Good luck to those who gloat

Yes, it is one year after. We have lost track of when anniversaries became more important than the substance of our existence. From births to weddings, deaths and everything in-between, we are a nation obsessed with anniversaries. It must be one of those hangovers of military rule and we are not totally out of that vestige yet, or are we? So, congratulations APC and hailers, you have survived the first year, though there is no need to roll out the drums. As they say on social media, we mark this anniversary conscious of the fact that tomatoes cost more than apples.
All the same, let us congratulate ourselves for barely surviving the prophesied 2015 date of national disintegration. As far as Ban Ki Moon is concerned, there is only one nation called Naija. The application by Biafraud ended up in the dump. The Fulbe are happy to graze their cattle and kill and maim in the process but they are yet to demand a state for grazing – so let’s thank God for small mercies. Ritual killers still have a field day while kidnappers continue to hit the headlines whenever they pick the high and mighty or their siblings. Stories of their strike on men and women of straw are buried in the inside pages of news. Congratulations Naija.
But wait a minute; is that not coming too early? Even for the planarian worm, it would be difficult if not impossible to regrow, if as we used to do as children we dump them in a scoop of salt. The salt dissolves the essence of the worm’s anatomy eventually killing it essentially what is happening to our nation with the resurgence of a dastardlier group calling itself The Avengers in the delta of the Niger area.
The Avengers operate on knowledge that thuggery pays. It made humans of vermin such as Asari Dokubo, Tompolo, Boyloaf and others who became instant billionaires on sheer brigandage. They have built sustained institutions and businesses not on hardwork or quality education, but by holding the nation in its jugular. What more, you couldn’t pin them down with the usual mantra of ‘kwarrupshion’ because they could easily argue that they were never ‘in government’ or within its corridors. From mere creek brigands, they have fleet of cars, airplanes and business interests all around the globe. This must make Robin Hood squirm in his grave. But these ones have nothing on Mr. Hood, they have made their money and left their own hood totally devastated and grossly underdeveloped – just like the politricians that encouraged them.
When a state loses its power to enforce laws and keep the territorial integrity of its component parts, it breeds the likes of Nnamdi Kanu who rose to resurrect a very sad national tragedy. The Avengers have chosen the wrong time to strike at the nation’s jugular. At the end of its two-week ultimatum to those legitimately doing business in the creeks they are now on a targeted attack on the nation’s oil and gas installations. They want a negotiated settlement and Dr. Steve Davies is well rested from his cancer treatment to fly in if invited. Other oil producing nations are raking in from Naija’s tragedy.
The Avengers hold the nation at its jugular. Tough talks and even alleged arrest of the leader of their group has not stopped the acts of sabotage. A nation that hardly survives a tomato bug faces extinction if the only economic base is threatened perpetually. What do the Avengers want? Negotiation with its leaders so that they can get the lucrative security contracts that was given to their predecessors in crime. In essence, they see themselves as prospective billionaires with no visible source of livelihood. That translates to entrenched poverty for the communities in whose soil the oil is found or on whose land and creeks it is transported. Offshore fuel cabal has won on the land, and the brigands would win in the creeks. It would appear that governments exist, merely to pave the way for both gangs to drain the lifeblood of the nation.
The shame is not totally on the government that bumbles and bungles; it is not merely on the government that promised change but delivered junkets – it’s on all of us who put loyalty to persons and parties over and above our national survival. Politics is supposed to be a means to legitimize governance, but we have turned it into camps of rigidity where its our party or our hero’s way or the highway. Us, who are educated and privileged enough to use social media and care to celebrate the gradual erosion and disintegration of national norms and ethos and the gradual disintegration of our nation. Us, who for political expediency celebrate every failure of government and the progress of the saboteurs. Our elders say that – Ipa nparae, o loun npaja – the worm gradually kills itself but believes it is harming the dog – when the dog dies, the worm also dies. Happy one year to Sai Baba and good luck to those who gloat over our nation’s decline.