Despite its very evident prosperity, many people in Nigeria are in excruciating pain. That distress is most
visible to the poor majority while the ruling elites do not see it or pretend not to see it. The broken
covenant, the social contract between the government and the governed illuminates the ineptitude and
callousness of those elected by the people to fight on their behalf.
Romantic yearning for Utopia and revolt against a polluted society are the poles which provide the
tension of the present insecurity in the country.
We see things differently, the psychiatrist sees the craving for Utopia and rebellion against the status
quo as symptoms of social maladjustment, the social reformer sees both as symptoms of a healthy
rational attitude. Karl Max was right when he said that a moribund society creates its own morbid
gravediggers.
Revolt against injustice is not only honorable but it is imperative. The selfless, altruistic leaders who
sacrifice to see the positive development and unity of Nigeria has come and gone like a lightening after
the independence, leaving behind tears and sorrows in the mind of a million poor Nigerians. Since then,
Nigeria has been blessed with nonentities as leaders. Leaders who perceive no need-spots for specific
problems, Leaders who poses no gift and no competence to address the needs of the people, Leaders
who cannot persuade people, Leaders who are not able to attract others to join a cause, Leaders, who
pursue no purpose and employ no measures to accomplish the desired goals. We lack a strong leader
who could cast a national vision. In these days, there is no one in charge in Nigeria: everyone and
everything seem to thrive in chaos.
The Nigerian economic meltdown which has become so glaring and has brought an untold hardship in
the lives of people, it is very sadden that, despite the present nasty, squalid, brutish and the impoverish
live of the people of Nigeria due to the evince of incompetency by the present led Buhari administration,
some few leaders in his kitchen cabinet who claim to be economic gurus in order to enrich themselves,
continue to deceive Buhari and some of his close power wire pullers with voodoo economic analyses
that things are not as bad as they seem. One thing that however they cannot refute is the reality of the
perpetual chasm separating the poor and the ruling class. The ruling class inflamed the anger and the
pain of the working class by refusing to talk about it and being disinclined to listen. The impoverishment
of the less privilege Nigerians keeps some of us awake at night since we are also victims. I cry and I also
in the darkness around me. It is the cries of the countless victims like me which always rouse me in the
long watches of the night. It is the willing silence and sheepish submission to subjugation, poverty, and
oppression that infuriate me to write and I will always do as a journalist. It is thinking of the martyrs who
fought and died for the starved and strapped Nigerians that egg me on. The members of the ruling class
have destroyed the vision of the future. They have turned their backs on the future and embraced the
past. The addiction of these vultures to corruption and wickedness frankly and nakedly set them against
all human values of democratic norms. The slightest opposition and the merest criticism expose the few
Nigerians who dare the authorities to the severest penalties. People in our reform social ladder are
instantly suppressed and those who stand out independently are mown down.
Nigeria is in a mess. Able bodied Nigerians turned beggars wandered through the streets. Petty street
hawkers of underwear, socks, rubber heels, corsets, silverware, and other ancient objects appeared like
a rash over the face of Nigerian towns and cities. Graduates at all levels across disciplines drive danfos,
molues, and wheelbarrow pushers for a pittance. Others settle for the “Area Boys” specialist and dark
alley businesses of assorted brands. Our unemployed youths in the millions have become a wild and
homeless lot, socially disinherited, candidates for prisons and electric chair. Our elderly are hungry. They
depend on public charity and their Good Samaritan neighbors for food and for a place to sleep. Days of
somber discouragement follow our pensioners. Some died in penury, of hunger and disease. The rest of
them live a vagabond, lonely, and perilous lives. Their depression soon reached that extreme stage
when the will is paralyzed and physical resistance suddenly gives way. Like inflated currency, Nigerian
workers have lost the real meaning of living. They look like a huddle of stragglers from a beaten army.
Irony and shame kept intruding in their chosen vocations and careers. Their former passion for dignity of
labor has turned in to perversion. The hitherto trail blazing octopus, virile and vibrant Nigerian Labor
Congress (NLC) has become a castrated giant whose brag and bluster only served to cover its lost of
virility. Oil-our commonwealth has been cut into cubes and blocks shared among the military hyenas
and civilian vultures. Nigerian governments- federal, state and local- always stand for swindling, intrigue,
and privilege. They could not stand for anything else. Neither law nor force can change it. If retribution
occasionally catches up with them, this can only be by the dispensation of God. The hopelessness of
Nigerians limited lives –lives truncated and impoverished by the oppressors keeps the rest of us
wondering what next? Majority of Nigerians live on less than $2 a day. And it is their starvation wages
which permit the swollen pay packets of the ruling class and other privileged economic saboteurs. Once
Nigerians started on the slippery slope, nothing could hold them back. At every turn, they are forced to
advance, sliding further into the abyss of shame. With the present pitiable situation of the downtrodden
Nigerians which show no sign of a light from the tunnel, Nigeria is indeed at the verge of precipice. The
ruling class are gleefully, in their cozy splendid mansions and flashy cars enjoying their luxury lives with
their children studying abroad having every care in a peaceful and quite place for learning while the less
privilege are suffering. The children of the Nigerian less privilege are not been given a chance or
supported by the government educationally. Our local schools, colleges and universities are but
wastelands of academic refuse. The institutions have been abandoned long ago by the children of the
ruling class, other top government officials and robber barons. Our hospitals have become death houses
for the poor – the only patients that still patronize such institutions. As humiliated and downtrodden
people, Nigerians endure the worst abuses without complaint. One would have expected Nigerians to
develop a strong hatred and dislike of the obviously rich- the thieves, crooks, scammers, embezzlers,
looters, and leeches – of the economy, not because they could afford to buy things at any price, but
because they were able to do so without a guilty conscience. A large number of Nigerians has been
beaten into almost numb submission into accepting poverty as an act of God and that they will never
reach the goals they once thought possible.
Enough is enough; less privilege Nigerians should rise to the occasion and refuse to accept being treated
as lesser human beings. Let us respond to the insult from the self centered elites with furious
indignation by sporadic, coordinated, protest and resistance regardless of our religion and ethnic background.
PIONEER NEWS 