitable!

We again from the beginning of this year will be battling against poverty, of the mind, of pocket and of sensibilities, despite seven years of reforms by the the outgoing Buhari administration, we would still remain one of the poorest in the globe, despite our natural and human resources, due to human mismanagement we would be battling to sustain meaningful development, and growth that is equal to the expectations of our people.

With the emergence of the Obis, Tinubus, Atikus and co., again though subtly we will still be concerned about tribal sentiments, ethnicity, religion and thus to a large extent none of or few of us are thinking nor discussing meritocracy. Around these three evils and many more we are likely to be subjected to more of political irresponsibility, rascality and political arithmetic that further alienates the rulers from the ruled.

We shall again be fighting against negative statistics of reality, we still are likely to remain one of the poorest, the statistics would be against us, whether corruption, malaria, we will still remain and continue to feature amongst nations with the worst badly run economies, a lot of ghen-ghen (events of crazy proportion) would occur.

We are insecure as a people, we are once more going to be constantly dependent on others after 63 years of paper independence, despite all that really and imagined rice pyramid, the rice we eat would still come from Thailand, any land but not our land, our drugs both fake and original, we have India, Germany and co. to thank for them.

This year, will we be able to make sense of our economic policies both micro and macro with currencies that bleach when washed mistakenly in a jean, while we say alhamdulillah for Innoson motors, our cars, computers, clothing, ball point pens all from obodo oyinbo. Will we shed off the skin of a nation that is full of contradictions, a nation of millions of school leavers without jobs, a nation of millions sick with curable diseases and ailments, a nation yet blessed with fertile land, with intelligent men and women in abundance. But being punished by a handful of crooks called leaders, being ruled by a collection of mediocres. A nation where amidst these poverty a man would steal billions.

The issues that stop us from attaining nationhood again would include the fact that we are all hypocrites, constantly waiting for any opportunity to better Judas Iscariot in the act of betrayal, go ask Wike, Atiku and Co. Topmost is, we shall again see leaders who grew up in Oshodi, schooled in Oshodi, lived there all their lives and get elected to serve Oshodi, and first thing on their card would be a familiarization tour of Oshodi. Our Leaders would still be exploring all means and any means necessary to steal from us.

With looting, corruption and insincerity, the ball again would be played on the pitch of underdevelopment and to think otherwise would be deceitful. In a world experiencing a time and season of global recession, our cry would still be trying to catch the Asian Tigers, even West African puppies have gone too far for comfort. Our life expectancy would likely drop further, even as more roads are likely to be unmotorable. We shall lose more kids at birth due to lack of infrastructure while leaders and the affluent treat their stomach disorder in Paris.

More children would fail their qualifying exams especially with all the strikes of the preceding year. With less than 50cents a day, only the Almighty and our perseverance can keep us going.

We shall suffer the rule of idiots, because sages are kept in dust bin, maybe we will have exceptions here and there in shaa Allah, but again, it is going to be like it was, while Tafawa Balewa wanted to be a broadcaster, the powers that be thought otherwise, Yakubu Gowon was not intellectually, psychologically, temperamentally, ready but the oligarchy said it must be him. Then we had an all-knowing Obj in his first coming who was forced on us by Danjuma, Shehu Yaradua and co.

In Shagari it was no different, as the man that wanted to just be a Senator, a man that was not even at the Row Park venue of the NPN primaries emerged as winner without his consent, he was not even aware that his name was on the ballot. In 1998 fresh from prison, the Baba of Aso Rock had asked “how many Presidents did Nigeria want to make of him” but we did not listen. We witnessed a crying Mr. Buhari, who says he cannot wait to leave, has done his best whether it is good enough will be debated, because after all the shoeless one before him from Otueke is revered now.

The Emilokans, Unifiers, and Obidients, men who crave it with the exception of one. These are the specs that we have to navigate this new year. INEC would be in the eye of the storm, as well as the Police, the ruling APC, PDP,  the G5, EFCC, and many ruffians that the government has created. 

Things could be better, Nigeria can be great if only these institutions, if  men and women of goodwill, can take the bull;  if only you and I can make a concerted effort at being right in our own little way and fight in our own small corner.

The nation must emerge or else we are wasting time again, we must fight for liberation from tribal loyalties, ethnic jingoism, religious parapoism, monetary godfatherism and many more. We will have to move a ladder up from hope and expectation to reality.

In this New Year, we have to move towards a Nigeria, with Nigerians, we either continue the self deceit and watch the nation crumble like cookies. As I welcome us into this new year let me say that this is our nation, we are the only ones that can stop the drift, people that claim to love us are few, many nations are watching and waiting. Let us remember that we cannot continue to massage the ringworm and leave the sore. Almighty Allah we as a people thank You for a New Year and ask for the best, but are we working towards it—Time will tell

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A sheep was passing and saw a lion crying inside a cage trapped, the lion begged the sheep to rescue him with a promise not to kill and eat it, but the sheep refused. After much persuasion and for the sheep’s gullibility, it opened the cage for the lion.

