Once again, Nigeria is at the crossroads. As events in the last two weeks show, precious national time is being sacrificed on the altar of inanities, in yet another season of anomie.
All the issues are weighty enough to unhinge the country, yet our leaders are carrying on as if they have the luxury of time ad-infinitum.
Whether it is President Muhammadu Buhari’s gaffe at the Commonwealth Business Forum in Westminster, London, where he impugned on the character of some Nigerian youths, who he derogatorily dismissed as a bunch of louts hustling to get on the gravy train, or the unending police drama with embattled Senator Dino Melaye, we are collectively playing the archetypal Emperor Nero who kept fiddling while Rome was engulfed in flames.
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When the unending carnage in the Middle-Belt is thrown into the already combustible mix, the picture of a country sitting on the axiomatic keg of gun-powder shines forth.
Let us start with the president’s blooper in London.
“More than 60 per cent of the population is below 30, a lot of them haven’t been to school and they are claiming that Nigeria is an oil producing country, therefore, they should sit and do nothing, and get housing, healthcare, education free,” Buhari ranted.
It was an unforced error because the moderator had only sought to know Buhari’s opinion on investment in the North-east and the recent continental free trade agreement.
While Nigerians were still trying to make sense out of the president’s penchant for talking down on them whenever he is abroad, the murderous escapades of herdsmen in the Middle Belt took a frightening turn with the killing of 19 people during an attack on St. Ignatius Quasi Parish, Ukpor, Mbalom in Gwer West Local Government Council of Benue in the early hours of Tuesday, April 24.
Two of the dead were Catholic priests, Joseph Gor and Felix Tyolaha.
As if that was not enough scandal, Buhari not only authorised the purchase of super Tucano fighter jets from the United States worth $496 million, he also withdrew the whopping sum from the Excess Crude Account without the approval of the National Assembly.
The angst of the federal lawmakers boiled over leading to motion for his impeachment in the Senate.
In the midst of all these, the president traveled, not to the North-Central to commiserate with the victims of the attacks but to the Northeastern state of Bauchi for campaign, drawing the ire of many Nigerians, including former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who called his action insensitive.
Yet, at a time when every other institution seem to be losing it, the military, which ought to be sober, is increasingly sucked into the miasma. Many Nigerian statesmen had called for the sack of the security chiefs for not standing to the challenge of protecting Nigerians and their property.
The consequence is that tension has reached a feverish level with the otherwise restrained Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) taking the unprecedented step of calling on the president to resign.
“Today, we Christians feel violated and betrayed in a nation that we all continued to sacrifice and pray for. We collectively feel abandoned and betrayed,” the clerics lamented over the weekend, telling Buhari pointedly to consider “stepping aside to save the nation from total collapse.
“It is clear to the nation that he has failed in his primary duty of protecting the lives of Nigerian citizens.
“Whether this failure is due to inability to perform or lack of political will, it is time for him to choose the part of honour and consider stepping aside to save the nation from total collapse,” the bishops said even as they accused Buhari of colluding with the military apparatchik in the existential crisis.
“Since the president, who appointed the heads of the nation’s security agencies, has refused to caution them even in the face of the chaos and barbarity into which our country has been plunged, we are left with no choice but to conclude that they are acting a script that he approves of.
“If the President cannot keep our country safe, then he automatically loses the trust of the citizens.”
Also at the weekend, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) called out its members to a nationwide protest and at the end of the exercise the body advised Buhari to reconsider his intention to seek reelection in 2019 as president.
These are very strong sentiments coming from a quarter that is ordinarily apolitical and not known to be bombastic.
When these tensions are soaked in the oil of politics, it goes without saying that the clock is ticking and the bomb must be defused quickly before it explodes.
Many Nigerians take pride in likening the country to the proverbial cat with nine lives.
But we are stretching our luck. Now is the time to pull back from the brink. Tomorrow may be too late.
President Buhari needs to show leadership.
