Are Nigerians hopeful of the day after? The collective
answer to this rhetorical question is a resounding NO. If Nigerians are no
longer hopeful of tomorrow, they deserve pardon. For, never in the history of
mankind have a people been so brutalized by the very group of people who are
supposed to protect and take care of them. They ought to be pardoned knowing
full well that their manifest state of hopelessness has extended beyond
disillusionment to a desperate and consuming nihilism. Which is why the only news
one hears from Nigeria
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| *Buhari, Obasanjo and Abdusalami |
It is sad to note that Nigeria
Our record of civilization is ultimately a record of
barbarity. Consider: in 1979, Nigerians went to the polls to ward off the
debilitating effects of military rule in their country. This exercise ushered
in a democratically elected civilian government. Unknown to Nigerians, this
gang of debt-ridden politicians suddenly developed into a monster. The result
was the conspiratorial looting of the national treasury into their private
pockets. And Nigerians were worst hit for it. The government introduced a
supposedly punitive fiscal policy styled "Austerity Measure", through which a people already denied the
good things of life were asked to make further sacrifices. Millions of
Nigerians lost their jobs, and there was wailing and gnashing of teeth all over
the place as a result of grinding poverty among the people, whereas the corrupt
politicians were swimming in affluence and under the best security system one
could think of. But their tomorrow eventually came. On December 31, 1983, the
martial lords came calling with their logic as traumatic as it was compelling
and sacked their compatriots in 'agbada'
with a consummate pledge to sanitize the leprous political system.
For the first few months, there was a ray of hope in the
system due to the marvelous ingenuity of Tunde Idiagbon, their
second-in-command. Yet it was not without some avoidable ambiguities due to the
bigotry inherent in the character of Gen Muhammadu Buhari, the commander-in-chief
who was also passionately intolerant of dissent. Whereas some of the looters
were hurled into various detention camps, there existed some sacred cows here
and there. Certain blue-blooded aristocrats whose veins human blood does not
flow were made to look as though they were above the laws of the land. The men
of command and diktat who permitted this level of double standard also vented
their spleen on men of the Fourth Estate of the Realm. The import of their
Decree 4 was to the effect that all was well provided no voice was raised
against their draconian rule. Public outcry was to the effect that the sledge
hammer employed by the khaki boys was too heavy for the flies. The men of
terror thought otherwise. But their tomorrow finally came.
Even those who overran them with a superior commandist
logic did not fare better. Their regime was more beguiling than their
predecessors'. There were more pains, more anguish and more deaths that most
Nigerians were now yearning for the day after. The regime introduced a
time-worn capitalist economic policy which structurally sapped and decimated
the good things of life out of a majority of Nigerians. There was untold hunger
in the land, just as there is today as Naira, the local currency was devalued
to an unacceptable proportion and inflation rate rose above sea level.
Again, the people's popular verdict
given on June 12, 1993, that a drastic change be effected in the system, was
vehemently resisted by the deans of the martial clan. There was bloodshed,
burning, looting and maiming. In the end, the deans saw their tomorrow coming
and quickly stepped aside due largely to the cataclysm that came with the
people's power. Their dark-goggled colleague who was like second-in-command
still forced himself on the nation as a maximum, iron-fisted dictator. No
Nigerian actually understood his hyperbole, not even the acclaimed winner of
the annulled mass decision for change.
The dark-goggled, stern-faced maximum ruler clamped his
'enemies' including his erstwhile martial superiors into jail over a phantom
coup plot. Others were either shot, bombed or chased into exile in foreign
lands. The custodian of the people's mandate himself died in prison. Following
the dictates of the Law of Karma, the dictator himself saw his tomorrow coming.
On June 8, 1998, he died in the arms of some beautiful Indian girls inside the
biggest prison in the land called Aso Rock Villa. One of the jailbirds in his
gulag who was helped out unhurt was eventually crowned a king for the second
time.
Unfortunately, he saw himself as a
messiah whose attitude to governance was to gallivant the whole world in
customized 'agbada', parroting like
the dreaded 'Etulubor' masquerade
while looting the national patrimony into his private pockets but pretending he
was fighting corruption. After his eight years of dictatorship in mufti having been
denied a third term, he succeeded in foisting his sickly protégé on the nation
thus posting the country on the page of arrested development. But his
successor, the gentle but sickly teacher-turned politician gave amnesty to
Niger Delta youths and brought sanity to the much abused restive region. The
demise of the much adored and honest intellectual who acknowledged the depraved
electoral system which brought him to power ushered in another intellectual as
president through the Doctrine of Necessity.
He introduced economic and democratic reforms that moved
the country to the enviable status of the fastest growing economy in Africa . He even went as far as providing a platform on
which Nigerians of all shades, tribes, creed and occupation gathered to debate
the future of their country. He did not give credence to the politics of
bitterness (do-or-die) as he insisted that his ambition was not worth the blood
of any Nigerian. Even though there was so much looting of public funds under
his watch, he did not invent corruption and the monster of official sleaze
during his administration was not close to the bazaar of massive looting that
was the hallmark of military banditry for more than 35 years. But he was a
victim of elite conspiracy and was summarily rigged out of office on March 28,
2015.
As a principled politician who
would not feel pleased with the killings of innocent Nigerians, he called his
challenger and conceded defeat. He congratulated his opponent, a feat never
before recorded in our annals. His exit brought to power a relentless virtuoso
of the power game who would not brook any nibbling to remain on the throne. At
first, he made a proclamation on the day of his inauguration that he belonged to everybody and he belonged to
nobody. As he began to consolidate his hold on power, it dawned on
Nigerians that the emperor with messianic impudence actually belongs to his
kinsmen and not all Nigerians. He lined up his tribesmen including retired and
tired ones as members of his kitchen cabinet. So brazenly lackluster was his
regime that his wife had to warn Nigerians that he is not in control but a
cabal.
Three years into his reign of trepidation, Nigerians are
already crying for relief. Aside from unprovoked killings of innocent Nigerians
across the length and breadth of the country, under him the people are weighed
down by extreme poverty. Prices of essential commodities and other food items
are skyrocketed while the value of the national currency has nosedived several
octaves below its counterparts. His plot to annex the legislature and the
judiciary into the executive arm of government is ongoing with the wanton
intimidation of the National Assembly with corrosive state power. Under his
watch the country is manifesting the highest index of human misery. In the
history of our nationhood, Nigerians have never been this bruised as there is
no one whistling a happy tune in the streets. The signs aren't too hard to see:
they are the signs of internal decay, the dry rot of apathy and indifference.
Also, Nigerians have never been as divided as they are
today. Yet, what we hear daily from them is that they have delivered on their
campaign promises to the people and that there is no alternative to their
regime. Driven by inordinate ambition to remain in power and the need to win
the support of the South West greatly wronged by the annulment of the June 12,
1993 presidential election, they have hurriedly declared that date our new Democracy
Day. They have also honoured the presumed winner of that election who
was made to die in their gulag with the highest national honour of the land and
some targeted players in the June 12 crisis the second highest national honour
of the land. Yes, it is good gesture, but for the wrong motives. See what
desperation can cause? Is this the CHANGE Nigerians voted for? Our nation is
detained in the past. But their tomorrow will surely come.
*Amor is an Abuja-based
public affairs analyst
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