Torrent of help for India is flowing from different parts of the world. The country has seen the worst spikes in COVID-19 pandemic during this current time. India has a robust health system and yet still ravaged by the pandemic. The country has an enormous pharmaceutical presence than the whole African continent combined and still became insufficient to tackle the surge in COVID-19. It is interesting to note that the majority of vaccines have been manufactured in India and yet only few jabs have been administered in India; why the contradictory sequence?
The country has had hospital beds being shared by two patients at a time, isn’t that ridiculous? It is ludicrous to imagine that a nation like India that most African nationals throng for affordable health care is having this monumental health crisis. The amount of capital flight from Africa to India is hugely stunning.
From the foregoing, it is clear that nations around the world have issues, and challenges at different facets of their life. The whole of India is united against COVID-19. I am using this as a precept to juxtapose what Nigerian state is also faced with at the moment. Banditry, abductions and terrorism are seriously creating incohesion and tension in the land.
Elder statesmen from different origins within the country are churning out different thoughts; some are toxic while some are patriotically driven. That is not even the focus here; the focus is what kind of help does this country deserve at this time? It is understandable that some might use this moment to score cheap political points while neglecting that human lives are involved here. Some have used their God-given conscience to stand with the nation irrespective of their political divide.
Terrorism is a global pandemic as it is; virtually all countries have mechanisms in place to checkmate the influx of the problem into their respective domains. United States of America is the largest spender on war against terrorism in the world and yet, she is still unable to defeat the scourge in the regions she has waged war against it for more than 20 years, why is this so? It is arguably sufficient to assert that the Superpower to a large extent, decimated the trend but it is invariably still lurking behind shadows despite her huge resources committed to it. The question is, why is the menace still prevalent?
Does Nigeria appear to be on the brink of collapse? The materialistic tendencies to this question appear too glaring for discerning minds. During the regime of former President Umaru Musa Yar’dua, the agitators’ noise from the South South was too deafening to be discountenanced hence; he launched massive amnesty programmes, which practically killed the agenda. The economic impacts it portended were too burdensome and yet the government did not have any choice at its disposal other than to accentuate the plan as it were.
The seceding bids from the South West are disorientated but toxic. The South West represents the most educated parts of the country though the vast majority of its people are passively self-absorbed when it comes to Igboho’s clarion call in his futile quest to have ‘Yoruba Nation’ actualized. The agitation is dead on arrival without any equivocation!
As a Nigerian, I am perturbed and baffled at the rate at which the country is being dragged by her people; if she falls down to her knees, do we have anywhere else to go? Yes, the country is being dragged negatively by its people, while others should stand tall and make her overcome the staggering challenges.
At the twilight of Trump’s administration, the country’s Capitol was attacked by a certain mob orchestrated by the outgoing president in a bid to clinch to power by crooked means. Their patriotism was ill conceived though, but it was evident that their love for their country was supreme amidst conspiracy theory advanced by Trump.
As it stands, the similitude of our challenges is akin to a ship having its inhabitants at the lower deck having to depend on the people at the upper deck for water for survival. The lower deck occupants in their wildest thoughts might decide to punch a hole at the bottom to get water instead of having to ask the upper deck occupants. If the upper class passengers were to leave them to actualize this plan, all of them would get drowned.
People of conscience must rise up to the occasion to tame their respective toxic agitators within their region to lower the temperature else the whole country will blow up in pieces. We have no other place to call home other than this country.
As a Nigerian, I have nowhere to call home except this country. I have lived all my life here and I have no need to be a refugee
Yusuf Afunku writes via : [email protected]
