who has no stake in it, and nothing to lose by
rejecting all that civilisation stands for'- Henry Ford
One of the indicators of war time I have come to
accept as a fact is that, 'in peace time, children bury
their parents. In war time, parents bury their
children'. If you are still doubting that we are in war
time, ask the parents of the students killed in Buni –
Yadi, Yobe State; ask the mothers and fathers of
those killed across the Country at Stadia, where they
have innocently gone to struggle for survival in a
country that thrives on 'survival of rogues'! They
have the most harrowing duty of burying their
children. This has also become ubiquitous tragic duty
of many Nigerians in the recent time.
The suspension of common sense by the Nigeria
Immigration Service has once again driven home
breathtaking severity of unemployment in Nigeria
and the kinetic impotence of the Nigerian
Government to secure, protect and preserve its
people, especially the youth. After ripping off
hundreds of thousands of unemployed Nigerian
youth of one thousand Naira each in a nauseating
allusion to service failure by a government agency
via a deception of a job opening, it has now
vicariously killed at least twenty(20) of them in a
stampede caused by indiscretion.
Just in this last one week, close to one thousand
Nigerians and residents lost their lives; 20 vicariously
killed by the Nigeria Immigration Service at the
Stadia across the Country, 100 Killed in Southern
Kaduna, 106 killed in Katsina, over 200 Boko Haram
members allegedly killed by the soldiers. Blood
continue to flow in the Benue/Nassarawa Axis, it is
worse in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. Yet, this
bunch of irredeemably failed leaders does not know
that Nigeria is at war. Nigeria is at war with her
youth. Nigeria is at war with her women and even
with her men, who hope to get a decent burial from
the children they are now succeeding. Instead of
sitting straightly to face the questions that drove us
into society, they are theorizing and politicking. To
them, excuse has become tool for governance;
imaginary political opponents are sacrificial lambs for
gross incompetence.
If you compare Nigeria with UK, they will tell you that
it has taken UK centuries to develop. If with India,
they will tell you that it is because of population
advantage. The quantum of electricity we need to
live like human beings in Nigeria is not up to what
Calcuta in India, a fragment will need. Imagine what
a twenty thousand megawatts of electricity could
have done to the lives of over five hundred thousand
youth that gather at the ' open grave' prepared for
them by the Nigeria Immigration Service in term of
self – employment?
I can not blame the youth that died while seeking to
live; in a society where nothing is left again to
tincture the conscience of 'rulers'. Those who are no
longer moved by spilling of human blood can never
be moved by the sight of morbid unemployment that
has been afflicting our youth. Oil Spillage in Ogoni or
UNEP Report did and does not move them. Over
40,000 Nigerian refugees in Niger and displacement
of over 500,000 Nigerians are to them mere figures.
Those who declared that corruption is not a prime
problem in Nigeria will never understand your
problem with the alleged missing of $20 Million in
NNPC. They will never see the nexus between
deprivation and disenchantments. The connection
between oppression and resistance is beyond their
mental comprehension. The relationship between
humongous poverty in the midst of plenty and
violence is far beyond a man who keeps on beating
his chest from Davos to Washington that the policy of
his government has produced the richest man in
Africa, not minding critical concern of the other
500,000 unemployed citizens struggling to fill 1000
job vacancies.
A President that continues to say that Nigeria will not
disintegrate without working toward that is living in
'Crusoe Island' or 'Disney Land', Nigeria has not
physically broken into pieces; mentally. She has!
Ethnicity, religiosity and nepotism have re-defined
loyalty. Ethnicity and nepotism have shrunk spaces
of opportunity and by extension, stifle development.
The fratricidal badges of Hausa, Igbo, Fulani, Ijaw,
Yoruba, Itsekiri among others are the burden we have
unleashed on ourselves through political greed,
economic gluttony and power profiteering. We have
no more space for humanity! These are yokes we can
not break until we return to the cubicle of our
conscience to locate the purposes of leadership and
citizenship. A ruler who keeps on moving from one
church to the other like Pharisee without learning
how Jesus Christ chased Marauders (thieves or
robbers) out of the Church, telling them that ' my
father's house shall be called the House of Prayer, not
the Den of Robbers' can never build a just state.
The race into society from Thomas Hobbes' State of
Nature, where life was 'short, brutish and nasty'
envisaged that society/state must take up some
responsibilities if life must become safe, secure and
pleasant. Hobbes anchored his postulation on the
Social Contract, the thread that ties state to duty and
the open vista of security to people who have
necessarily sundered their rights in exchange for
expected welfare and security. Hence, having
conceded the limitless 'rights' or might in the state
of nature to the state, the state can no longer
discharge itself of this onerous responsibility on
which the faith of people in it is built. The Social
Contract shifts society away from the Covenant of
Blood! It protects people against bloodletting and
ensures that those who attempt it gets due
sanctions. It replaced 'Might' with 'Right',
persecution with protection and cruelty with
humanity! Whether through state carelessness or
negligence when a group or sect assumes and
asserts the right to kill, citizens automatically lose
the privilege to live! I say, 'privilege to live, not right
to live.' The 'right' is already gone with the wind that
ends with a state's capacity for protection.
A country where tomorrow has become a nightmare
has lost the capacity to regenerate herself. Until the
youth, who are the future of that country stop
singing God's song in strange land; hope is far. The
youth must take active interest in the affairs of
Nigeria if we must end 'Boko Haram' and 'State
Haram'. If the impunity that has taken liberty away
from Nigerians must be defeated, the youth must be
the frontline soldiers. I sympathise with the killed,
the dead and the wounded. I will never pity the living
because like George Sutherland, 'the saddest epitaph
which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty
is that it was lost because its possessors failed to
stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time'!
Arise, o 'compatriots, Nigeria call, obey!
Sent From David Aniemeka
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