Modest Thoughts with Ayuba, Yilgak'ha, February 19, 2024; 08116181263)
Most likely, this piece will trigger sour emotions amongst Nigerians but, I cannot help it. It is the reality of things that must be represented as it were. As far as our current situation is concerned, nothing can be far from the truth. This is piece is a public lamentation!
The best way to capture the presently sorry state of our existence is captured in a post which had a dead lactating bird with its 'children' expecting who were without knowing that their bread winning and dependable mother is gone forever.
The dead of the mother bird means a lot. It was just the matter of time, the young birds will, also, die of truama and hunger because there will be no one to bring food and warm to them. This is the Nigerian situation and nightmare today.
So many people, children, relations, dependants whose bread winners left house with the intention of coming back never saw them again. Their hope were dashed. The pillar of support of these ones have either been killed by kidnappers, bandits, arm robbers or held captive by hostage takers demanding huge ransomes!
What is going on Nigeria? Just last Saturday, one popular business mogul, Sunday Okonkwo alias Sunny Best and the very vocal Publicity Secretary of the All progressive Congress (APC), Hon. Sylvanus Namang were killed by men of the underworld in Pankshin town.
Nigeria is in deep trouble. It seems men of the underworld are having a field day perpetrating evil. The blood thirsty vampires are becoming more emboldened in going after their targeted victims which are persons who who are rich or have the potential to be rich and can contribute to wealth creation in the society. They are poisonous people who are cowards and mediocres who hate healthy competition.
The issue at stake in Nigeria is that life is so fragile but some amongst us are so brutal. Nothing gives these deadly criminals joy except to maim, kill or destroy. These ones are sadists!
Our killers do not believe in natural or organic laws that guarantees the right to life. They have no morality in their dictionary but to still, kill and destroy.
Murderers live in total depravity. In them is the reality of what a writer calls "sleep of reasons." Their minds are altered and totally debased.
These are not the best of times for us. As Morris Gleitzman will put it, "The Nazis are shooting people. They could be shooting our parents. A story isn't going to help." These are sounds of lamentation not time for merry making or story telling. There is nothing amusing about life in Nigeria again!
Our case is like that of the Israelites who sang while in captivity. Ours is more or less life in captivity: "By the river of Babylon, there we sat down and, there we wept, when we remember Zion." Now we know better, we live in our country as though we are in strange lands. With nostalgia, we weep remembering the land of milk and honey our founding fathers and mothers envisioned and told us about at independence on October 1, 1960.
The omious signs are here. The situation in Nigeria is a though our dead warrants have been signed. David Seltzer in the novel "Prophecy" put it this way: "The prophesy will come true .... Your death is about to be born." The beginning of our journey to the slaughter has commenced by the pulling of the trigger by the 'men in long black coat', the Sicilly Mafias that are on rampage in Nigeria! There are gun and bomb sounds everywhere. Except something miraculous happens, we are altogether doomed to be consumed by a fate we never bargained for!
In this country, our Killers are visiting from two directions - the direction of general insecurity and the direction of abject poverty. Nigeria has become one of the most terrorised nations in the world; it is, equally, the poverty capital of the world after overtaking India in 2019. Here, those who escaped death occasioned by food insecurity fall victims of the snare and cruelty of armed bandits, kidnappers or Boko Haram insurgents.
There are trouble here; trouble there and troubles everywhere. Where else do we run to, who will help us out of these sorry state of our existence? You stay at home they come for you; you stepped out to look for food only for the family you left behind and expecting your return with something for them to eat to be called for payment of ransome which is always outrageous!
Ideally: "Everybody deserves to have something good in their life, at least, once", as observed by Morris Gleitzman. Yes, this is the ideal and the fact. No one is born to be a perpetually live in the frying pan of pain and frustration. No. Whoever pursue a good life is entitled to have it if he persist and never give give up. Yes. You are part of the pilgrims' progress of life but our system not helping matters at all. The good life we desire is eluding us!
Let me borrow from the words of Kathleen Windsor's novel, "Star Money", to say: "I'm so afraid! There are no beginning and no end to fear: The primitive fear of dark and of hunger, of growing old or failing sick. Of being alone. The fear of pain. Fear of death. Fear of being laughed at. Fear of failure. Fear of doing or saying the wrong thing. Fear of embarrassment. Fear of poverty. Fear of work and play. Fear of not knowing enough. Fear of being beautiful as someone else. Fear of others, fear of yourself. Fear of being asked to do something you can't do and letting it be known you can't. Fear of the past, and fear of the future. Fear of making enemies and making friends. That's been my whole life, she told herself. I'm terrified!" There is varied and endless fears in Nigeria.
Again, in the novel of Lewis Carroll titled, "Alice's Adventures in wonderland", a decisional conversation ensueds between an anonymous character and a cat. The character asked the cat: "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The cat promptly replied: "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." In the face of these current realities, we must understand that how and where we end, as a nation, will depends solely on our leaders' patriotic and true sense of mission for the country. How genuine and deliberate is the mission of our leaders as a nation?
Any nation that craves help and solutions from life threatening existential problems must surmount the political will and courage, especially, at the leadership level, to ruthlessly confront the to do so prayerfully too. It has to be deliberate about it. This is what Nigeria should be doing. There is no any other way!
My deepest condolences to the Nigerian family, Plateau state the immediate families of all those who have been directly or indirectly consumed by the criminal activities of men if the underworld. Oh lord God almighty, have mercy on Nigeria and come to our national rescue. Without you, we are helpless. We cannot help ourselves. Our security architecture and economic policies are no longer promising. Only you alone can save. Save our Souls (SOS), master of the universe. This, I pray, in Jesus' Name!
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