‘I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood – flowing streets of our nation can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men’- Martin Luther King Jnr.
‘I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood – flowing streets of our nation can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men’- Martin Luther King Jnr.
Laws are openly violated; justice brazenly denied and oppression is the symphony of music of governance, yet, we are eagerly seeking for causes of conflicts and terrorism in our country outside our monumental failure of duty and responsibility! We are dangerously and blindingly evading and avoiding the root causes of our national crises; substituting cheap blackmail for thoughtful analysis! Nations elsewhere launch into in-depth reflection and research to understand their problems, so as to take desirable action, here, we are gathering parochial, primitive and non- tangential evidence to complicate ours! Get it straight, the more we rely on this strategy, the deeper we get sunk in the quagmire! We can generate all the distortions as much as we want for political, social or even economical reasons, what i know from my professional and practical experiences is that Violence is a natural attractive tool in an ‘out-of-control’ society.
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‘Out-of- Control’ society is a society where people become wealthy without work. It is a society where the harder you work, the poorer you become. It is a society with rulers without conscience. It is a society where rulers are not accountable and where ‘citizens’ are not responsible enough to compel their rulers to answer questions. It is a paradoxical society where there is poverty in the midst of plenty. A state; as described in my book ‘Challenges of Being a Nigerian’ fourteen years ago, as where ‘those who buy cars as if they are buying bread want those who buy bread as if they are buying cars’ to behave like them. It is a state of psychopathic absurdity! A state where might triumphs over right; and where impunity reigns over law and decency. This state has everything in place for violence. Those still looking for sponsors of ‘Boko Haram’ are pursuing shadow. Boko Haram assumed its own life immediately it succeeded in bombing the UN House in August 2011.It became a vital force to recon with in the comity of international terror groups and invariably began to attract resources; technical, human and materials from groups such as Al-Qeaeda, Al-Shabab among others.
Rather than sitting up together as Nigerians to think, analyse and take action to checkmate, repel and defeat the evil of terror in our land, with sentiments we continue to prattle about imaginary sponsors, recklessly building theories of sponsorship around the so called opposition; those who ‘hate’ MR. President and Minority Group(s); those who do not want second term for the President. In all guessed stigmatizations, we have turned Mr. President to ‘victim’, a helpless person himself, who is no longer in position to inspire hope for Nigerians who look up to him for solutions. In any case, if those theories of ‘victimisation’ are even correct, the disappearance of terror and other forms of violence from our streets will happen when government courageously take steps to use them as information for action. While government must make rational investigations of all allegations, it must not be stuck in the blurry imaginations of individuals and groups who are mere political and sectional conflict ‘entrepreneurs’, shifting and changing affiliation based on envisaged undue advantage.
What research have we done to understand why people break away from society? Can people suddenly wake up to launch attacks on society that take their welfare serious? From my fair knowledge of criminology, three conditions are necessary for crime, including terror to happen; one, motivation for the crime or terror, two, environment for the crime and three, tools for the commission of the act. Any good government should have the capacity and ability to, one, de-motivate criminals; two, frustrate environment for crime or terror; and three, make tools for commission of crime or terror inaccessible or difficult. This is the duty of government as enumerated in chapter two of the Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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The rapidly diffusing gospel of falsehood has now reduced our people to a level that they no longer have the idea of who should be responsible for clearing the stinking errors that are strengthening terror in the land. The resistance to efforts of addressing the wildly oscillating free flowing falsehood that is fast replacing fact and truth is an indicator that we are in for a longer span of trouble than we first thought. The emergence of coalition of ‘hate mongers’ who does not see beyond the narrow prism of religious, political and ethnic leanings in analysing situation, causes and actions is the worst calamity that has befallen our nation in her recent history. Infact,i can safely say that we are a people of a nation facilitating our own victimization, and soon, if not checked, annihilation!
The cross-culture of blackmail as a deliberate policy and practice in Nigeria is the new pressure that is undermining Nigeria’s capacity for national unity and survival.
The cults of individuals, groups, associations and formations that have emerged to advance myopic and narrow political interests are the real threat to integration. At a time when fire of nationalism is burning fiercely across the globe, rulers in Nigeria, rather than discharging their duties are busy mongering blackmail and transferring hate. To the average Nigerian Ruler, writing Failure Plan is a passion. To them it is the Will they wish to leave behind. That seems to be the only thing s/he plans to achieve! The sense of shame is destroyed! There are one thousand and one people or groups to blame for your failure. There are even more number of people or groups to help the ‘victims’ to project their phantom theory of victimization. Sympathetic ‘experts’ on ‘marginalization.’ They usually wear coats of many colours! Ethnic attires, religion gowns, political party ‘aso ebi’, regional caps are some of the stocks in their trades! To them, irresponsibility is not an accountability issue. Just look for individuals or groups and hang your failure on them. Then, you are free of responsibility while the faults become the burden of imaginary foes.
To them, corruption is not an issue. Land stripping and de–citizenship of the poor in Abuja and elsewhere, demolition of poor people’s homes across the country, stealthily deprivation of access to opportunities, including education, health and other social infrastructure, incorrigible celebration of wealth without work, sordid unemployment, embellishment of workers without wealth, and other assaults that have not spared any part of the poor people’s front are no issues. Despite these obvious promoters of terror and crises we continue the blind search for sponsors that are oiling the infernal machine of terror in our land.
I can live with the blasphemy of political jobbers who have invaded the air waves at advertorial level comparing our President with Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama among others. This is because i know that even the President knows that they are lying on his behalf!
However, I can no longer live the overwhelming harrow and horror of imagining that nearly 200 Nigerian girls are still in the Sambisa Forest in the den of Boko Haram, two weeks after they were kidnapped. No update! No rescue!! No recovery!!!
The Prime Minister of South Korea, Chung Hong Won just tendered his resignation over the tragic sinking of passenger Ferry that left 300 passenger dead. He was not the Captain of the Ship neither the cause of the accident. Nobody put pressure on him to resign. He was just responsible enough to know that the welfare and security of his citizens were his cardinal duty. That is leadership accepting responsibility. Not leadership building theory of victimisation in order to abdicate responsibility! Take Back Nigeria!
Gbenro Olajuyigbe is an Abuja based Human Security Expert & a Human Rights Activist.
[email protected]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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