Skip to main content

KIDNAPPINGS: We Sowed the Seed of Our Collective Destruction!

July 19, 2010

The rise in the spate of kidnappings in Nigeria has assumed an unprecedented and dangerous dimension; and stirs-up pulsating loathsomeness in the mind of already lethargic citizens who are bombarded on a daily basis with unsolicited and disheartening news of kidnappings around the country by our own youths – the acclaimed leaders of tomorrow.

The rise in the spate of kidnappings in Nigeria has assumed an unprecedented and dangerous dimension; and stirs-up pulsating loathsomeness in the mind of already lethargic citizens who are bombarded on a daily basis with unsolicited and disheartening news of kidnappings around the country by our own youths – the acclaimed leaders of tomorrow.
The kidnapping sector of Nigeria economy kicked-off when our idle youths began stealing chickens in the rural communities, later it was goat and cows and graduated to human cargo.  In its entirety, the heinous crime of kidnapping bespeaks lunatic piquancy at its despicable pinnacle and stands to be condemned collectively.

However, while we rave, rant, bind and loose and condemn and as usual expecting miracle to happen, it is very imperative for us to understand where the rain started pounding on us. And, like said, if a man fails to call to mind the genesis of a crisis the root will remain far off him. What was or are the prognostications to the present spates of kidnapping that has eclipsed the country? Not limited to kidnappings alone, there is an appalling and continuous decline in the value of human-life in the country. The entire length and breadth of our dear country is under kidnappers-suzerainty, a verminous siege and our land racing to embrace a ginormous extinction of our traditional values that respect the sanctity of life and good neighborliness.  All around, black clouds of gloominess hang in the air. Rumbling from the West, East, North and South is dire anguishes and unprecedented perplexities; and the echoing dirges of the distance most sorrowful as we watch pool of blood, surge alongside the attitudinal dirty canals of the entire country.

Was it not Karl Heinrich Marx, a German philosopher and the bully exponent of communism that wrote that capitalism will sow its own seed of destruction? Far from it, this piece is not meant to serve as a Marxist thesis but as a ridding means to drive home the point of our desolate situation in Nigeria; and highlight the now class struggle between the political class and the un-suckled citizens. Disparagingly, at fifty, Nigeria is still in a political labyrinth; with no developmental path or plan. Our country still operates on ‘eat and quench’ principle, apology to Fela Anikulapokuti. The government is as befuddled as the sheepish citizens. Policy summersaults of successive governments, wanton mismanagement of public funds and public trusts, ethnocentrisms, incompetence and deliberate abuses of privileges has combined to deny Nigerians access to qualitative life, despite our huge natural endowments. And by so doing, we unwittingly sowed the seeds of our collective destruction that has now blossomed (dividends of undemocratic democracy). Today, Nigeria is a country of miracles and one of chances and not plans? If a graduate ever finds a job or a struggling family gets three square meals (nourishing or poisoning) –it passes as a miracle. If our children get quality education or daredevil armed robbers misses your car or cubicle and maimed your neighbours – it is a miracle. And, if at present, you are not a hostage inside one of the hundreds of kidnappers den, scattered around the country, do make a loud thanksgiving. What about finding a decent or even indecent accommodation or our youths who have attained and passed age of marriage being able to get married? Of course, more miracle stories abound in our national miracle sphere.

As for me, government deserves no bookish or elaborate definition beyond the point that it is an institutional means for organization and the pursuit of the common good of the society. We, as an independent nation, have oscillated between democratic-military-democratic governments; with the only difference been the costuming of our leaders. None have convincingly rubbished the other in terms of quality service delivery, an offshoot of good and purposeful governance. And even more depressing, seeing how the adroit fingers of nature munificently endowed this geographical nomenclature called Nigeria both in human and material resources. All that she needed to be a super economic power and for her citizens to attain the highest living standard are flowing profusely from her bosom. But, the painful paradox is that she remains a huge pillar of poverty. Her inept and unpatriotic leaders have raped her bare and kick her unsympathetically on the buttocks. And, the result, the essence of governance – the pursuit of the common good of the society – has been jettisoned for the pursuit of individual good – which has  transmuted into class struggle in Nigeria; which I will employ the expression: Nigeria-Marxist synonym to describe. 

