NIGERIA GOVERNANCE CRISIS
Sometimes it’s difficult to avoid trouble when it wants to happen, and that’s the state we are in here in Nigeria. No matter how comfortable you are, the economy affects everyone. I hardly go to my farm like before. To drive from my house to my school, I must buy at least 10,000 naira worth of fuel for a round trip. I generate my own water and electricity. I maintain the roads to where my businesses are, and some other people provide their own security. Children attend private schools, so what is the government for? What is governance in Nigeria? You go to private hospitals, so what does the government really do?
I believe our politicians have reached the limits of their reasoning, particularly in the northern part of Nigeria. What I am experiencing there, I have never seen in my 65 years of existence. We have reached a level that unifies everyone, but we haven’t fallen far enough. If modern technology renders fossil fuels relatively useless in our hands, and there is no money to pay soldiers, policemen, or even to steal, then we will consume each other.
When they ran a Muslim-Muslim ticket for the presidential elections, they thought they were guaranteeing their security. Northern Muslims would be excited, and Southern Muslims would be excited. Then they would play the tribal card of Yoruba, the tribal card of Nupe, and bring a sprinkling of other groups, like the Hausa, Fulanis, and Igbo. They bring in all kinds of people, an assemblage of the elite that captures the commonwealth, and then give them a pittance or some rice. Nigeria has become a sick patient for whom rice is the treatment, a rice palliative.
However, people have reached a point, particularly in the north, where religion no longer matters. Tinubu is a Muslim, Shettima is a Muslim, most of their governors are Muslims, but they don’t care anymore. They are suffering, and they no longer care whether you are a northerner or any other person is protesting. They have taken their destinies into their own hands. At the rate they are going, it will be difficult to stop them. Any wrong move could trigger an inferno that will consume this civilian dispensation.
The elite in this country have taken the general populace for a ride for too long. Our president does not seem to have the will, intellect, or drive to reset Nigeria. What Nigeria needs today is a reset—a factory reset. We need to stop this palliative treatment, change the national anthem to the old one, do this, do that. We need to sit down and talk to ourselves as a people. Can we continue with the rate of expenditure and corruption in the executive system? Can we continue with the NNPC the way it is? Can we continue with the legislative system the way it is? It has become a rubber stamp, a retirement home where people who have been governors or senators before come back, sit down, and laugh.
There was a point where Aabo said they were not in a ninth club. It might not be directed at that woman directly, but they behaved as if they were. It might just be coincidental that that woman spoke up at that time. That’s not the main issue. It has come to a point where the population is taken for granted. The people can’t take it any longer. There needs to be a reset. Who can cause this reset? I don’t think it is Tinubu. I don’t think it is Shettima. I don’t think it is this group of legislators. Ironically, people like Tinubu, Shettima, and all these people cannot resign; if not, they should have resigned.
We can’t call snap elections like in the UK, Italy, or France. The judiciary can’t continue with corrupt judges. Nigeria has to be reset. I don’t know how it will be done, but Nigeria needs to be reset. We can’t continue like this. I am grieved in my spirit. The oldest woman in Abaraka came out to demonstrate. All her hair gray, she came out. A handicapped person came out to protest in one of the northern states. I am not as strong as I used to be, or I would have been in the streets to protest. But will this protest produce anything? Only God knows what is going to happen next, but this is just the beginning.
I remain your friend, Dr. Charles Apoki. You are my responsibility.
