Nigeria as a nation can be best described as a jungle where only the strong survive. Sincerity, honesty, obedience and patriotism do not pay any longer as the patient dog no longer get to eat the fattest bone. Our society appears not to be conducive to live in no wonder our youths prefer to die in the desert and Mediterranean Sea than to remain in this country. The youths and even the elderly prefer to travel abroad for greener pasture since their own country could not provide the needed and desired stability for progress. Is this the Nigeria of my dream? A country we were all once proud of?
By Prince Omo Eweka
We’ve heard of beautiful stories of Nigeria in the 50s, 60s, 70s and early 80s. All these beautiful stories of this once great nation is better imagined and dreamt about as it has fast evaporated into history as they are now tales by moon light.
Sometimes it’s difficult to believe that some of these nice stories we’ve heard even from those that witnessed or experienced it are true.
You can’t blame anyone for doubting such beautiful stories looking at the present state of decay in our towns, cities, societies, states and the country at large. You will wonder if this nation and its people ever experienced such an era.
Nigeria in time past have beautiful road network and the roads across the Land were smooth devoid of pot holes.
The numbers of death recorded through road accident were fewer compared to what we have today.
Today, it’s a different story entirely as innocent Nigerians die on a daily bases due to bad roads across the country.
The statistics of death on our roads is very alarming, it is better to imagine it than check the records with the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC).
Nigeria in time past has the best of infrastructural facilities that made life good and enviable. As a nation we had functional educational sectors with foreign and well qualified teachers and Lecturers.
Before graduating from school, companies and industries came looking for potential employees that would add value and help grow the companies and industries.
Even those who were not picked in school were very sure of good jobs out there as they graduated from the school system, but today all these are history.
The problem we have as a nation today was hipped on us by bad leaders which the poor education system has given to this nation. Our graduates today are half baked, and can hardly write their names correctly but are graduates with good result. Where did they get the result?
Your guess is as good as mine, “CASH AND CARRY” if you can afford the money why waste your precious time in school; just provide the money the cabal in our system will get you a good certificate. What a pity!!!
In time past, we were proud of our nation as we had stable electricity supply which boosted the productivities of our industries across the country.
Is this the story we see today? The answer is a “CAPITAL NO” Our nation is now in total and perpetual darkness despite the various transformation process the sector has gone through since it creation.
Economic activities are near a stand-still and most times retrogressing as business owners, private and government industries have folded up due to lack of power to make such business function effectively.
Our industries were very functional and were contributing immensely to the development of this nation but the story is different now.
Now that the sector has been privatised by the Jonathan led administration, the case is even worse as you are forced to pay for electricity you never consumed through increase in tariff and fixed charge which according to them are used to maintain the meters.
This fixed charge must be paid before you are allowed to recharge your prepaid meter which is another “OBUBUYEYE” in the system.
The Bihari-led administration that inherited this problem is watching while the problem is getting worse by each passing day.
The agitation of the masses have forced those who bought the electricity company to abolish the fix charge but replacing it with customer charge which is now an increment in electricity tariff of 45%.
The situation is now worse than when it was fixed charge. The citizens continue to pay for darkness and the government is watching while the people suffer.
Our security system is even the worst nightmare we are going through as a nation as all effort has not yielded any good result as citizens provide security for themselves to remain alive. But it was never so in the good old days.
Before the retrogression, our security system was good and we lived then in a crime free society, where you could go to bed with both eyes closed.
Today, you can never be bold to sleep with your both eyes closed, if you do, you are inviting death. Just to secure ourselves and our families, we erect tall fences that are even taller than our houses.
This act has even made us not to know our next door neighbours even if we are lucky to know them, we don’t see in weeks as we stay in our own world.
Despite the tall fences and other security system put in place, we still get robbed and our next door neighbours find it difficult to know that we are being robbed due to the tall fences we erect in our houses.
Today, you can’t get good water to drink because our water corporation that provides us with good water has gone into extinction.
Water is now for the rich as the poor can’t afford to provide the only alternative “BOREHOLE”. Borehole was not a good business in time past because the government provided steady, good, clean and drinkable water to all its citizens irrespective of statue.
Water flows in the streets and almost every home as the government knows the importance of water. That sector has gone to sleep long ago and now the borehole business is the order of the day as people sink borehole and now sell water.
Those that still work at the water board do nothing but sleep in their various offices if they still have any and smile home monthly for doing nothing.
The youths of this nation have lost confidence and faith in its development and as such seek greener pasture abroad.
This was not the scenario before; they believed in the nation and never planned to travel out of the country for greener pasture because Nigeria then was better compare to other countries in the World.
Life was meaningful, the youths had value and they had a place in the scheme of things as some vital leadership position was reserved for them. Today, you will see old men of over 80 years of age taking the position of youth leader.
To keep soul and body together, prostitution has become a lucrative business that our daughters, sisters, mothers, aunties, girlfriends and even our fiancés ventured into with pride, flaunting the material gains from the fall out of the abominable act.
Prostitution before now was an abomination – a forbidden apple to be mentioned amongst us, but today we even encourage our daughters, sisters, mothers, aunties, girlfriends and even our fiancés to give it a try.
