Like Jabi Park intersection

Nigerians across boundaries gave their overwhelming support for the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, to become President Muhammadu Buhari, but the change they sought did not include a change of attitude on their part. What do I see through the city window that tells me so? Log jams. Traffic jams. Indiscipline […]

Nigerians across boundaries gave their overwhelming support for the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, to become President Muhammadu Buhari, but the change they sought did not include a change of attitude on their part. What do I see through the city window that tells me so? Log jams. Traffic jams. Indiscipline and chaos. It’s there, every day, and the police cannot control it, the motorists cannot avoid it, the public cannot ignore it and society is living with it. I feel like I have also become a part of that intersection where one road leads to Jabi Motor Park coming from Chida Hotel while the other leads to Berger Junction coming from Life Camp.
The intersection never slumbers. It is, also, never organized. To a large extent, Nigeria is like that intersection. It is never organized; rather, one can say, without fear of contradiction, that the only organized thing in Nigeria is crime. And Jabi Park intersection tells it all. There are traffic lights, quite alright, to help the flow of traffic, but all vehicles coming from all directions believe they have right of way, even when the lights turn red. A friend of mine, Toyin Williamson, who was visiting from Europe, on getting to the Jabi Park junction asked if Nigeria had the same traffic rules as China where red means go. When I explained that it didn’t, he simply muttered Subhanallah. Being a Nigerian, who has lived for decades in the Diaspora himself, I knew he meant to say no more. Williamson was part of a delegation of APC stalwarts who had come home to witness the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari, so I prodded him to speak. He quickly asked me if Buhari didn’t order his convoy to obey traffic lights and I answered in the affirmative. Then he turned to the chaotic traffic and said, “And these people say they love Buhari and want him to change the country?” In essence Buhari wishes to lead by example, but his supporters simply don’t get it. Physician, heal thyself. I have no problem with the taxi driver from Ogbomosho whose attitude to order is utterly beyond reproach, and beyond comprehension. That one can only behave well when the traffic agencies begin to impose heavy fines on misdemeanor. He drives on the kerbs, ignores pedestrian crossings and overloads his cab, apart from over-speeding in residential areas. But the rest of the citizenry, especially the middle class, behave as if running the traffic light is a status symbol. There are traffic lights all over Abuja, as the residual vestiges of the Bala Mohammed administration. These lights which appeared suddenly, all over the city like nose-bleeding, are said to be courtesy of the Chinese government’s counterpart contribution to the FCTs development. But what is their use if people don’t obey their colours? The result of all this stampede is the consequent road-rage that brings motorists to street fisticuffs, in my view, the most debilitating reduction of man to beast. We concluded then that this is one reason why Buhari’s former signature, War Against Indiscipline, (WAI), must return.
Williamson thinks it’s a shame that people who demanded overwhelmingly for the sacking of a sickening and insensitive government would themselves be disgustingly disobedient. Anyone who cares would have noticed that all of
Nigeria’s former leaders have been soliciting public cooperation to help Buhari succeed. He cannot do it if the public’s will is pulling the momentum adrift.
Nigerians must imbibe attitudinal change for the change they voted for to manifest.
For example, the only time we see a confident and effective policeman in Nigeria is when we visit the offices at their Louis Edet headquarters. They look cool as a cucumber. They are so composed and authoritative. They are the ones we pay our taxes to police our communities. But they sit in air-conditioned offices doing VIP security. The ones we see on the roads earn their living on extortion and tariffs at checkpoints or bribes. They also voted for change. Yet they are still deeply rooted in their indulgence and are unlikely to stop, anytime soon. But this is not about the police. It is about Nigerians and the two examples above are a mere tip of the iceberg when one looks at the general refusal of Nigerians to drop their bad habits and embrace the change they fought, blood and sweat, to achieve. The legislature, for example has been in the eye of the storm over wardrobe allowances.
In a country where millions of teachers are unpaid, utilities are inadequate and many are dying from starvation, wardrobe allowance should be seen as incongruent with the current economic realities and dropped out of the national expenditure. But in this era of change, legislators at the NASS are asking for billions for clothes. They spent their clothes money for our votes and now they are taking our subsistence money for clothes, as if the votes matter more than the lives of the people. If players of that game of lazy folk, (G.O.L.F), who say that the character of a player is in the personality she displays on the course, are right, then you can know the ill-preparedness of Nigerians to change by their general conduct. Take a lunch buffet at a conference for example. All other nationals will serve themselves modestly, knowing that other participants are on queue. The Nigerian would rush in front or shunt the line and load his plate as if the kitchen had asked him to “take your hand, kill yourself.” It is all Jabi Park mentality.