Does Nigeria Still Matter To Nigerians?

 By Dan Amor

It is the biggest question of the day! Does Nigeria really matter? Like an inscrutable nightmare, the ponderous mystery of the Nigerian national question, which is ultimately the nation’s enduring essence, is still at issue. Jolted by the scandalous and shocking display of the obvious limitations of the human evolution, the unacceptable index of human misery in their country, and willed by a recent memory of oppression inflicted upon them by discredited soldiers and their quislings, Nigerians have been singing discordant tunes about the state of their forced Union.   

This has further been exacerbated by disarming pockets of inter and intra-communal clashes, wanton killings by herdsmen, senseless Boko Haram bombings, frequent kidnappings by armed bandits, violent robbery and mindless ritual killings across the country. Therefore, the matter for regret and agitation is that a supposedly giant of Africa has suddenly become the world’s most viable junkyard due to the evil  machinations of a fraudulent ruling class and the feudal forces still determined to keep the country in a permanent state of medieval servitude. 

How Much Does Nigeria Matter To You?

By Dan Amor

It is the biggest question of the day! Does Nigeria really matter? Like an inscrutable nightmare, the ponderous mystery of the Nigerian national question, which is ultimately the nation's enduring essence, is still at issue. Jolted by the scandalous and shocking display of of the obvious limitations of the human evolution, the unacceptable index of human misery in their country, and willed by a recent memory of oppression inflicted upon them by discredited soldiers and their quislings, Nigerians have been singing discordant tunes about the state of their forced Union.

*President Buhari flanked by wife, Aisha and political
associates mark his 73rd birthday

This has further been exacerbated by disarming pockets of inter and intra-communal clashes, wanton killings by Fulani herdsmen, senseless Boko Haram bombings, violent robbery and mindless kidnappings across the country. Therefore, the matter for regret and agitation is that a supposedly giant of Africa has suddenly become the world's most viable junkyard due to the evil machinations of a fraudulent ruling class and the feudal forces still determined to keep the country in a permanent state of medieval servitude. 

Nigeria: A Snake Without Head

By Ndubuisi Ukah

Most of the time, one cannot but wonder if something is uniquely wrong with Nigeria’s destiny, considering that any forward step she takes is immediately followed by a thousand ones backward. We are one of the few countries whose leaders unashamedly and openly display their complete lack of trust in their system and in the country that they purport to lead; we are one of the few countries in the world whose healthcare infrastructure is fitting only for their unlucky, impoverished and forgotten citizens, and not their ruling class.

When would folks ruling us realise that the healthcare systems they admire and run to each time they are ill are made possible by fellow humans in positions of public trust, just like them? When would our clueless and hypocritical ruling class realise that Nigeria is blessed with top talents capable of replicating same medical feats available in these foreign lands that they constantly run to? When would the ruling class come to its senses, think right and do right? Are these folks so clueless as to not know that some of the top talents in these foreign lands – doctors, PhD-level scientists and engineers – are Nigerian-born and Nigerian-educated? As such, the problem is not the ruled, but the rulers.

The doctors in these foreign hospitals do not have higher IQs than most of the doctors in Nigeria; the doctors in the U.K for example, are able to provide better care and cure more diseases simply because they have access to more advanced medical facilities at their hospitals. Period.

We are probably the only country on earth, whose number one public figure could just leave the citizens guessing and wondering, even in the midst of what I consider the worst economic recession of the country’s life time. Our currency has plummeted by more than 150 percent in the last sixteen months with no halt in sight and with no coherent explanations from people in-charge.

Nigeria: Awaiting The Second Colonization

By Abraham Ogbodo

Why are we what we are in Nigeria? Nothing is ever promptly handled to create maximum benefits. If it is road construction or rehabilitation, government waits until a tiny pothole becomes a dangerous crater and lives lost through accidents caused by the failed part of the road and after a deafening public outcry too, before a contract is awarded for the fixing.

