The day people realized that if they are in large unified numbers, they can demand anything from their government is the day the government is in big trouble – GEORGE ORWELL
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
The brouhaha of Nigeria absolutely make me disagree per the words of philosophers apropos to putting the government in trouble when we unified ourselves by fighting the oppressor when the provocative seems to be unbearable to us but this couldn’t be conceivable in this so called my country where fighting for right is detrimental to one’s safety. Nigerians were known to always succumbed to every sufferings they were inflicted on, what a country where freedom exist but wasn’t guaranteed, I have been holding back from ventilating my opinions on whether Nigeria as a country will be better as Buhari led administration was sworn in then but I felt it is high time to make my opinions known on the nosediving of the malaise of Nigeria which Nigerians (underprivileged citizens) should rather be thinking about their own betterment by being prayerful.
Be it any loss or pain, only women have it in them to bear the pains and suffering, maybe that is why a country is always compared to Mother, whilst we have to bow to the resilience of our mother but reverse is the case of ours in Nigeria. Ostensibly, the conception of the clické mayn’t wittingly be comprehended by a layman, the words couldn’t be jettisoned and it needs to be unsympathetically examined if whom I claimed my mother is worthy dying for. The inquisitiveness to answer the pretentious questions which seems to be unanswered and left the pique in my heart and amongst other people on the plaque who will liberate us from the nefarious scavengers maiming our innocent soul till we were uprooted without having a stem. It’s no new to irrespective of who you are regarding the malady hounding the nation as a whole, whilst nothing has been done holistically to address this menace resulting to loss of lives and properties which this has been getting out of hand and this has been cankerworm eating deeply deteriorating her children (citizens) future.
The precipitating issue if my mother is worth dying for or not has been a lingering rhetorical question which my mind botched to answer the quest if am worthy to die for my mother; When we’ll be emancipated from the shackles and manacles we find ourselves in this country whilst our life appears to be stalking with different hurdles ranging from the incessant insecurity bedeviling our nation, the political quagmire affecting us, the imbroglio of our educational sector, the comatose of economic sector is also facing, daily perpetual industrial actions experienced from our varsities associations, the depreciating in our currency which seems to be valueless, the massacred of the innocent souls, incessant kidnapping, epileptic power supply, poor infrastructure amenities, inadequate health infrastructure, insurgency in the northern part of the country, inflation in prices of fuel on daily basis, lurking of herders on our express way, banditry and the increasing in debt profile amongst others problems bedeviling the nation.
It’s becoming wearisome to the extent that the insecurity quagmire pilfered into the mindset of our own protectors of the land (soldiers) whom we are to bow to their resilience and being the emblem of patriotism they are (soldiers) protecting the land with all their might without fearing death were used against her children (citizens/protesters of EndSars) tagged black Wednesday on October 20th, 2020 which many lives were lost to the cold hands of death from bullet of the land protectors ,whereas nothing was outwardly done to address the massacred and we claimed we are practicing democracy. Was this really democracy or dictatorship or totalitarianism/Nazism we are practicing in Nigeria, a big slam to our leaders and their aides. It is pertinent to affirmed that those Endsars protesters have been forgotten now, they thought to be walking on the track of patriotism yet they died on the plaque of their patriotism. What a pity!
Let me bring you back to a history we might have all forgotten, either using your phone or PC, type Nigeria political scams on Google, politicians in power since the pre to post independence has looted approximately, let me not make used of the word approximate for more than trillions of dollars has been looted in the last 20/30 years aside the age of my mother (Nigeria) which she will be clocking 62years on October 1st of this year, yet they were not shocked that they had looted so much. They have forgotten about it, so did the people, the country have forgotten too, but do you know that Google did not forget, just type it, you can see it all. Did they bring all those scavengers into justice? The answer is capital no; they were not brought to justice just because they are Elites citizens and the origins could be attributed to a boom in the establishment of cybercafés during the 1990s, coinciding with falling oil prices in Nigeria and a rise in unemployment.
It could be recalled that Sani Abacha alone is estimated to have stolen the equivalent of 2-3 percent of the country’s GDP for every year when he was the president of Nigeria and amongst others which Nigerians might have forgotten yet still a topnotch for Google, like the pension scam of Abdulrasheed Maina looting a whopping amount of 195 billion having the effects on the 141,790 pensioners and others politicians embezzling our money yet they failed to bring them to justice while for underprivileged people to steal ordinary 100 naira bread, we will lynched him to death but we failed to lynched those who are eroding our future, why don’t we get updated by bringing those people to justice. Sympathy is the tools for politicians by disguising whether to have a particular heath issue during the course of the judgement like the Maradona on the wheelchair, Accountant general embezzlement of billions of naira, Abba Kyari palaver amongst others.
A clarion call to all, come to think of it , If at least 0.01percent of that scammed/looted money was used to solve the basic ground level problems of our country like the quagmire of the health sectors, perpetual strikes from lecturers for unfulfilled promises from the federal government, epileptic power supply and others where there will be more development to benefited . For example, if a child falls into an open tube well in china, they are rescuing him in an hour, In Nigeria we call for a proclaimer that digs and digs for three days yet there’s still no guarantee that the child will be saved. Japan government introduced a railway line for 3years to help a girl study, for a girl alone, let’s not even mention the government in our country we lack basic facilities, perpetual strike we fall in, good road network, hospitals and also the little kids are dying from ailments.so much can be done with this looted money.
Federal government links Bank Verification No (BVN) to every citizen’s accounts in our country by tracking everyday finances, ones income, and expenditures monitoring every penny of these citizens by sitting in AC rooms but do you know nothing is wrong with that literally means financial transparency. Similarly, we pay billions of naira in form of taxes directly and indirectly to this leaders and they pretends like everyone is benefitting through their schemes projecting their budget like exhibition, don’t we have the right to know about these transactions and the loopholes that follow? Why don’t we get to access at the governments account has they monitored ours?
Why can’t the government open an account for every constituency by giving us the details by monitoring every transaction of the government, but you won’t do that, whereas you can monitor us every second? But we aren’t opportune because of your aims to loot money. I know God and the Angels in heaven would like watching Nigeria as a comedy channel in heaven because Nigeria is another Netflix series for us like a squid game, it may be quiet funny though but that is the reality of Nigeria will have to succumbed to if you won’t want to be slain like a ram, there is no need to bow to resilience of being patriotism that doesn’t worth it.
Unarguably, since the birth of Nigeria gaining independence of its own is the time we have been singing the song or let me analyze it as a cliché “Nigeria go better” till we found the song on the lips of the 1990s and 2000s generations, has Nigeria seems to be better, hell no and yet our leaders vow to be the emblem of patriotism upon electing them whilst they failed to fulfilled their promises. The question to ask every concerned Nigerians whether their so called mother (Nigeria) is worthy to die for as what patriotism means.
If I was been asked if she is worthy to die for, my answer will be capital no but this might be somehow funny to some why I wilted about being patriotic to my country, and I don’t even blamed people who don’t involve in politics or being human right activists because there will be some people called “they” that may be riddles like the issue of a human rights activists, Late Gani Fawehin who was brutally murder with a parcel bomb which those behind it up till now wasn’t brought to justice, a slam on the word patriotism in this so called country of mine. Alas we might be vindicated if God wills; we need to save ourselves of a strained neck because we don’t matter in all of these. If we ever mattered, development would have dominated the Nigeria landscape, think of how our brothers and sisters were killed during the #EndSars protest.
Okanlawon Uthman
okanlawonuthman@yahoo.com
