By Gbenro Olajuyigbe<\/p>\n
That Nation is worthless which does not joyfully stake everything in defence of her honour\u2019 \u2013 Schiller<\/i><\/p>\n
Lest anyone suspect\u00a0 otherwise, here is\u00a0 \u2018forest of a thousand demons\u2019! A country where\u00a0 $20 Billion could fly away from her Oil Company like\u00a0 wayward egrets without much ado from \u2018citizens\u2019 is a country of daring demons with \u2018citizens\u2019 in dire need of deliverance. A country where\u00a0 24 Billion Naira Police Pension Fund allegedly mysteriously developed wings and where 2.3 Trillion\u00a0 Naira \u00a0Fuel Subsidy disappeared into thin air for more than two years now without any compass to its habitation must be a country with many demons! A country where the oppressed stand up to defend their own oppressors, where honour goes to rouges and looters but \u00a0\u00a0honesty and hard work are rewarded with poverty and shame is a country without soul. A\u00a0 country where \u2018the old and the young, the poor and \u00a0the rich, educated and illiterates\u00a0 stand up in spiritual nudism to pray for their \u2018Goliaths\u2019 rather than rising up against them, like David, have given the destiny of their land to \u2018unworthy Philistines\u2019!<\/p>\n
Such country is not a country. She is Forest! And Forest with a thousand demons!\u00a0 Welcome to Nigeria, the new butt of joke for \u00a0even Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who recently said that in Nigeria that the Pilot of the aircraft you board would expect you to bribe him before he takes off. What an insult! \u2018International insults\u2019 of which we need to \u2018reject our portion\u2019 like Wole Soyinka. A country in dishonour, yet its \u2018leaders\u2019 \u00a0know it not;\u00a0 or living in denial, blowing damaged saxophone from Namibia to Vatican, underplaying the ocean of corruption that is sweeping the pride of his subjects and nation away. Of a fact, this forest of a thousand demons has many \u2018heroes\u2019 of hell!<\/p>\n
The flows of her rivers are seasonal, episodic and ephemeral but the blood of her subjects tragically keep on flowing; despising seasons and resisting logic. The\u00a0 insatiable cruelty of\u00a0 her\u00a0 demons continue to remind her people that grave is hungry and angry; and day after day it gets hungrier, \u00a0angrier\u00a0 and crueller\u00a0 ! From Kaduna to Maiduguri, Portharcourt, Benin, Abuja and Yobe, undertakers are busy just as pall bearers are in their boom\u2019s times! \u00a0Fate is only marginally better in other parts of the country. Even event as ordinary as conducting interview for jobs generate its own death! Any how and anywhere the demons must suck blood! Preferably, the blood of the youth! The sickness is getting worse. The resultant pronouncements and answers to crying problems get worse and sicklier than the diseases they are made to cure. With the Presidential directives that 3 job spaces be given to each of the families who lost their loved ones in the Ministry of Interior arranged disaster called Interview, a new qualification for employment into the Nigeria Immigration Service has been raised. The promotion is on! One death for three jobs! Waiver? Get injured, get a job! I learned that the families of these unfortunate ones have now besieged various hospitals for the \u2018new certificates for employment\u2019- Death Certificate and Certificate of Injury! I have no problem with Mr. President compensating these families and persons but i have problem with compensations that lay mine for our future security and border integrity.<\/p>\n
I hope the President realises the full implications of this impulsive response to critical policy issues? I hope he knows that the responsibilities of Immigration Service go beyond citizenship mandate? That it includes borders\u2019 security and by extrapolation territorial integrity of the nation? I hope he knows that the\u00a0 indiscretion \u00a0to engage unqualified or unwilling or unfit persons based on the sentiments that the family members were killed or wounded at interview venues has long \u2013term security implications for the nation and filled with potential to compromise the nation\u2019s \u00a0territorial integrity? I think if the President wants to compensate the dead and the wounded, he should have done that inform of appropriate monetary compensation while still retaining the integrity of our recruitment process, more so, of an Agency whose responsibilities include mandate for citizenship and a portion of \u00a0homeland security. His choice of compensation display offensive ignorance of purpose of Immigration Service and stand to be a fatal caricature of border security, one of the lags that continue to work in favour of the Terror Groups ravaging the nation today.<\/p>\n
Come to think of it, does a country even need to get to this level of manifest tragic unemployment before she knows that she is sitting on time bomb? As the government continue to up mark its own score sheet, the manifestation of our manifold problems continue to put lies to \u00a0its feverishly deceptive \u00a0claims. Just few weeks after the government impressed the gullible listeners \u00a0during the centenary celebration that it has created over 1.6 million jobs, its own immigration department responded to the lie\u2019s stimulus by loudly saying \u00a0\u2018 hey, would you shut up there!\u2019<\/p>\n
Nigeria is a parody of illogical mysteries! Rulers who put on light to walk in day time but put off light in the night \u00a0in order to see through the dark. Mass murderers roam and roar about unhindered, thieves are ubiquitously crowned as chiefs while the innocent, decent and law abiding ones are condemned to licking the afflictions uncaring nation has placed on them.\u00a0 It is now clearer that D.O.Fagunwa had\u00a0 the unproductive circus movements in Nigeria in mind when, over fifty years ago, he wrote his book, \u2018Irikerindo Ninu Igbo Irunmole\u2019\u00a0 which Wole Soyinka adapted as \u2018Forest of a Thousand Demons.\u2019<\/p>\n
The earlier we get \u00a0demons out of the forest the better for us. The violent culture and the unending impunity that continue to re \u2013characterise us and re-configure our identities will not go without a fight back from us. Decently humane future for us depend on our realisation that \u2018civilisation will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept, unless a very large majority of\u2014(us) unite to defend them.\u2019 As asserted by Winston Churchill. Only on this battle field the demons stand defeated!<\/p>\n
\n
Gbenro Olajuyigbe is an Abuja based\u00a0 Human Security Expert<\/i><\/p>\n
E: Mail : gbenroolajuyigbe@yahoo.com<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Gbenro Olajuyigbe That Nation is worthless which does not joyfully stake everything in defence of her honour\u2019 \u2013 Schiller Lest anyone suspect\u00a0 otherwise, here is\u00a0 \u2018forest of a thousand…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n