This national lethargy is even more manifest in government – labour relations. No proposed strike action by workers union is ever nipped in the bud. Government usually lives through the build-up and in a fire-fighting approach sets up committees to negotiate a cease-fire with the warring union after everywhere had been put on fire. It is all a measure of our inability to sift through the issues of today and articulate a proper future. More or less, we live by the day or in everyday language, from hand to mouth. No nation attains greatness operating on pay-as-you-go basis.

Is the fault in our star or style? I mean is there anything about our geo-ethnic locations that makes perception difficult? We are incapable of perceiving danger even if it is just an inch away. An online trending statement allegedly by South African Apartheid President P.W Botha, but which has been reworked or adapted to suit the personalities of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and American President Donald Trump, is very hard on the Black race.

The summary of it all is that the Negro lacks completely in the essentials to cultivate a high culture. He is neither innovative nor resilient and hides under the circumstances of his social evolution to always remain under his challenges instead of rising above them. It is a damning verdict, nevertheless, supported by ample evidence in the observable political leadership of the Black world. Also, a video of an American Black preacher, Dr. David Manning of Atlam World Missionary Church in Harlem, New York on the same subject matter of the copious and inexplicable inadequacies of the Black race went viral.

The narratives in both instances came close to creating a separate taxonomy outside the homo-sapiens specie for the Black race. The commentators only stopped short of branding black people sub-human. The temptation is to lash out at these bigots and proclaim (not prove) that Blacks and Whites are denominated in a common humanity and the so-called difference between them is not any more substantial than illusive perception of pigmentation. And that is largely true because even President Trump, in a moment of absolute sanity, said in his inauguration speech that the same red blood runs in the veins of everybody.

The ‘Fulani’ Rampage

By Obi Nwakanma

 Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s current president is a passionate Fulani, and the Fulani are a transnational migrant group, dealing today with the forces of environmental change that are forcing great pressure on their pastoral culture. Armed Fulani-herdsmen as desertification intensifies in the Savanah regions, grazing and watering grounds disappear, and drives the herdsmen farther and farther out, seeking places to graze, occupy, or settle. The Fulani herdsmen are no strange sights in Nigeria. In fact J.P. Clark, one of Nigeria’s eminent poets, captures both the life of the Fulani herdsmen, but more specifically the resilience and silent will of the cattle in his poem, “Fulani Cattle.” And I should say that I myself have anticipated a great conflict.

 In my yet to be published novel, one of the characters, Simple, is lying in the solitude of his farm near the Orashi river, after a day’s work, and after smoking a little grass, and in the haze of sleep he hears the rustle of cattle in a neighboring farm and thinks, they better not come near my farm or I’ll draw blood. Something to that effect. It did occur to me quite early when I penned that scene that a real menace is brewing, unheeded, and it is the struggle for arable land. What did not occur to me, even in my wildest imagination, is the increasing dimension of war-like activities that now accompany Fulani pastoralists in their moves to settle new grazing areas by force, as the condition of the earth drives them further and further from the Sahel. It may just as well be old grazing pressure, but the recent spate and heightening of attacks of Southern agrarian towns by so-called “Fulani Herdsmen” is throwing many curveballs.

This menace has been reported in the North too, in places like Adamawa, the Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Nassarawa and Benue, basically, mostly Christian areas of the North, where frequent attacks and resistance against the so-called “Fulani herdsmen” have been going on in the last two years with growing intensity. The thrust of the attacks has given rise to a religious dimension to this: the fear that the so-called Herdsmen are masking a greater menace: religious and political conquest of a scale comparable to colonialism. Such a possibility should not be dismissed as conspiracy, because indeed, most political and conquest movements are the products of conspiracies often publicly denied or even ignored until it is too late. So, the spate of attacks have increased with intensity, and some analysts have noted that the South, once seemingly buffered from these activities have become flashpoints, and areas of serious and rapid conflict involving the so-called “Fulani herdsmen,” since the election and swearing in of President Buhari. Is there a connection? I dare not think.