If like me, you live in Africa’s most populous country and one on the verge of landmark polls in a couple of months away; if like me, your country has been bedevilled by bad governance and leadership foibles for all of fifty years, you would expect members of the political class to at least act differently—to conduct their affairs with a modicum of civility and respect.
If like me, you live in Africa’s most populous country and one on the verge of landmark polls in a couple of months away; if like me, your country has been bedevilled by bad governance and leadership foibles for all of fifty years, you would expect members of the political class to at least act differently—to conduct their affairs with a modicum of civility and respect.
If like me, you live in a country where eighty percent of the populace still live below that legendary poverty line; where energy concerns are threatening to shut down the productive sector; where the education sector teeters on the brink of a total collapse; where roads are but death traps and infrastructural decay runs deep across the country; If like me you dwell in a country where suffering faces stare at you at bus stations, uncertain of where their next meal would emerge from; if like me you live in a country marking its golden jubilee, you expect some measure of good gifts from your ruling class; from the elite; the same class of persons whose policy decisions or indecisions have stymied the making of a true giant in the last fifty years.
For a gift though, on the morning of our Jubilee, they presented us with Bombs—that most sinister of scientific inventions and the scourge of modern day ‘Homo-sapiens’.
Twin bombs detonated simultaneously ripped through the Abuja skyline, sending about twelve of our suffering members to their graves and injuring scores of others. Bombs. Yes, that was what we got for our troubles in fifty years.
It used to be that Bombs were but weapons of war; used only when the issue at stake was fighting the enemy. Recently it would gain traction as a terrorist plaything, used for self immolation and hara-kiri at the drop of a hat. Other uses have come to include politics too. Science has improved the art of detonation so much so that even a starry eyed Abdulmutallab can attempt to detonate one from his underpants with his gaze fixated on the TV screen of his plane. Talk about sophistication at its murderous best….
So, here we are, few months before our country’s polls; polls that may make or mar our existence as a nation, talking Bombs. On one end of the bomb debate is a certain IBB; he of the Dele Giwa parcel bomb fame and a former General who no doubt knows a thing or two about bombs. On the other end is the incumbent President—Goodluck Jonathan; a genteel albeit purportedly naïve former University lecturer who had the leadership of his country fortuitously thrust on his laps. In the middle of the bomb spectrum sits Raymond Dokpesi (the media magnate whose media houses may never recover from his decision to back the most unpopular candidate in the land) and a certain Henry Okah, Nigeria’s own version of the infamous Osama Bin Laden.
The issues marching towards 2011 should be those already highlighted above. Political parties and their candidates should be telling a brow beaten and ruffled electorate where they stand on the Economy, Jobs, Infrastructural Improvements and Education. In lands far and wide except in my part of the world, these are issues that make politics Da Bomb ( apologies to my American folks). We should have a robust debate on the issues. We should pick our President or political office holders on their manifestoes; their promises to the Nigerian people.
But we are talking Bombs and Zoning here, baby! Somehow, somewhere, the twin bombs that rented the quietude of the Abuja landscape look inextricably linked to 2011. A handful of Northern politicians found their voices last week after the Bombings, taking the Presidency to the cleaners on security issues—the same Northern political elite who had nothing to show for their stay in power for most of fifty years. Babangida, the self acclaimed evil genius, would metamorphose into a Saint overnight; taking the moral high ground on protecting the lives of Citizens after the blast with his campaign team shooting from the hips ever since, intent on seizing the political moment a blast that took away innocent lives could offer. Jonathan, a tad shaken by the blasts that took media attention off his ill-conceived golden Jubilee celebrations with an eye on his political fortunes, has been defending himself, beginning with that ill advised exoneration of MEND and culminating in his vow to fish out the perpetrators at all costs.
Below them, the average Nigerian still reels from the effects of bad governance, fifty years after the Union Jack was lowered.
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