The political class has deliberately inflicted abject poverty on the people and denied them good education and social infrastructure so as to keep them perpetually poor and subjugated under their immortal commands. The vicious circle of poverty carries on its devilish wings, illiteracy, poor health, inadequate nutrition, poor income; which throws the sufferers into perennial oblivion of what is happening in the nation’s polity. The Nigeria economy, if not already comatose is nearing total comatose. The indicators are glaring such as high unemployment, stifling inflation rate, economy depressing rate of interest and the general aggregate demand on its highest decline. Social infrastructures such as power, effective transportation, education, housing and the rest social amenities needed for sustainable economic growth are not available. Jobs have dried-up as the industries wind-up, the nation’s productive capacity dwindling at an alarming rate and the level of capital flight through corruption in government, corporate frauds and massive importations worrisome.

Nigeria is both a major crude oil producer and a major importer of refined petroleum products; allowing its refineries to become homes to rabbits and reptiles. Of course, it is only a kidnappers breeding economy that does not maximized its crude oil’s comparative advantage; throwing away thousands of jobs that could have been created through linkages and industrial interdependencies that will arise from refining its crude oil locally. A country that 70% of her active population – youths – are unemployed and perilously dejected will surely have same proportion of kidnappers. A kidnapping country is that which also did not realize it has huge untapped potentials and comparative advantage in agriculture productions in terms of arable land and unbeatable climatic conditions; thereby loosing the expected industrial linkages and interdependencies that will create further employment from that sector. And that whose citadel of learning has turned into citadel of mediocre; graduating individuals who are hardly employable or able to find work or competent to think, create or invent, but mare curriculum vitae vendors on the streets. A kidnapping nation is that where its leaders audaciously steal not because they have any urge to satisfy, but has instituted looting of the national treasury a way of life. And the result of all these combined are hopelessness and desperation. The hitherto citizens who were living below one dollar per day – a dollar is exchanged at about 151 Naira- now live on nothing. But, contrastingly, the unpatriotic political class and their unpatriotic business patrons thrive in stupendous affluence – exotic homes and cars, kids schooling abroad, fat banks accounts in several countries, houses in several countries abroad - where they regularly visit to empty another sack of stolen wealth; and in sheer hegemony gripped to the polity. The laughable case of Nigeria kleptomaniac leaders aptly personifies the pathetic folly of the fellow who wants to be the only rich person in his community. With which eyes will he or she sleep? That explains the geometrical progression in the kidnapping sector of Nigeria economy which at present, after oil and gas, yields the highest return on investment; triggering off the Marxist class struggle in Nigeria and a step towards violent revolution.

Therefore, the present intensifying threats from the governments; especially the police to kidnappers whom they have set on wild wings is a wild ruse. The kidnappers know that the police forces as constituted today are as miserable as they. Without sounding most preposterous; unless we get to the root of the kidnapping quagmire, even if the present more than 140 million Nigeria citizens are recruited into the police force, with the sole aim of combating kidnappings, the result will be another miserable equivalent number of kidnappers too. And, like said, when two fellows are dragging a piece of land, the wretched among them will relocate permanently to the court of public opinion, seeking for miraculous justice, while the one with yam will be busy planting on the land.  The government and the Nigeria police personify the wretched fellow; as they busy kidnappers are undeterred kidnapping as many more people as it pleases them. The seed of bad governance yielded kidnapping and other myriads of social and economic challenges in Nigeria that are rooted deeply in our economy. Only purposeful, patriotic, humane, lawful and effective leadership with vision can uproot it.

But, which way Nigeria? Until then - when the scepter is handed to the man or woman who the cap fits best, who will carve out an egalitarian society out of the present rubble of misery called Nigeria. And when merits finds a place in our polity; when excellence and competence find a fertile ground; to blossom and aglow unruffled in our national life; when our best brains are not only fitted for the flowering cemeteries; when the dreams of our bests ceases to be a stillbirth; when the whirlpool of changes wax through the darkest valleys of our minds and our best are unhindered from tasting the leadership nectar – ours may continue to remain a country of miracles and a huge den of kidnappers, trapped in manacling political labyrinth. Let us stop waiting on miracles but allow miracles to wait on us. What do you think fellow Nigerians?

Ibe Nwaopoke
A copywriter lives in Lagos
[email protected]
 


googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });