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Nigeria: A Foretaste of Hell?-Abandon All Hope Ye that Enter Here!!!

January 2, 2009

The excerpt above was the counsel of Dante Aligheri, to anyone whose unfortunate destiny ends in hell. Over and above being an exhortation, it is an affirmation of the infinite finality of this supreme inconvenience. This is a classic because it can never be an anachronism. Its validity transcends the narrow and insular confines of homiletics, religion and literature to illumine the world of reason with its vehemence and insistent legitimacy. Its message is kosher for all times.

The excerpt above was the counsel of Dante Aligheri, to anyone whose unfortunate destiny ends in hell. Over and above being an exhortation, it is an affirmation of the infinite finality of this supreme inconvenience. This is a classic because it can never be an anachronism. Its validity transcends the narrow and insular confines of homiletics, religion and literature to illumine the world of reason with its vehemence and insistent legitimacy. Its message is kosher for all times.

Hell is the supreme recompense for injustice. It is the condemnation to endless discomfiture. It is the state of being trapped in an all round decadence. According to Dante Aligheri, the greatest Italian poet of all times, and one of the triumvirate of universal masters, hell is the way into the city of woe; the way to a forsaken people; the way into eternal sorrow. It is the recompense of justice for a fossilized lifetime of wrong choices. It is the payment of heaven for a hell of a life, both individual and collective. It is the residence of eternal hopelessness. In its core reigns a culture of absolute negativity, which mangles every aspiration to decency. Hell smothers every light of positivity. It is the black-hole of supreme regress, out of which no light of redemption ever escapes. Admittance into its rotten bowels introduces one into a culture of solipsistic self-digestion, where every inmate worships his ego. In its halls, avarice is king. And in its hallowed chambers, everyone is on a journey of eternal self-digestion, where his hatreds resurrect to consume his experiences. The most potent aspect of this is that hell is the creation of our choices.

Nigeria is the summary of what hell represents. It is no more endurable. All efforts to prove the contrary, even the heart of Africa project have been supreme failures. Nigeria is the capital of hell on earth. It is a state that is allergic to barest modicum of social justice. A landing in Lagos or any other port of entry into this country, is an entrance into Dante’s city of Woe; the way to a forsaken people; and the gateway to indescribable sorrow. In this country, nothing functions. Injustice is the king here. Corruption reigns with impunity over public life. A 1995 CBS report stated that one cannot go to Nigeria to be scammed, without paying a bribe.

Justice is the basis of human society. A State without justice is nothing but band of robbers, opined St. Augustine of Hippo, many centuries ago. If this logic ever holds and applies, Nigeria is then the worst conglomeration of robbers inhabiting the face of the earth. Justice is so very foreign to this land. Decency induces an allergic reaction here. And any decent thing, that occurs here, happens by accident. Scandal, tragedy, poverty, corruption and brutal lawlessness are so very traditional that Nigerians are not better than the inhabitants of hell.

As a country, Nigeria is a tragedy. As a unit, it is a disjointed agglomeration of strange bedfellows simmering in a cauldron of mutual platonic hatred of each other. This country was a product of colonial perfidy. It was never created to self propel itself to felicity and development. It was constructed for the maximum inconvenience of all those inhabiting it. And to that end, the country remains a monumental embarrassment to all who holds her acquaintance. As the days roll, the country continues to live up to its inglorious expectation as a place where nothing decent ever works.

Nigeria mirrors Dante’s hell in all its grim ugliness.

The first circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno belonged to the ‘Virtuous Pagans’ made up of poets and philosophers; the social gadflies and teachers who instructed men in virtue. These souls would never be in torment. Their vocation qualified them to be led out of hell. This explains why, even when they are in limbo are never tormented by the crassness of our egoisms. This explains why knowledge will be the vanguard of our redemption. The cloud of unknowing, which should be construed here as ignorance; can never arm our advance from these pits of hell. Achebe, Soyinka and others in this class both past, present and future are those upon whose shoulders the burden of initiating our renaissance rests. Writers, poets, philosophers, journalists, academics and all others ontologically similar in vocation and disposition are those endowed with the faculties and facilities to forever lead our charge out the gates of national anomie. And until these philosophers become kings or our kings become philosophers like them in our clime, our country will be spending eternity in the hells of underdevelopment and poverty. We are where we are today because we never borrowed leaves from their directions. We conspired with our active collusions and silence to empower their ostracism from our psyche. And many of them are abroad enriching other climes with their visions. And our land remains worse off for it. Many of them remain wandering minstrels beating the drums of our heart; calling us to a revolution of attitudes. But we are too mired in rot to pay heed. And our country rots in supreme benediction to our foolishness.