Well, the good stories we hear of this nation are all in the past as we now read them in history books written by those who were lucky to have experienced those glorious years of Nigeria.
It is painful that our generation now read Nigeria’s glorious days in history books as some of those that experienced it are the cause of the problems of this nation as they have led us astray.
Those I met as leaders while growing are still leading us. Those I met as a youth are still occupying leadership position, please when will it be the turn of the youths? They call us the leaders of tomorrow, tomorrow which will never come.
The once wonderful country called Nigeria is now nothing to write home about. Corruption is now the order of the day, the more you steal, the more you become famous and gets academic awards and chieftaincy tittles for the atrocity committed what a country!
Nigeria as a nation can be best described as a jungle where only the strong survive. Sincerity, honesty, obedience and patriotism do not pay any longer as the patient dog no longer get to eat the fattest bone.
Our society appears not to be conducive to live in no wonder our youths prefer to die in the desert and Mediterranean Sea than to remain in this country.
The youths and even the elderly prefer to travel abroad for greener pasture since their own country could not provide the needed and desired stability for progress.
Is this the Nigeria of my dream? A country we were all once proud of?
Nigeria, a country where life was meaningful at the same time bearable? A country where prostitution and robbery were done in secret?
A country where corruption was an abomination to hear? Ho! Where is the Nigeria of my Dream? Is she dead or alive?
Life was more meaningful during the era of the Colonial masters, when we were yet slaves to the white man, life was sweet.
Perhaps, the only mistake we made as a people was to fight for our freedom because after Independence in 1960 what followed was not freedom, but enslavement by our own so-called indigenous leaders.
They came in, tasted power and influence, became intoxicated by it and took law into their own hands; they did what they wanted whether right or wrong as nobody was bold enough to question them.
This selfishness, self centeredness led the boys in uniform to cease power by force promising to put things right rather they made issues even worst and difficult for the people.
The culture of corruption, negligence, violence became the order of the day, a once peaceful and well coordinated country became a war zone of all sort.
Talking about violence, by 1964, violence had crept into the political system of the country with the introduction of political party thugs operating within the national political landscape.
The situation was most severe in the Western Region where the might of the Federal Government was being used to undermine the regional government.
‘Operation wetie’ was introduced, in which properties of perceived opposition politicians were set on fire using petrol and in extreme cases, politicians themselves were set on fire.
In an act of political violence, the Federal Government declared a state of emergency in the Western Region and appointed a civilian administrator to rule over the Region.
The unrest in the Region finally led to the first military coup on 15 January, 1966.
This was followed by the Revenge coup of July 1966 which was staged by Nigerian soldiers from the Northern Region who perceived the first coup and its aftermath as being directed against the interests of their Region.
There was the mindless violence of serious attack carried out in the Northern Region against civilians of non-northern origin resident in that Region.
The massacre was directed particularly at civilian of Igbo origin. This led to the declaration of the Republic of Biafra and its attempted secession from Nigeria.
This attempt was eventually crushed after a 30 month civil war from July 1967 to January 1970.
Nigeria has been under the Jackboot of the military continuously from January 1966 until May 1999, except for the brief period of civilian rule under President Shehu Shagari from October 1979 to December 1983.
The military turned violence into a means of changing government (by way of coup), and also as an instrument of governance.
Even now that we are under a civilian administration, many former military men are in top position at the local, state and national level, our former president was a military head of state and a retired general same is applicable to Plateau State Governor.
We keep recycling our leaders and creating no room for the younger generation to contribute their quota to the development of the nation.
They continue to demonstrate that old habit of authoritarianism that is characteristic of the military.
These men and other evil, corrupt, selfish and self-centred politicians have jointly infected the nation with a culture of violence, corruption, assassination, kidnapping and a whole lot of other wicked activities that has put the lives of the electorate at risk under the mercy of poverty, unemployment and a low standard of living.
Where is the Nigeria of my dream? A place where all can go about their business peacefully without fear of molestation from robbers, thugs, assassins’ and the likes.
A peaceful atmosphere devoid of crime, prostitution, fraud, corruption etc. is my country dead or alive? Is there hope for the youth of this generation? Do we have a future or our leaders have mortgaged it?
Can the youths even become leaders of tomorrow? Since we are used to recycling our leaders, where is the place of the youth in leadership?
God come and help my beloved country from destruction in the hands of our evil leaders who know nothing other than destroying the future of the youth.
Do we call on God to kill our selfish leaders the way He killed Abacha? Will that be the right prayer to offer at these trying times?
Or do we call on Him to expose them the way he exposed former Inspector General of Police Tafa Balogun, or recently the former National Security Adviser (NSA) Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd)?
Or call on God to humiliate them the way He humiliate Bode George?
Or take power from them the way He did to former Speaker of the House of Representative Hon. Patricia Etteh?
Or call on Him to bring their wicked act to the open the way He did to Rev. King, and Al-Mustafa former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Sanni Abacha?
We can really wait but turn these questions into prayers. We are calling on God to grant our request through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen.
Prince Omo Eweka is a public affairs commentator who writes from Nigeria
