As I said, Three Years Ago

By Okey Ikechukwu

The article was titled “fear and Trembling”. The date was November 22, 2022. The issues on the table at time revolved around the many uncertainties surrounding our personal and national lives. The dominant motif in all discourse at the time was an Incubus of great dimensions; An ever present, but undefined dagger.

The article in question began thus: “Our people say that there’s something to worry about when all known soothsayers maintain a pregnant silence, while wearing a scowl. Our people also say that neither the man who wants to wash his clothes in the morning, nor one who wants to set out early for a distant market with a bag of salt on his head, will know what to do for sure if the sky remains overcast for long, but brings neither rain nor strong winds. My people say that the appearance of the dragonfly is a clear sign that the dry season and the concomitant harmattan wind is near. Look around you and tremble”.

The article continued thus: “There seems to be a brewing cocktail of unpleasant events. The greater worry is that it may all turn into a frightening and inescapable cascade of calamities. No one can give it a name as yet. Yes, no one can say for sure what it is. Insecurity, hunger, confusion, leadership illiteracy and much more are staring us in the face everywhere”.

The point being made then, which is being repeated here and now, is that all is not well with our current politicking, across all political divides. You can feel it. You can smell it. You can almost touch it. Yet we are all carrying on as if we are sure about what would happen next. Depravity walks the land, as politicians tumble over themselves to convince us that they should be taken seriously. Anon, it is fear and trembling everywhere!

Also three years ago, on May 21, 2022, titled “Productivity, the Nation and Fake News” brought out “Some of the most important conclusions of participants at a Non-Partisan RoundTable on pressing national issues, which was organized by Development Specs Academy, and which held at the Nigerian Army Resource Centre in Abuja, as follows: (1) Increased productivity is a critical success factor for any nation that wants a strong and stable national currency, (2) Consumption patterns and product preferences have a direct impact on a nation’s Balance of trade, especially with regards to deficits, (3) The Nigerian State, and the citizenry, must consume mostly what they produce and produce mostly what they consume, or retain some of the economic debilities on the table at the moment”.

At that RoundTable it was also pointed the need to measure the value of every economic intervention against the background of impact, and that “insecurity is one of the biggest threats to national productivity, agriculture and food security” and that this fact alone “… can undermine the best policy initiatives and economic intervention programmes”.

On the State of the Nation, the RoundTable pointed out that our security forces were overstretched and also hamstrung by a largely apathetic citizenry. It noted the growing unwillingness of locals to give badly-needed intelligence to military and security forces in the war against insurgency and banditry. It linked the perceived suboptimal performance of the police, the armed forces and the security agencies to avoidable facility, operational and capacity inadequacies. The RoundTable said that “…our soldiers and security agents are not magicians; that they need supporting intelligence from locals”.

The broad Conceptual Framework for the RoundTable stemmed from a desire “… to promote solutions-based national conversations on important national issues… figure out, design and propose specific, and readily implementable, solutions to identified problems at the end of the day”. It was not “a platform for lamentations and the enumeration of problems”.

But that was three years ago. Two years before then, on September 14, 2020, in an article titled “Northern Nigeria, the Pretense Persists”, this column called attention to the debilitating condition of things in the North in several respects.

It said, then: “A recent lengthy submission from the elder statesman, Ahmed Joda, rested on a telling conclusion: Northern Nigeria is not developing its human capital. It is now ill-equipped to fit into either the knowledge-driven world of today or the new world of tomorrow. It needs at least 20 years to become significant in any way. The people of the region lack the skills for tomorrow, as majority of its youth lack everything that could make them part of a 21st century world”.

The piece continued: “The major point in Joda’s intervention is that the triumphalism of cattle rearers whose illusion of invulnerability is fuelled and sustained by a national security framework that is skewed to promote insecurity in specific regions of the country will go burst sooner than later. Confiscation of the headship of institutions of state is not the same thing as creating a “replacement generation” that could be part of a 21st Century world”.

The above point was totally lost on the Buhari government. It plowed away at the wrong things and wasted eight years in grand tomfoolery, under the mistaken impression that it was driving the interests of the North.