Now the lion was very hungry having stayed in the cage for days without food. It quickly pounced on the sheep and was about to kill and eat it, but the sheep reminded him of his promise.

They were still there arguing when other animals came passing and they sought to know what happened. Both the lion and the sheep narrated their own side of the story, but because of fear and in trying to gain Favour in the sight of the lion, all the animals took side with the lion except the Tortoise who claimed not to understand the whole scenario.

Now the Tortoise asked the lion to show them where exactly he was before the sheep rescued him, the lion pointed at the cage. Tortoise asked again, “were you inside or outside when the sheep arrived”? The lion replied, “I was inside”.

The tortoise again asked, “Okay, enter and let’s see how difficult it could be inside because I’m not getting the whole scenario”. The lion entered, and immediately, the tortoise locked the cage. The lion was now trapped!

I will come back to this story before I end.

I don’t complain about politicians, partly because, truth is where do politicians come from, they don’t fall from the sky, they come from Nigerian parents, homes, churches, mosques, schools, universities, businesses and they are elected by Nigerians, it is the best we have to offer, if you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you are going to have selfish, ignorant leaders.

Nigeria is in a conceptual crisis, there is a potpourri of country, state and nation, so, this is it, a country is a territory, it is not necessarily a nation, on the other hand, a nation is an association of peoples, that captures diversity, they are captured and identified by their shared core values, on the strength of that they establish a constitution, and that creates institutions that make up the state. Because they are the state, states derive her power from them.

Sadly, we have a confusion, we think the nation is the state or reduced to the state, we have a country quite alright but there is no nation, we have institutions that collapse nation into the state, and power is in the state, a wrong notion, which takes power away from the people. The state is the person rather than institutions that are a derivative of the constitution that is representative of the people.

What are our core shared value, what binds us, how are unified, what we have is a state held together at gunpoint, the reason we have all the agitations, the state is stronger than the citizens, we are moving in the wrong direction, so how can we move. We have no shared core value, Infact there are no values, except we talk about football whose ‘god’ presides over many of the affairs of Nigerians.

The state is oppressing the citizens, and if the people don’t have the power, we are not practicing democracy, because until we have people power, everyone can get away with whatever they do. The rhetoric of one Nigeria, or the muscled narrative of the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable is like the politics of printing a multiple-colored Naira at the price of a dual color dollar. People have shed their blood and died for Nigeria yet we are still stuck in the gimmicks of un/de/tribalized jingoism, our intelligentsia is more riddled with solving problems we don’t understand and refusing to address the minor issues.

Irritating questions such as who is a Nigerian, what is Nigeria, how is Nigeria, bedevils us, as we have a country, a territory to be proud of but indeed no nation, an empty shell, no engine. We have built nothing and wonder why we have built nothing. For example, on the strength of salt, a wrapper and tee shirt a leader emerges and in many a better case political oratory from clowns who rather than belong to the country have much of the country belong to them is the case.

Our case makes me ask, would you rather be rich in a poor country or poor in a rich one? My country is one that has defied logical measuring.

Back to my story—

In amazement, the other animals asked the tortoise “why” and the tortoise replied. “If we allow him to eat the sheep today, He will still go hungry tomorrow and we don’t know what will be eaten tomorrow.

Without shared values, we will still be food for the Lion because, unlike the benevolent sheep, the many Nigerians who really want to be Nigerians, who think, eat, sleep and wake Nigeria are perpetually beset on all sides with realities that; Okay, I am Nigerian, and the real issue aside many little squabbles in the 2023 General Elections is which part the President comes from and the faith combo of himself and his running mate.

In Benue, it is the Tiv versus the Idomas vs others, in Kogi it is the Igbiras versus Igalas, in some cases it has even degenerated to no Catholic has ruled our state, and in others we cannot allow the Muslims to continue.

None of these debates has brought the much-needed development for a nation because the values are mundane, it pitches us with a very visible structural divide.

Because we are structurally deformed, and not a nation, moving forward cannot happen, we need to go back and enquire of the ‘gods’ where the rain started and until then, there will be no forward as we continue to check how many SE, SW, SS (which by the way is an anomaly), NE, NW, NE are on a list before we check whether they are qualified. We still suffer a COVID19-like disease called Federal Character in a characterless state, still plagued by terms such catchment area, and educationally disadvantaged (by who abeg)

We pride ourselves by our state of origin, yet are minorities in many cases in the so-called state. We debate which region is poorest, and which feeds the other. A nation of an elite and intellectual class that lacks critical thinking and so require as a matter of urgency to lock back the lion and decide what needs to be done about Nigeria, we cannot move forward while on the wrong path, are we ready to retrace our steps—Only time will tell.

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