That our nation is caught up in the wind of hell is not in doubt. Our sacred places are filled with men of sacrilegious vocations. These are the carnal and the lusty who betrayed reason in obeisance to appetites. They were those who married avarice; worshipped the golden calf of mediocrity and opportunism; and murdered innocent sleep. They were the evil souls who manipulated men as means to ends in disobedience to Kant. These are those whom Dante designated as lustful and condemned to the second circle of hell, where torment commences. They through their actions and the lack thereof, swallowed pestles of inglorious provenance. And they were eternally condemned to sleep standing upright as Ola Rotimi will have it. They raped decency and good sense, and the gods reprimanded them with perpetual priapism. Our misfortune lies in the fact that they sport these hard-ons across our land, still raping and plundering our posterity. It lies in the fact that they remain the pallbearers and undertakers of our commonweal. What they cannot despoil, they co-opt and corrupt. And what they cannot corrupt, they destroy. Destruction is their praise and their song. They are carrions and beasts of no nation at the same time. But eternal discomfiture awaits their debauched consciences. It is the law of life. When Macbeth, pursuant to his ambitions, presided over the murder of innocent sleep, he married insomnia as his recompense. That is the just reward of every such crassness. Nemesis happens to be an incorruptible umpire in the distribution of the dividends accruing to one’s investment of his life. Whatever one sows, he reaps in accordance with the tenets of retributive justice.

Perfect examples of this class of people include the fraudulent peddlers of spiritual wares, who are ready to swindle our people in God’s name. The prostitutes who preach to us in sepulchral rottenness; the grand inquisitors ready to kill off all our kids in Akwa Ibom state as witches and wizards without portfolio; and the pseudo-prophets who renounce justice and testify to injustice in brazen political phariseeism, are breathing parts of this. You see them praying for men who stole our electoral mandates, at their inauguration. You see them gallivanting in obscene flamboyance and monumental debaucheries, while the poor wallow in hunger and writhe in pain. The Madams who trick and sell Nigerian girls from to Italy and other flesh bazaars across Europe; and go to church everyday praying to Christ for the success of their businesses are equally in this league. Helen Akpabio and other purveyor of superstition and traders in mass ignorance are in this club. Dante’s Inferno represented these people as tonsured wreaths of greed; which represents religious men and women; prophets and prophetess of whatever shade and persuasion. For it is this class of men that the ‘weed of avarice sows its rankest seed’. Nigeria exemplifies that. The ‘Rev’ Emeka Ezeugo King, held court over his adherents like Beelzebub would. He doused in petrol and set ablaze those women who got tired of his impious rapes and carnal intimidations. TBJ is still in business swindling our ignorant folks; who are beaten down by the economy. Chris Oyakilome is still the CEO of a conglomerate of businesses in Jesus’ name. Oyedepo imports SUVs and pray for a forgiveness of the import taxes because he prays for the president. All these are happening as priestcraft takes its toll on our ignorant populace; enriching a few scoundrels, who fleece the many for their own lewd pleasures.

Religion in Nigeria is the temple of hypocrisy. The facts are that our pastors are fake healers; converting their lecherous selves into multi-millionaires feeding on the ignorance, low self esteem and misfortunes of the people. They get revelations from their neurosis to heal fake diseases, well choreographed. Many of them are Jim Jones waiting to happen. Many of these pastors hold tyrannical and fearful hold over their ignorant adherents whom they have convinced that they are divine. They use an admixture of manipulation, intimidation, terror and trial by ordeal to keep a vice-like grip on their adherents. It is a kingdom of the cults.

A situation like this can only obtain in a clime of mass ignorance. In Nigeria, ignorance is increasing in geometric progression. This generation of Nigerians are made up mostly of mass-produced, uneducated certificate holders. The next generation of Nigerians are going to be more ignorant than every other generation in Nigerian history. They are been fed on the curds of ignorance. Our education system is a dilapidated dysfunctionality. Our teachers are more ignorant than the innocent ones entrusted into their incompetence.

That is not all!

Government and governance in Nigeria is a dump of garbage and filth. In Dante’s Inferno, the gluttonous are inmates of the third circle of hell. These souls were found guilty of gluttony and sloth. They only consumed what they couldn’t produce and produced nothing, save garbage out of the abundant gifts and opportunities availed them by their station. This explains why such men are condemned to reap garbage as recompense for their illustrious efforts in service of idiocy. In Nigeria today, politicians in high office are subject to being kidnapped and released at the payment of some ransom. Their homes are equally as unsafe as that of the common Nigerians they short-changed. Their failure to lead Nigeria aright and enthrone social justice with this embrace is coming back to haunt them. The lot that has been gravy for poor Nigerians all these years is coming home to them. The crime they tolerated and sometimes allowed to fester has become an equal opportunity pestilence. It now visits kings and paupers alike. They are reaping garbage, which has for long been the staple and major furniture of the lives of common Nigerians for a long time now. These politicians while in power produced nothing but garbage. And garbage is their eternal recompense. Their lives would forever be tortured by a freezing rain of disrepute. And the jaws of the beasts their incompetence and avarice created will always rise to tear them to pieces. They will ‘howl like dogs in the freezing storm, turning and turning from it as if they thought one naked side could keep the other warm’. They are mired and sunk in the foul pastes of avaricious consumerism. Eternal agony will greet their miserable existence since they distributed pain by diverting our common goods to individual pockets. The majority whined while the privileged minority continued to dine; in recreation of Dives and Lazarus.

