A toddler’s vacant gaze

This time around they have succeeded to hit not the periphery as the Nyanya bombings seem to suggest, but at the Abuja city centre itself.  The EMAB Plaza and the Bannex one, just beside it attract a huge number of clientele not only from the Abuja city but also from all over Nigeria. The two […]

This time around they have succeeded to hit not the periphery as the Nyanya bombings seem to suggest, but at the Abuja city centre itself.  The EMAB Plaza and the Bannex one, just beside it attract a huge number of clientele not only from the Abuja city but also from all over Nigeria. The two places stock just about everything one needs in computers, electronics and their accessories and other wares, so it is not surprising that the place pulsates with life at all times of the day. If you need a new computer or you need to fix a malfunctioning state of the art handset, EMAB or Bannex in Wuse 2 is where you should go.
The patrons of these plazas are served by all manner of vendors and peddlers of other less costly items that include fruits such as apples, banana, pine apples, oranges etc to sate their palates while going about their business at EMAB.  Sadly many of the peddlers of these food items were the victims of the bomb blast. Newspaper depiction of the gruesome incident showed charred remains of cars whose well cushioned inside had been hollowed out leaving the carcass remains of what were once beautiful sleek cars.  For me, the most memorable image of the tragedy was the one captured by a perceptive photographer of the blood spattered face of a toddler sitting and staring into nothing while all around him rescuers scurry about to save lives in the pandemonium and the wreckage.
The toddler is the son of an orange seller who died in the blast. This fact, stated tersely defines the unhappy times we live in now, where you could be blown into smithereens while on a ceaseless search for means of sustenance. I cannot help to think that danger and death lurk at the place where one is most vulnerable-the place where one earns his means of sustenance. And the blood spattered face of the toddler gazing vacantly and I dare say, cluelessly, says it all. As if to say who killed my mother and why?  
Respect personal liberty
The unending magnitude of terror acts that have continued to occur in parts of the country, most especially the north-east and the difficulty by the armed forces to combat them would not cease to confound Nigerians.  The vicious callousness of the violence, before it took roots some 4 years ago, was formerly thought to be a strange act of human inhumanity to man that can never happen in Nigeria. Such bombings and senseless killings are the maladies of strange lands far removed from Nigeria, was a common view expressed then. Alas, we all now know better, the malady we were quick to correctly excoriate is now very much with us, occurring in a relentless and vengeful rapidity.
Not having witnessed this scale of violence before in peace time Nigeria, everyone is at his wit’s end, including the government’s organs charged with containing the violence. The pervasiveness of the terror has made everyone suspect, illustrated by the checkpoints on thoroughfares. To be sure, nothing short of that is required in the face of the pervasiveness of the terror, which was why the corralling of some 486 northerners at a checkpoint may at once look like nothing extraordinary. After all, from time immemorial Nigerians, irrepressible traders that they are had criss- crossed the land and lived amongst themselves peacefully. It was expected that once everyone of them had identified himself, they all would be allowed to go back to their legitimate businesses and preoccupations.
Tongues however started wagging and eye brows rose when even after copious identification by the Chairman of the traders’ association from Port Harcourt, the 486 traders- turned- detainees were no near regaining their freedom. I suppose once a man putting out himself as the detainees’ chairman has vouchsafed for the tradesmen what is needed is to make the fellows make an undertaking that they would be of good behavior they should be let go.
No one is against the strictures on free movement put in place but it should be done in such a way that innocent people are not made to suffer needlessly. No doubt these are trying times for everyone, but the imperative of battling down the insurgency must not be allowed to be misconstrued as targeted at only a group of people through scapegoating and profiling and tarring everyone that look different from the next person as guilty, even before they have been told their offences. In the prevailing circumstances it is a dangerous turn of event that should be discarded forthwith and be replaced by treating everyone by the same yardstick no matter where he lives. Nigeria’s laws have copiously underscored individual liberty where no man is put under unnecessary hardship unless there are salient reasons to do so and even in these uncertain times the law must never be trampled upon needlessly. Ever.

Winner and loser
So the Ekiti gubernatorial election has been won and lost, peacefully. In its aftermath no bonfires or even smoldering ashes can be seen anywhere as the winners and the losers have retreated to continue with their lives as best they can.  That is as it should be; it augurs well for the impending Osun one in August. It is remarkable that no foul cries of rigging has as much as wafted through the humid air of the Ekiti State, since as soon as vote counting and tallying were concluded Dr. Kayode Fayemi gamely conceded defeat, a little churlishly though. So what, who does not know that defeat taste like hot ash?
Pundits would agonize to no end why it was that with all the amiable man managed to do in Ekiti, he was still trounced at the polls. One thing is sure and it is that the last has not been heard yet.  Already there is talk of Fayose inundating Ekiti State with bags of rice; in these parlous times it will take a steely conviction of a die -hard card carrying APC member to reject such offer. Parallels and distinctions are also being drawn on the prowess of the  intellectual and the “you -know- who”, on the political terrain, which explain why one was worsted  and the other was victorious.  Does it all presage the shape of things to come in 2015?   
Eagles grasp at the World Cup
In spite of defeat once again by Lionel Messi and the Argentines, the Super Eagles clambered to join their nemesis– Argentina into the next stage, the last 16 and billed to clash with the erratic French. In 1998, the last time the Eagles scaled the preliminaries into the last 16, they were knocked out by Italy. The Super Eagles should blow away the les blues-the French to show that nothing can stop them from coming home with the World Cup.