Assault on sanity

Mope was where I usually reside when I’m there. And, from what I heard, it was probably a good thing I wasn’t there. Some street urchins tried to play a fast one on some unsuspecting traders who had been conducting their business in the area and were said to have made a killing in terms […]

Mope was where I usually reside when I’m there. And, from what I heard, it was probably a good thing I wasn’t there. Some street urchins tried to play a fast one on some unsuspecting traders who had been conducting their business in the area and were said to have made a killing in terms of profit.
That could have been me sitting in a small, quaint Numan street sipping on a coke, while shots were being fired. True enough, though, that could happen anywhere. But I could have also been out visiting my friends, or walking home, making it an early night. After all, it was only 11:00 pm that the people were attacked by two men on a motorcycle. They took their belongings; not to mention stripping them of any secure feelings. It has been so for years. True enough, though, that could happen anywhere.
A long-term visitor, with family, staying in the same area, had her apartment broken into and was smothered by a pillow to keep her quiet, while they robbed and looted the place she calls home. True enough, though, that could happen anywhere. For three hours she waited for the police to respond. They had her address but they did nothing.
I could keep moving up the City Hotel Road giving instances that I am very glad not to have encountered the thieves or as they are now called insurgents. I had friends there just ending their vacation. I have relatives with children, all living what they thought was the life of Riley. All of them were more than ready to return to their homeland with everything that has been going on. I’m now ready for my next trip home.
After missing paradise for a few days this week, I am ready to come back! I don’t just come there for a simple week, staying in the exquisite lush greens. No, I stay for days in the heartland of the Numan community. Why? Because I have friends there: great Numan friends and a wonderful and loving family.
It wasn’t like this many years ago. And these stories have all taken place within a few-months span. It is heart-rending to think that our little town of Numan, that relies on visiting tourists, like me, doesn’t seem to have the manpower to get terror under control. Bring back the cops, because an appearance of any form of authority is better than none. People are running around scared.
I am asking the Chairman of Numan, the police department of Numan, the Minister of Women Affairs, the Minister of Youth Development, and President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, to please look into this matter. Please get this madness under control so that myself, all my visiting friends from around the world, and my Numan family can walk free once again.
You may wonder why I am looking at my local problems from a nationalistic and holistic overview. I would have blamed the governor of the state or the Chief of Bachama, otherwise known as the Homon, for a solution. I could also have turned to the community vigilantes for reprieve. But alas, I have an entire community of responsible people to blame and my reader would agree with me that all these people are culpable in what is exactly my personal problem.
I am relating this problem in a reverse narrative because of the people I have had to engage in a recent article I posted on my wall which was published on this same page last week. It had raised the controversies of vicarious liabilities or collective responsibilities without those who have been commenting and denying that there is a collective responsibility in security knowing, but we have ascribed the burden of the government’s inability to safeguard some areas in the country invaded by insurgents to one man. Rightly or wrongly, I have since discovered that in Nigeria it is the illiterate in our country that are at the helm of opinion moulding and not the literate intelligentsia. When someone tells you that if his victory at the polls are overturned there would be no peace in the country, that person is advocating violence and nothing else and for the citizenry to keep faith with such a scoundrel is unfortunate. But our people hold fast to that opinion because violence has become our stock in trade and shedding it is becoming impossible because the illiterate amongst us dictate the pace.
It is an assault on our collective sanity that our entire educated elites would subjugate themselves to the violent streak of a few street urchins whose understanding of a contest is not competing to win fair and square but desiring to win by hook or crook. That is why I think today that the northern and nay Nigerian intelligentsia has made us captive to the violent tendencies of our illiterate wards. It is unfortunate.