Nigeria has been the synonym of squandermania and high level pilfering. We have produced world champions in kleptocracy; those whose sole ambition was to steal Nigeria and her posterity into oblivion. Abacha was a monumental thief. Babangida was a thief incarnate. Obasanjo was a scoundrel and a rogue. Gowon was a simpleton and a political buffoon. Shagari was puerility personified. Balewa was a great puppet. Ironsi was innocent and naïve. Azikiwe was compromising and weakened by a nationalistic fervour burning deep in him. Awolowo was narrow in vision and politics. Out of these crooked timbre of leaders, Nigeria was bound to squander her opportunities and scuttle her future.

Most of these leaders qualify for the class designated by Dante for the fourth circle of hell. In this set are the hoarders and wasters. The hoarding guys here amassed their wealth all for themselves, while the wasters used up all they had on fruitless ventures and materials. In this circle, I can see all the above mentioned leaders without exception. Nigerian leaders at almost all levels since independence have been ‘so skewed and squint-eyed in their myopic minds and midget mindsets that they were so allergic to vision. Their miserly natures and extravagance mocked all reason. Ala Akala of Oyo State spent over 100 million naira of taxpayers’ money to organize a wedding for her daughter. He spent up to the same amount for the graduation owambe of the same daughter of hers. The Enugu State legislators stole 200 Million out of Enugu State coffers to spend it on an idiotic jamboree in London, which neither makes sense nor have any positive effects the lives of the people of Enugu State. Obasanjo spent 16 Billion Dollars to generate power for Nigerians and succeeded only in generating pitch darkness and scandalous embezzlements. Her daughter joined in the filthy lucre in the health ministry to create an Obasanjo dynasty of corruption. Tony Anenih was heading the Federal ministry of Works when he descended on over 300 Billion naira mapped for road rehabilitation in Nigeria, and succeeded in constructing a culture of dereliction and non maintenance of roads which has left Nigerian roads in a class of its own as the greatest articulation of engineering madness and government irresponsibility in the world. Babalola was the aviation minister when the money mapped out for aviation equipment at our major airports grew wings, while Nigeria school children going home on holiday were roasted to death in an air mishap, to pay for our collective callousness as a nation. What is Yar Adua doing? Nothing! In him, Nigeria lacks a leader. He is simply hibernating like an apology, while Nigerians are daily degenerating into inexplicable poverty at all levels.

In the face of our rape since independence, our civil society stood with a few voices of conscience on their side of the aisle. The majority are sycophants and purchasable. The intelligentsia subsisted on borrowed intelligence. The electorate is an emasculated and disembowelled mass of timid whiners without direction. They were programmed through years of evisceration, into ethical numbness. Their tolerance of evil seems to be infinite. Their elasticity and excuse for executive banditry seems to stretch to eternity. The Nigerian citizenry are polarized on primitive fault-lines. Tribe is the focal point of all politicking here. There is no collective aspiration except for the super eagles to win the world cup, or when we are rooting for Obama. As I am writing over 500 Nigerians have been slaughtered in Jos in another clash between Christians and Muslims, on this day that the Mumbai terrorist attack at the Taj Mahal and other hotels ended. The voice of each of us clamours its own excess. And our wretchedness as a nation continues its unrestrained march.

With such a mixture of leadership and followership, the portals of our future were swung shut.

Nigeria is hell. It is a distorted version of every decent thing one expects in a country. This country is a mockery of nationhood. It stands opposite in purpose to what all civilized men aspire to. It is deadly jungle where Hobbessian fear of violent death reigns supreme. Here depravity has no degree. Everything that is good is meaningless in Nigeria. Even communication, which in other climes is a bridge to national unity, happens to be a dialogue of the deaf here. We prefabricate and carry around prejudices about our compatriots without rhyme. These pejorative prejudices lack reason and affronts logic. Yet we carry them; talk at one another instead of talking with one another. Communication in Nigeria at all levels is an essential arena for trading in rubbish. It is a theatre of gibberish. Our government lies with audacious impunity, even when the truth stands so crystal clear. This explains why Maurice Iwuh would claim that the 2003 election was a free and fair one. This explains why Yar Adua will be hanging unto a stolen mandate and talking from two sides of the mouth in advertisement of his incompetence. Nigerians claim to believe him. We tell ourselves that everything will be alright. Parents lie to the kids. Authorities lie to their subjects. And the chain of compromised communication continues with a multiplier effect as it diffuses into all strata of our national life.

Lies and pseudo-structures created the fissures through which violence seeped in to fossilize into a currency of operation in so many social theatres in Nigeria. The sinful violence perpetrated routinely by members of the Nigerian police force, the army, Navy and other branches of the armed forces or military services is really at a neurotic level. Uzoma Okere was stripped and beaten shitless by an indecent rare animal, whom Nigerian mediocrity promoted to the rank of a Rear Admiral in our epileptic naval force. This fool Rear Admiral (Read: Rare Animal) Harry Arogundade is presently being exonerated by a funny board of inquiry hurriedly set up to pretend that the government cares. The Police have since lost the pretence of being our friends. Nigerians know who their friends are. And the police are not among them.
By Franklyne Ogbunwezeh

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