What is happening to Nigeria?
Everyday horrors in Nigeria make mockery of imaginations of absurdist novelists and comedians.
The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway petroleum tanker explosion that claimed many lives was yet another proof that there’s accelerated decomposition of Nigeria.
Proven shocking statistics and personal stories have crippled Nigerians with fear, loss of will, and helplessness. I believe our nation cannot survive as a human and humane society for long given the evils that Nigerians contend with daily.
The petroleum tanker explosion is a national tragedy, a monument of shame. With such preventable tragedies that clogged our highways, the final flicker of hope for Nigeria as a society that values lives of its citizens seems to me to have been extinguished.
More dramatically, with endless killings, armed robberies, abductions, and kidnappings on our highways, we as a people and nation are losing all semblance of human race. In the days following the petroleum tanker explosion, Nigerians as usual resigned to fate and continued with the madness as if nothing happened.
The most powerful force in a leader’s life is love for his people. Our state governors, and legislators from local government to federal government don’t love our people. Otherwise, how could the government not work for the people? How could the government not ensure and enforce law and order? How could the government not regulate and oversee goods and services provided by both the public and the private sectors?
How could they allow evils, tragedies,and disasters of Biblical proportions reign for too long? How coould the legislators remain silent, detached, untouched, aloof, and insensitive in the face of overwhelming tragedies that Nigerians face every second?
What will it take for the legislators to respond to emergency situations like the petroleum tanker explosion and similar disasters in the country? How many Nigerians would have to die before they take action? So far, they have not responded to the tragedy with alarm that it deserves.
Personally, it’s a bitter cup of humiliation and agony for me to watch the video of the explosion as human lives are being roasted with Nigerians watching helplessly.
Fifty-eight years later, Nigeria is still the jungle. Will Nigeria ever get it right? Certainly, Nigeria is suffering from horrible void!