The article went on to say this: “Since most of the northern states have abandoned, ungoverned and even ungovernable spaces, its currently consumption-driven elite is really in no position to do anything, beyond maintaining a hollow swagger that is backed by nothing but the fact that they are living mostly in Abuja and floating on free state funds. Look more closely and you will be reminded of what was said of the House of Eli in the Bible: “Any ear that hears” the judgment of The Lord on that household will tingle.

Now, let’s backtrack to an article which appeared on this page on April 17, 2019, titled “As the North Goes Under.”. That was six years ago. It spoke of my visit to Zamfara State in 2014, which was “at once frightening, sobering and demoralising.” it spoke of how “the then Secretary to the State Government explained how he abandoned his farm and ranch because of cattle rustling and fear for his personal safety.”

The man actually confessed that “it was impossible to deploy law enforcement agents, even for himself, in any meaningful way” because they were mostly outnumbered, ill equipped and answerable to Abuja”. What is the situation today?

The more we look around us today, especially in the North, the more we see that the issues we would all like to see disappear are mutating and not disappearing. Meanwhile the only real concern is the 2027 presidency. To what purpose? What lessons were learnt from the Buhari fiasco? Just asking.

In the article, “The North and It’s Enemies”, which appeared on this page exactly a year ago we said: “The real enemy of that section of the Nigerian polity that is generally referred to as “The North” is not Tinubu. It is not banditry, or insurgency. It is also not political marginalization or the Governor of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN), who directed that some departments of the CBN be relocated, as alleged by Katsina elders some time ago”.

The article pointed out that ” It is, instead, the failure of the Northern political, feudal, business and religious elites to address issues that are central to the region’s future in a 21st century world. It is as if there is a resolve by those who should know better to maintain deliberate insensitivity to the blinding gale of misfortunes sweeping through the region and burying everything that holds the prospect of a rebirth for the region”.

It continued thus: “Rather than focus on what really matters, the concern is about more political opportunities for those who are holding the region in an anti-development stranglehold at the moment. We hear some of them speak of how much of a menace “the North” will be in 2027 if President Tinubu does this, or fails to do that, in the interests of the region. And all of this chatter, presumably in pursuit of the overall higher interests of the north, is going on in the comfortable abodes of a disconnected political elite”.

And that is not amusing at all. They are busy with an imaginary serious business of fighting for the North, while the “genuine” interests of the region are being routinely decimated on a daily basis by bandits and politicians who are protecting them. It is steadily spewing out an ever-growing population of destitutes and budding criminals who are driven to social deviance by plain, naked hunger and nothing more.

If your space is being progressively taken over by official marauders and state-decorated insurgents, then it must be said that the truth is being, denied by those who should make things better. Thus, the problems are getting compounded, instead of being solved.

Going back to “The Call for Authenticity”, which appeared on this page some three years ago, “Inauthenticity walks the land! In Aso Rock, in the National Assembly, in the judiciary, in state government houses, in state Houses of Assembly, in local government headquarters, in churches and mosques, in institutions of higher and lower learning. We walk through a maze and claim to be walking under bright lights. Debauchery has been given a new name, in the hope that the discerning will no longer keep watch over disappearing values. No, the relevant eyes are still wide open, even if fewer in number than hitherto. The call for authenticity is real”.

I still remember these words from the book titled “Second Chance”: ‘A mighty wind shall blow. A heavy rain shall fall. Out of the destruction, there shall be calm. And all shall not be the same again’.

Founded on January 22, 1995, THISDAY is published by THISDAY NEWSPAPERS LTD., 35 Creek Road Apapa, Lagos, Nigeria with offices in 36 states of Nigeria , the Federal Capital Territory and around the world. It is Nigeria’s most authoritative news media available on all platforms for the political, business, professional and diplomatic elite and broader middle classes while serving as the meeting point of new ideas, culture and technology for the aspirationals and millennials. The newspaper is a public trust dedicated to the pursuit of truth and reason covering a range of issues from breaking news to politics, business, the markets, the arts, sports and community to the crossroads of people and society.

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