Gobsmacked!

Gobsmacked! That was exactly how I felt.

Wasn’t I, like everyone else supposed to submit to checks on account of the heightened security threats in the FCT? Especially coming on the heels of the EMAB plaza bombing it’s only commonsensical that one cooperates with the security operatives for as long as it would take them (& us of course) to solve the present mess. 

Just a day after the unfortunate incidence at EMAB, was when commonsense which as it's oft the adage ‘… isn’t common’ left ‘Oga security’. I find it very difficult to explain how we’ve failed to extricate ourselves from the foreigner-is-better-than-us mentality. 

An ‘Oga security’ (in this instance the private security company operated guards) got me infuriated when I went to pick up a few provisions for my kids at Grand Square. Of course shopping around the 4:00PM rush hour is not on the list of activities that would normally excite me. Add to this  the prevailing 'shopping mall-phobia' occasioned by the EMAB incidence made it the worst of times for such an endeavour. But I had to endure the inconvenience for the sake of the kids. That explains my state before my encounter with 'Oga security'.

There was I at the entrance to the premises,  contemplating how to spend as little time as possible at the mall. There right behind two SUVs just by the sentry gate waiting to be checked. The ‘Corps Diplomatique’ number plates on one of the SUVs easily gave them out as foreigners who work in one of the many embassies/diplomatic missions in Abuja.

My man at the sentry then did what not only surprised but also made me lose my cool like I’ve not done for a very long while. When it was the turn of these ‘foreigners’ to be searched, to my ‘dumbfundment’, ‘Oga security’ just allowed them pass without any form of checks whatsoever.  Due to the traffic at the time, I had been in the queue for about ten minutes and had patiently waited, watching how other cars before the ‘diplomatic’ SUVs were duly searched to their booths. You know the usual retroactive responses after any bomb blast which as always will soon be abandoned until another sad episode reminds us that the Government's 'we-are-on-top-of-the-situation' speeches and our many fastings and may stereotyped prayers haven’t arrested the terrorist, and that we need to be seen to be doing something. Anything!

So because I was right behind the SUVs, I also deliberately decided to refuse to submit myself (my car rather) for the check even when sweating-in-the-sun, ‘Oga security’ had flagged me to do so.

To compound his problem or rather to impress his 'Oga at the top', who I presume must be watching from somewhere, 'Oga security' came charging after me threatening a fight. Of course I didn’t miss the riffle-wielding Policeman standing (also in the sun) watching and thinking God-knows-what.

When he finally got to where I was, (I had then driven a considerable distance from his sentry), I wound down and commonsense told me to politely tell him why I refused to submit to his checks. To this he retorted ‘do you want to compare yourself with them. Do you know them?'.

That was when I had to give it back to him. I made him understand that the people in the SUVs were foreigners and if they deserve easy passage without the normal checks, much more I a Nigerian! I didn’t stop there. I schooled him a little about how they would have treated him were the situations reversed i.e. were it in their country. I then insisted I would submit myself to his search only if he searched the two SUVs.

Turning around, he quickly looked the way of the gun-wielding Policeman and other people around, obviously seeking some form of support to continue his harassing engagement with me. But finding none, the message struck him. He realized he had given ‘Diplomatic Immunity’ when none was required. He had embarrassed his 'brother' a Nigerian (me that is), and graciously given unsolicited and undue privileges to foreigners who would in no way have accorded him similar privileges were it in their country and in reverse situations.

 In the same instance (same as ‘Oga security’s epiphany moment) my gobsmackness turned into utter disappointment at how as Nigerians we disparage ourselves and expect foreigners to treat us otherwise.

Isn’t it past time we began to accord ourselves some modicum of the same respect we expect foreigners to give us both here and abroad? Aren't we by now at 50, supposed to have outgrown all forms colonial cum inferiority mentality?  

I wish myself and the over 170 Million of us had answers to these questions, which I fear posterity will require of us.

God bless 9ja!

EKITI 2014: A Harbinger to 2015?

The outcome of last Saturday’s gubernatorial elections in Ekiti is the talking point today. In far-flung Abuja from where I write, the excitement the election has generated, has for the moment eclipsed the #BBOG and the Fifa World Cup 2014 put together.  The media, (in main & social streams) is awashed with reasons ranging from the possible, the plausible as well as the very ludicrous of the how and why the election was won and lost.

No Nigerian can possibly be exempted from commenting on the election (and any other elections before next year) as it is seen by many as the  harbinger of things to come in 2015. And as expected the winning party is basking in the euphoria of its victory, the losers on the other hand in a 180 degree turn from their normal hell-and-brimstone stance, have chosen a rather self-effacing position with little or nothing heard form their quarters save of course the post-election speech of the incumbent Governor. Explanations to the loud reticence of the opposition will be the subject of many analyses. This blog will however allow others the honour to do that.

Far from being a post-mortem of the Ekiti elections, a distillation of the incumbent Governor's now famous If-This-is-the-will-of-the-people post-election speech and public responses re the elections, makes glaring the following facts. Without doubt the APC has been outfoxed in Ekiti. Its cries and rantings against an inept government (or rather the  ‘clueless’ one) turns out to be nothing but a fundamental attribution error. While it blames the party in power for Nigeria’s woes and situates the reason for this to the inherent flaw in the nature of the PDP, it has failed (and that woefully) at giving Nigerians at the grassroots any reason to believe it has anything better to offer.  

