For the Country

It has become really tiresome to engage in a political discourse in this environment. Politics and the failings of those who practice it have become the driving force of establishment for some media houses here. They live it, breath it, sell it, fire it; and if there was nothing sensationally political going on, they’d fathom it!


So, I get so tired to realize that all I seem to give my mind to are issues of politics, much as I do not want to. So many things are happening that should not be happening, and everyone knows that they should not be happening. Yet everyone is just waiting to see how things play out. But who will play them out? We are living in a suspended animation as things stand here now and the first opportunist to sound convincing will just sweep us away.

Musa Y’Ardua was hung on our necks by Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo as if he was our destiny maker. A man battling to stay alive saddled with managing a confused and directionless entity called our land. Ego blinded him to accept. He was also given an equally inexperienced man as himself to be his deputy. Now his handicap has overtaken him and the State is tottering.

Is Y’Ardua dead? Has he been kidnapped by some interest groups? Some people know but they won’t tell. Anything can happen here, nobody cares. How is it that the number one public person of the country has been kept from us so audaciously? I did not know we are a land whose elites are uneducated. There are no light bearers here. All we have are people who seize the opportunity to steal and amass Government money to build palatial edifices in the midst of slums and squalor garnished with thousands of expensive cars, planes and sea vessels.

Obasanjo has really read us well, giving the crooks the formula to keep us in their armpit. Whatever happens we just talk about it, throw tantrums like babies, sweep it under the carpet, close our eyes and pretend it never happened. We are a land of so many unresolved issues begging to be addressed. But no one has the courage to follow things through here. They have capacity, they have power, they have resources; but no one stands up for what everyone knows is proper.

Suddenly, the fuel ‘scarcity’ created by a cartel in this land since the last three months of 2009 has disappeared. How come?! How is it we have sufficient now? Self-interest is always put above the good of the land, and we are often asked to go to hell if we can’t take it.

Yet again, the barbarians in the North went on rampage slaughtering little children and women. These people, were they not raised as human beings? How could they put a knife to the throat of any other person? This has happened one time too many. What kind of religion would condone this? What kind of person would carry this out even if told to? This goes beyond religion or Government. It questions the quality and character of the people of the North.

I think the government should resettle elsewhere all the people of the states where this evil has taken place; scattering them all over the land, making sure they never form a clan again. Contrary to the self-deception of those in power who only mouth their constitutional duty when it comes to yoking us unequally together, this land is really not that indivisible. We exist here like tenants, not as land owners. Tenants move, caring not who they leave behind. Nothing binds the people of this land except being unfairly subjected to a few who are holding the ropes around our necks.

I should say that henceforth nobody from the South should agree to be sent to the North on any form of national assignment – not work, not NYSC (National Youth Service Corps), not schooling, nor social services. Only in the North do we have groups constantly rising at will and slaughtering innocent citizens without restraints, without remorse and without being brought to justice! If the Government would not respond then let Southerners boycott the North.

And those liars who claim to be for the unity of this country should leave Muoamar Gaddafi alone. The man is thinking for you where you would not think for yourself. The truth though is that Christians are also in the North and Moslems are also in the South. Then what!? If we must break then let it be on tribal and geographical divides. If we would not guarantee for all our people respect, value for life and equal rights; then what the heck are we doing fooling around with ourselves all these years!? Still, who would like to be who? That's the question I know the people will never agree on, and every tribe cannot just be on their own!!!

For how long does the Government intend paying allowances to militants to lay down their arms? Is that an arrangement that will solve the problem for long, or one intended to buy the regime peace till they leave? Would a more constructive approach not have been to clean up the oil mess and invest in infrastructure rather than buying off the few men who are bold enough to challenge them? As Government has shown that it has money to spend, let it muster its relevant work force and go to the region by itself with its blueprint for development and put things up(by itself). The local officials seem to not want the strife to end. Look closely, you’ll see some of them are exploiting the situation. Why play into their hands? Government can do its own work by itself if it wants results. If it has a heart to.





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