On Independence Day, President Muhammadu Buhari, arrayed in his Friday best, addressed the nation rambling on about the Nigeria of his dreams. A dream that is de-linked from the reality his citizens live in. The real Nigeria does not align with starched brocade, a multi-coloured hat and a harangue. It called for a very sober and sombre reflection and a quick action. When faced with a comatose patient, doctors know that every minute counts. Nigeria is at that very edge, unfortunately its doctors, the elected leaders, are swimming in insouciance and using their opulent lifestyle and relative security as the measure of nationhood and survival.
Nigeria is yet to come to terms with its past or accept the need to change its sad and sorry present. In the southern parts of Kaduna State, mass burials have persisted almost on a daily basis. The attacks in most parts of the country no longer make it to the headlines. The media, even the so-called independent ones, have been hounded into self-censorship and silence as the best way to survive.
The Buhari government has proved to the entire world its inability to govern this nation. It has proved its inability to get to the bottom of the mass murders taking place in the eastern region. Instead, it is happy to have kidnapped the imbecilic leader of a moribund movement to which it now shrugs its shoulders as it hangs the umbrella of insecurity on that organisation. The South West, the historical political bride, is embracing the poisonous chalice of singleness. The cancer of secession is spreading across the nation, wasting lives in its wake.
As states struggle to survive the economic recession, and struggle to wrestle economic hegemony from the centre, Buhari’s agents find the resources to hire and pay protesters to counter phony narratives. No umbrella is large enough to protect any race or religion from the spectre of disaster that Buhari inherited and promised to stop and for which he has proved incapacitation to address. Nigeria at 61 is bleeding from every orifice.
In Anambra, southeastern Nigeria where elections are only days away, the blood-curdling images have claimed yet another prominent one. Dr Chike Akunyili, husband of the late patriot, Dora, has been gruesomely murdered in an orgy of violence that Buhari’s regime conveniently blames on IPOB whose leader is incarcerated. Police stations, government buildings go up in flames in a manner that exposes the incapacity of our security agents to recognise a pattern or nip crimes in the bud. Sadly, only the famous make the obituaries, hirelings become unsung collateral damage, the victim of their own family.
Mr President’s address rings like the proverbial lie of the preamble to the Nigerian constitution. Darkness has blighted the so-called achievements he reeled out. Our national currency has lost its moorings but the president keeps sending letters to the moribund legislature for authorisation to keep piling up foreign debts.
President Buhari talks about the roads he has mended and the ones in plan consciously neglecting the bloodcurdling kidnapping, the deaths and the insecurity that makes travelling on those roads a death sentence. Not only are Nigerians not safe on the roads, they are not safe anywhere.
Nigeria’s impotency has rubbed off on parents. They are unable to guarantee the safety of their children. Public schools, including universities are in a shambles but every parent knows that to send their children to school is to raise one’s blood pressure level. A phone cannot ring without them thinking that the worst news, a parent’s nightmare, is about to be broken. Teachers are not spared. Low or no pay and now targets of the marauders who take turn visiting their schools. Parents are wary of letting their children out to school or play. A helpless parent cannot guarantee a disciplined child or an undisciplined child is a recipe for a failed future.
As the president was going on about the 8,000 surrendered Boko Haram insurgents, their neighbours are wondering about safety. These are people with human blood on their hands. Most have killed without repercussion; nothing stops them from killing again. With no capacity to track, these people are a perpetual menace to society who may have returned to regroup, rearm and take their neighbours by surprise. They have the Taliban to learn from.
On rail network, Nigerians have not been convinced of the socio-economic gains of borrowing money at exorbitant interest to link with Niger Republic when entire parts of the country have no means of public transportation. Yes, it was the joke that Niger was Nigeria’s 37th state, that the country discovered black gold, refines its own crude and doing better than we could.
President Buhari has reneged on his promise to build one refinery for each of his first four-year term. He has refused as petroleum minister to account for how much money has been squandered on the four existing refineries and when they are expected to come on stream. Word out there is that the cumulative amount spent on the perpetual rehabilitation of these moribund refineries could have built us double their number. NNPC has declared profit for doing nothing and nobody has been tried for the massive corruption that killed our refineries and fed our penchant for fuel importation.
Our president appears to premise national security on more recruitment. While recruitments, if done in equity, would reduce mass unemployment; it would not necessarily make the nation safer. Nigeria needs to audit its security handbook and bring it to par with its current challenges in a changing world. It cannot do this without auditing the use of its current resources. Our security personnel need an orientation revolution. It is currently seen as an overlord. It lacks the support and respect of the populace it serially terrorises. You cannot win terror with terror. Numbers are important, but quality and capacity are equally critical. You can’t build an effective security network on nepotism and quota system.
Mr President needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Nigeria under his leadership at 61 is on its knees and far from tasting independence. It could barely feed its burgeoning population and the large chunk of its displaced persons. Its best brains are draining to other nations with drones clapping the system on. Value will never remain where it is not priced.
Agriculture, the mainstay of 75 per cent of the population, suffers as insecurity has forced even subsistent farmers off their farmsteads. Malnutrition and hunger loom large.
It is bad optics for Mr President to sit down and broadcast dreams while 95 per cent of his citizenry are unable to even watch or hear him. The gulf between the dream of Nigeria’s founding fathers and their offspring makes the concept of independence a pipe dream.
As it stands, the Nigeria dream is an unfolding nightmare requiring urgent visionary leadership to fix. Under Buhari’s cluelessness, Nigeria would be lucky to survive his second term. That is a sad prospect for all citizens. At 61, Nigeria is neither walking nor crawling – it is bedridden! It needs surgeons to get it up and going. Our so-called past heroes have laboured in vain.
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