Nigeria’s difficult times

What is scaring is the nature and character of the current Nigerian ruling class and their ability to keep the nation together. I am already seeing the president and several central characters in his government take sides at this critical moment in history instead of maintaining political neutrality as a bargain towards resolving the issues […]

What is scaring is the nature and character of the current Nigerian ruling class and their ability to keep the nation together. I am already seeing the president and several central characters in his government take sides at this critical moment in history instead of maintaining political neutrality as a bargain towards resolving the issues at stake.

When the president at the interdenominational service chose to tell the whole world that members of the Boko Harm have infiltrated the highest level of government, the legislature, the judiciary and even the security agencies, the immediate thought that came to mind is that the first suspect will be the vice president, Namadi Sambo and other people very close to the president.

I think that very statement in the course of worship is to say the least reckless and capable of inflaming an already tensed situation. My view is that it is a weak application of leadership skills for any public official to say what he or she wants without measuring the weight of such statements. Talk less of the president of a nation whose tenure since assumption a little over two years ago has been characterized by very disturbing national insurgency.

There is no better time for the president and other leaders to show leadership than now. The crisis at hand cannot be resolved through pseudo sentiments and poor brinkmanship. Since the beginning of the current bombing campaigns in October, 2010 and the claim of responsibility by MEND and the subsequent exoneration of the same group by the president himself to the current wave of very suspicious campaign of terror across Northern Nigeria and the consistent claim by an unidentified group that Boko Haram was responsible, a clear picture of incapacity and unwillingness by the government at the highest level to address this national disaster became evident.

I don’t know the mentality of those close to the number one. Why would the president continue to claim that they know those who are responsible for the current campaign of terror and with all the powers vested on him as the most legally powerful man in the country, yet these people responsible are neither named nor brought to book or made to stop the crime? Clearly, there is a gap in these routine presidential assertions which in my view is either the result of inexperience or unwillingness to address the crime or a deliberate ploy to achieve certain personal or even sectional desires.

Could Ambassador Campbell’s prophesy be coming to pass? Could the assertion of the United States intelligence services that suggested 2015 as the terminal date of the Nigerian nation be right? I am worried just as I am sure much other citizens are. If there is the feeling genuinely from the Nigerian groups that it is time they go their ways, I am of the view that that may be achieved without so much stress on innocent lives.

What my summary at the moment is as far as the current travails of the nation are concerned, is that the crises the nation is facing today are more attributable to the incapacity and unwillingness of the government at that highest level to be effective. I am beginning to think that the president still sees himself as that little Ijaw child who didn’t have shoes. The president seem to be finding it difficult to realize the huge and gigantic responsibilities that lie ahead of him and the office that he occupies.

Unless the governors who incidentally are responsible for the emergence of Goodluck Jonathan as president act fast, it may be too late to save this country if the way Abuja is managing the national degeneration continues unabated. There is an urgent need for intervention to save this country from collapse and every available indicator including leadership at the highest level are pointing towards this unfortunate direction.

There seem to be a deliberate policy of divide and rule. The North which constitutes over 60% of the nation’s population is at war against itself. Muslims are pitched against Christians and threat of hell and fire coming from the South East. It will appear that someone enjoys this seeming national polarization along fault lines.

As the nation struggles to make the president reverse the withdrawal of subsidy on petrol, a large section of the South East and South South is out of the agitation leaving only the states in the North and South West on the field of protest. Again, this is a danger of unimaginable proportion which the government may think is in its favor, but it is not.

While the South East was aloof, the majority of South South found no reason in protesting. Of course poor people across the country will be impacted similarly if the price of petrol is high. In Bayelsa State there was demonstration of support for the president not because the policy of subsidy removal was to their advantage but mainly because the policy flag bearer is their son. What a rally! How can a nation that claims democracy flourish under an atmosphere of parochialism?

Breaking the solidarity of the Nigeria people is much more dangerous than allowing the people in unity. It may serve the exigencies of the government for now, but certainly it is counterproductive to national harmony and solidarity.

Nigeria has never seen a government like this and there is the urgent need to make them respond to the laws of federal structures. In Ambassador Campbell’s view, Goodluck Jonathan may be the last president of Nigeria. This assertion was attacked from the highest level of government but what the highest level of government seems to be doing in my view closely resembles following the path of Campbell’s prophecies.

When we are voting for a president in the future if we are able to survive this time, it will not be enough to give shoes to those who say they didn’t have any when they were growing up, but it must be a cardinal requirement to ensure that anyone who will be president has the texture of being one and must be knowledgeable of the federation and its components. The lack of this, I obviously believe contributes tremendously in the gross failures of President Jonathan. I don’t know if it is possible to learn on the job, but if the record of the last two years is anything to go by, the president isn’t a good learner so far.

We are in trouble not too different from the types we faced in the past but we are gasping for breath because there does not seem to be any leadership available to get us out of the woods. Nigeria is facing the worst of times and I hope we will get out of this soon.