Date Published: 03/26/10
MY FEARS FOR NIGERIA By AKANIMO SAMPSON
I HAVE a fear. A fear that desperate power seekers may subvert the current efforts to rebuild a country that was programmed into existence by the then British colonial power.
There are desperate horse trading backstage. Subversive elements are not even relenting in their desperation to abort the Goodluck Jonathan Acting Presidency. Local revolts in the northern part of the country manifesting as sectarian uprising are yet to be comprehensively resolved.
Similarly, in the south-western axis, the remnants of the Awo progressive political dynasty, are bent on short-circuiting the continued tenancy of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that has no clearly defined ideological leaning.
In the habitat of Ndigbo in the south-east, the Orji Uzor Kaluists are feeling betrayed by the emergent political leaders who appeared to have abandoned the political; tendencies of the Great Zik. The quest for self-determination in that region is finding a very hot expression on the platform of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). The Biafran movement is a mass machine of the Igbo youths who are fed up with the twisted Nigerian federalism.
From the creeks of the Niger Delta, the country's main oil and gas region, all is not well. There is an undying cry for socio-economic, political and environmental justice. In the back woods of the oil region, the local people are terrorised by the social weapon of mass destruction, abject poverty. There is no gainsaying the fact that the people are living on less than a dollar a day after 50 years of huge oil revenue to the Nigerian State. There are no education, healthcare facilities not to talk of roads, electricity and the like. With no jobs for even the university graduates, the restive youths have resorted to armed struggle to draw state attention to the worrisome human miseries in the area.
There is a low-intensity war at all levels in Nigeria. While the ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua cabal are fighting to hold on to power at all odds, the vast majority of the Nigerian people are confronted by hunger. The employable unemployed youths are confronted by unemployment. The young ladies of marriage age are confronted by no suitors. Pressed by the harsh economic condition, parents have thrown their wards into the streets to hawk for survival.
In the urban centres, workers whose income cannot foot medical bills have resorted to ile ogogoro for medicinal remedies.
The unjust system in Nigeria that threw up the Boko Haram in the North, the Massobists in the East, the Odua Peoples Congress in the West, and the insurgents in the Niger Delta, has turned all Nigerians into militants of sorts. Virtually every Nigerian is wild these days. Even the legislators throw decorum to the winds by exchanging blows at the least provocation. The feudalistic wife of Yar'Adua, Turai, is fighting dirty these days like a Lagos Area Girl.
Why must the electoral commission chair be answerable to the president? Why can't the Uwais panel report be implemented wholesale? What is wrong in organising a sovereign national conference of all micro and macro ethnic nationalities to design the type of Nigeria they want? Why can't the churches and the mosques be heavily taxed in a bid to halt the pollution? Why can't the immunity clause be erased in order to abort the arrogance of our supposed servant leaders?
I fear that the 2011 will be violent. I fear that the will of the political sovereigns will be subverted. I fear that politicians with the feet of clay will defect to other parties to cause trouble. I fear that there will unabated looting of the public till. I fear that there will be more Abacha-like capital flight. I fear that Waziri may not be able to wage an anti-graft war on a scale expected by citizens. I fear that David Mark and Dimeji Bankole will not be able to give us a credible electoral reform legislation that will flush out czarist politicians like them. I fear that prayer contractor clerics will criss-cross the political divide for jobs all for the sake of the naira. I fear that the royal fathers will not be principled. They will bless and endorse all manner of power seekers that come calling.
Need i say more? I fear for ASUU, for Jambites, for the market women, for the widows, for the police and the prisons. I fear for continued impunity, hunger, joblessness, prostitution, child labour, child abuse, injustices against women and the girl child. I fear forthe corruption of our armed security forces by agents of darkness.
Pardon me, please. I fear for Nigeria o. Can Jonathan and the civil society rise to the occasion? ENDS |
