Recent matters arising
By Nnamdi Nwigwe
The paroxysms that have afflicted Rivers State in recent times are a reflection of the general malaise in the country.
The iconic “Treasure base of the nation” is only a metaphor.
The media – both the mainstream and the unedited internet version (commonly but wrongly called social media) – characteristically latch on the latest “happening” and soon forget equally debilitating currents eroding the super structures of our country.
For instance terrorists are said to be in charge and in control of some local government councils in parts of the North. They share governance with governors who proudly move around attending meetings of the various Governors’ Fora – national, regional, zonal as well as the Forum meetings of their political parties.
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Meanwhile thousands of Nigerians, displaced from their homesteads and farmlands, have lived in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps for years now, practically abandoned and forgotten by both State and Federal Governments.
The cheek of it is that criminals serially attack these IDP camps and abduct women and children that the authorities quickly abandon to their fate.
Shamelessly and callously, general and state elections are conducted and new governments emerge with nothing done to dislodge terrorists manning several areas of the country.
It is now a new norm for state and non-state actors to function side by side.
The security forces seem overwhelmed and thus generally underperform to the overall detriment of the entire nation.
Leadership recruitment via elections has been so degraded that politics is now a game of “survival of the worst thieves.”
No qualms.
Educational and moral qualifications no longer matter. Alumni of Nigeria Prisons and known common felons populate some of the government houses from where they call the shots.
The courts have become a plaything for people who claim to be lawyers but have become adept at “judgement shopping” not to talk of justice shopping.
The tribe of judicial officers has been so infested that one finds it difficult to isolate the jewels among them.
Judges who still reflect integrity and possess honour and public respect are still very much available in Nigeria but discovering them is equivalent to searching for a needle in a stack of hay.
Leaders of government no longer fear or respect the judges because they appoint them in the first place.
And yet in this country, time was when governments did their best to avoid some judges because of their known integrity and no-nonsense stance.
Judges were upright and proud of their status because they merited where they were.
Known Community rascals and petty rogues dreaded to appear before some magistrates because they knew the unflappable credentials of such men and women.
See what is happening to the economy of the nation where the groaning of the populace is taken for granted.
Leaders – including representatives of the people in the Legislative Houses – routinely hop off overseas with a large retinue of aides for one irrelevant conference or the other as they burn scarce foreign exchange in estacodes and other perks.
Civil Society Organisations, students’ and labour movements that are supposed to be the moral compasses of the society have themselves been infiltrated by charlatans and become ready tools in the hands of selfish politicians.
A popularly accepted mass protest to alert governments of the sufferings of the citizenry is soon compromised by a few people who are bought over by the very authorities that cause the hardship being complained about.
The only thing sustaining our country today is the proverbial docility of the bulk of the populace and the egregious weaponization of poverty by the powers that be.
As some commentators have warned, a stage may soon be reached as the nation gravitates inexorably towards the precipice that only one step remains to get to the edge.
When and if we get there, we either tip over. Or kick!
As the Binis say: “There is a level at which you maltreat a goat and it bites.”