Thursday, 4 October 2012

Nigeria: A year older but lying prostrate


By Aliyu Musa

At the turn of the millennium I was full of hope that Nigeria would get better and discussed my optimism with a senior colleague. But I vividly recall him expressing less confidence. Nigeria’s case, he said, was one of two well known problems that pundits had decades back predicted would improve. On the contrary they got worse. The other was the Palestinian issue.

Although I did not quite agree, his suggestion instantly waggled my memory back to 1985 when the country celebrated its silver jubilee. One of the events marking the anniversary was an NTA discussion programme featuring the late I. K. Dairo, Julie Coker and Bongos Ikwue. All three participants recounted their pre-independence experiences and hopes for Nigeria.

But it was I. K. Dairo’s comment that has remained glued to my memory. He said prior to independence he was one of those who thought within the first 10 years of the country’s independence it would become a global power, efficiently competing with other powerful nations. But he said he gave up such fantasy as soon as the bloody 30-month civil war broke out. Since then, things have continued a steady free fall.

Nonetheless, Nigeria then was much more serene and, generally, people did not feel as threatened as they do today: poverty was not as discernible as it is now; there was much less hopelessness; life still had a value; and crude thieving perpetuated by government officials that give no damn was less obvious.

Nigeria then was a far more respected African champion. In 1986/87 a diplomatic row flared up with Equatorial Guinea over the presence of apartheid South Africa in Malabo, apparently invited by the government to build Malabo’s runway and communication facilities.

Given Nigeria’s firm anti-apartheid stance it was understandable that it fumed over the presence of agents of the now extinct Pretoria racist regime in a place that’s only 107 miles from Uyo. During the disagreement I recall reading an article in which desperate poverty was adduced as one of the factors that caused Equatorial Guinea to agree that deal with South Africa. It was also dismissed as a ploy to make Nigeria readily accessible to the enemy.

The author compared the situation in Malabo, where a good meal cost five naira, a bottle of coca cola cost two naira or more, a brief ride in a taxi cost not less than two naira, to any Nigerian city where a bottle of coca cola only cost 20 kobo or less, one needed less than 50 kobo to have a healthy, good meal or twenty kobo to enjoy a comfy cab ride.

The situation in Malabo then seemed so shockingly distressing that some Nigerians thought we should, at least, intervene to keep away the South Africans. But that was then. The table has since turned and we are the ones needing some form of intervention.

The most threatening problem is insecurity: the insecurity of life, property, job, food and everything. Just hours after the president and his men beamed with smiles as they cut a giant cake to flag off celebration, gunmen invaded the Federal Polytechnic Mubi, cold-bloodedly executing more than 20 students. Although the massacre lasted nearly two hours, as survivors claim, no help came from any of the security agencies.

Now politicians in the upper house (Senate) have taken turns to condemn the attack. Others would follow suit. Then committees would be set up to look into the remote and immediate causes. In the end more money and time would be diverted to trying to find out the obvious. Nothing more will happen.

The country is undoubtedly grinding to halt. Each day the storyline is the same: more catastrophic happenings and governments’ nonchalance. At 52, our score sheet shows a manifest failure. And unless we sincerely berate ourselves and agree to, henceforth, do things differently the situation would only get worse.

Postscript:

Life has been fully devalued in some parts of Nigeria to the extent that last respect is too expensive to be accorded the dead. Last Friday a strange call came informing my family of the death of a sibling in one of the now too familiar killing sprees in the north-east. Unknown to us, he was shot and wounded and bled to death through the night three weeks earlier. So, his remains like many others’ were left to litter the street until community members alerted the relevant authorities to evacuate them. None of us had the chance to claim his corpse and befittingly bury it. This is how low our society has plunged.

This piece has been published in the Blueprint newspaper of 05/10/2012
Posted by at

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is the right blog for anyone who wants to find out about this topic. You realize so much its almost hard to argue with you (not that I actually would want…HaHa). You definitely put a new spin on a topic thats been written about for years. Great stuff, just great!

11 October 2012 at 14:34

Post a Comment

Newer Post Older Post Home
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)