At about the time the legacy units of the opposition party were in merger talks, I remarked at a forum in my office that ‘associations - political, cultural, religious or social, DO NOT grow from the top-down. Parties that last the longest and impact people most have a bottom-up growth trajectory’. Ekiti 2014 has given proof to that. The grassroots won.

As 2015 beckons, it becomes only pertinent that the 'political overlords' realise that Nigerians at the  grassroots are sick and tired of the divisive gerrymandering of the few Ogas at the top - clueless or first-class, and that come the general elections the mass and indeed Nigeria will continue the celebrations that has begun in Ekiti.

Congratulations to the good people of Ekiti who stood for what they want.

Congratulations to Fayose who won the elections. 

Honour to Fayemi whose rare display of maturity and sportsmanship won my heart.

Chibok: A Century of Seared Conscience

 

Have watched with a blend of shock, pain, dumbfoundment and anger the recent happenings in Nigeria. No doubt the BBOG hashtag has caused to be beamed on us the searchlight of the international press, and with it an exposé of the cesspit of ineptitudes, outright deceit and failure that we’ve called governance. Chibok, a hitherto small community unbeknownst, suddenly leapfrogs into international reckoning and referencing albeit for the very wrong reasons.  

Did we have to wait for moments like these to remind us that we have been believing and per possible living a lie? Perhaps the moment happened on us ex tempore and we can on the premise of this glib permit our responsiveness or the lack thereof. But we cannot work on this logic as a valid excuse for our unpreparedness if we could host major international events like the recent WEFA and many others before it even at very short notices. To our collective shame, for the better part of our over half a century history of independent nationhood, we cannot deny knowledge of this evil. We created, nurtured, sustained and institutionalized disorder and impunity in all facets of our national life, creating the perfect recipe for the Chibok of today. 

We are all pained (by this is meant all right-thinking Nigerians and friends of Nigeria).  First, those innocent schoolgirls who in no way whatsoever contributed to the real or imagined grievance(s) of BH - the infamously revered Boko Haram here implied - have been made ransom in a war everyone of us still finds difficult to fathom. Second, that a Government and a people - all of us - have allowed the BH problem fester even when we had everything at our disposal to have stopped it right when it was just a band of 'disgruntled element' as we are wont to say.

We are shocked. Not so much that a deranged sect leader armed with extremely perverted religious tenets (and yes, some weapons) can force an entire nation of 170 million disunited people into cowering. Its only normal for a anyone to lead to victory a small band of united people or even animals working on a single purpose whereas, on the flip side, it is next to impossible for any lead to victory a mass of people working at cross purposes. Our shock is much more for reason that the retard can go on to force minors into converting to his strange beliefs in 21^st C Nigeria and the whole lot of us 'sane' people watch helpless. This to say the least is the absurdity responsible for our shock.

We continue to wonder that while the international community is offering help (the propriety or otherwise of the this help his not here debated) and assistance re the BBOG saga, our leaders as well as a good number of us are still lost in 'blame land'.  I mean lost, thinking cap and all.

In trying to make sense of all of these events, one can't help but recognize a pattern so familiar and so distasteful. While for altruistic reasons, the public spirited have been campaigning and others at great peril to their lives and sources of livelihood, have dared to place blame on the hitherto feared ‘powers that be'. Kudos to these Nigerians and may their efforts, sweat (and blood) water the seed of the renascent Nigeria.

But painful and true as it is turning out to be, we must accept as fact that some have latched on the BBOG campaign for all but altruistic reasons. It is to this segment of the BBOG ‘campaigners’ that the angst of this post is focused. The exploiters of the misfortunes of the girls. The exploiters of the misfortunes of Chibok. The exploiters of the misfortunes of Nigeria.

Yes. The horde of the scavengers that couldn’t muster even a thought to condemn BH before now, but suddenly found all the zest to join the BBOG protest rallies, your anguish shall be a hundred times more than the pain of the parents of the Chibok girls and the trauma of the abducted combined.

Woe betides the crowd and those numbered amongst them that have suddenly become social activist nay slactivist, who have only recently found their voices, using Chibok to gain (social) media clout, all in their ill-conceived bid to catch the eyes of foreign donours. Infamy is at your door and it is come to stay with you forever!

Our politicians aren’t left out. Trust them never to miss the bandwagon. They've suddenly turned it into an opportunity to catch some shine from the moment and to get other 'political opportunities' to see them. So painful that some within this category are known in the very recent past to have given tacit encouragement to BH but today pose on social media with picture-posts brandishing BBOG hashtags. Very despicable and incredulous what our politicians can do. Well, to this lot we say our amnesia is cured, we remember them very well and will not forget to let them know that calamity is at their doorstep, soon to catch up with them, with a visitation worse than the thief in night that stole the Chibok girls.

And our VIPs and the VVIPs cum international-social-crusader wannabe. Is it normal that you consistently decline media parley with Nigerian journalists and sometimes outrightly embarrass local reporters that sought a minute or two of media engagement with you? We see you scramble for interviews with representatives of various international media outlets, all on account of Chibok. Well, you just bought for yourself a new garb. You are decked in shame.

Enough of the vituperations, for in the midst of this ugly situation, good however beckons on us. For us the morning is come and the searchlight is fine-focused on our faces.  The intensity of the light will hit harder as we seek the rescue of the girls. Guaranteed! But we pray, like the furious rays of a bright Abuja morning meets the photophobic eyes of a late waker, let it wake us to the truth that BH is a common enemy.  Let it wake us up to the painful reality that though we are a hundred years old, yet we are a hundred years behind nations that have less than a hundredth of our endowments.

Its morning Nigeria. Wake up.