Restructuring The Nation and Winning The Peace: A Shade Too Hurried And A Shade Too Contrived -By Jimi Bickersteth

At nine-thirty-seven on a hazy but rainy morning in the first week of October, having taken my seat on a flight from Lagos to Yola, enroute Maiduguri. I busied myself with my safety-belt, heart in mouth, as I often feel on any flight, like a moist jelly. Like a thunder from the blue, I managed to catch glimpse of a couple of junks before we were bumping gently and unevenly along the runway. Great welcome, the other passengers in the aircraft began to collect their hand luggage. The usual polite pushing and shoving went on for a while before I could squeeze myself out into the hot sunshine of Yola.

It had been a good trip, slightly over-long, but I had enjoyed it. I toiled into town, boys dragging crates and odd looking merchandise in their two-wheeled chariots and heavy trucks crowded the broad street, small, dirty children with babies strapped to their backs played in the gutters. Boys squatted on the sidewalk outside shops, shovelling rice into their mouths with barehands. Some staggering under impossible burdens, vendors squatting on the kerbs, children minding babies with shrewd black eyes.

I could have had a deluxe shower, kilishi and an ice cold beer, you know what I mean, but, I have at the back of my mind, this acute uneasiness that worried me, about the crises in the north east axis and the discomfort and reported killings in southern Kaduna, are they related, do they have a connexion with the youths restiveness, in any case, this was a study tour. I reminded myself I hadn’t come this far to indulge in luxury.

I proceeded by road to Maiduguri capital of Borno state in the North East axis of the country, the theatre of abnormalities, through Yola, Hong, Mubi, Michika, Bama, Gworza in the AMG Mercedes Benz that has been reserved for the trip. Four of us crowded into the car, as I powered the engine into the crowded, busy and heat-ridden street on a October afternoon.

The sun shone and the wind raced, and you can see the heat waves as it spirals and gyrated menacingly ahead. I had to switch off the car’s air-conditioning system, to stop it from blowing a constant flow of dry but hot air. I leaned back in my seat, my elbow hanging out of the window.

In the mean time, we were sharing views on the reports of the ‘Tucano’ conquest of the Sambisa locale of the BH, the problem that the IPOB and suchlike agitations had become, and also the government’s placating by palliatives in the Niger Delta region – the nation’s distress rockets and rollicking family film. All of which in my humble view, are too seemingly but striking contrast; even though, all of them are direct offshoot of intractable national questions. Questions which the insurgencies and struggles, so to speak, originally, set out to correct – economic independence or resource control, if you like, and religious independence, both of which almost ruined the nation by their neo-fundamental stances.

I suddenly realized that all of us went quiet, we’ve stopped laughing and had our wits warped and our humour hoaxed, like any other Nigerian, except our leaders, all without exception, with their disreputable reputation; leaders who with their well made-up lips and a combination of their guile, insincerity smoke screens have proved too much for the nation. Leaders with uncanny instincts for making money out of the Commonwealth, and who with their props and friends betrayed the nation and its peoples (who see nothing but a bleak and ‘nairaless’ future) into poverty.

To be fair and sincere, with things remaining the way they are, this type and level of leadership orientation, without investments and reinvestment, with our leaders on a thieving spree, buying the best resorts, malls, yatchs and luxury villas in Europe and beyond, as their retirement benefits, and ready to settle or already settled down to enjoy their social life of retirement while their spouses and so-called “first ladies” (of course, right parlance, because there are the second up to the sixth and numerous other dalliances, if you doubt this, monies were being siphoned through such conduit pipes, you and I called mistresses) working out their petit-point, the nation, yes, and generation yet unborn have a lot to fear for the future.

North, East, West or South of the Niger, the peoples have debased the knack for looking on the bright side, and this odd atmosphere of surrender difficult to the senses that make argument. We’ve stopped exercising our greatest absolute advantage and seem to have pledged unshifting allegiance to the lords of solemnity.

The few who could not be kept quiet, but who could not make the clear distinction in the phrase, “I married the woman I loved and I love the woman I married”, are the ones on the vanguard and clamour for restructuring of a nation with freckles, young and still clinging to an enthusiasm for life that has began to slip away.

It is obvious, regardless of any lie to the contrary, that the whole country seems an incredible economic mess at the moment. With men and women whose faces showed much background of hard living and toil and a government perpetually clutching at the straws of problems created by the past – a mind working on the past and present without allowing it move to the future.

The country has been plunged into a mess. A mess of our own doing, to which we must do a certain dance. This mess and problems keeping us awake long after bedtime, and being still and silent as a poor relation at a wedding reception, and or, at other times making the usual noise a crowd makes when it is being morbid, certainly won’t be the type of dance that would bring liberation and emancipation.

The nation must run some tests on its existence, culture the tests, question and prove the efficacy of the solution(s), so as to be able to efficiently diagnosed and proffer the correct prognosis for a proper and long lasting cure.

The agitations all over the country, be it in the Northeast axis, Niger Delta, MEND, IPOB, MASSOB, (proscribed or not) and the rest of such distractions were, obviously, the best the six geopolitical booby-trap presented the nation, and, like an algae, has engendered, and thus, created more local agitation for independence and or cry for secessions or potent liberation at best.

But beyond that, the nation’s saving grace is that, these struggles had structures that could not muscle or isolate the truth about oneness, unity in diversity and the reality about the Nigerian Dreams, as the questions of all the different nationalities in the federation, and of full representation, has been answered by the nation’s return to civil rule in a participatory democracy, which is the only panacea that could fast track unity and development in a multi-national Nigeria.

The nation must however go from there to stoke the fire and continue to ignite any burning flames on the economic and banking arena, the politics of nationhood and equality. The unstable state of the economy, nay, the nation have really stopped the nation from examining anything else. Now can we switch it up a little.

Switch it, even as we trace back through the genealogy of circumstances and troubles, to see how logical has been the course of the nation’s sorrow and statistics of failure; and a near-sighted and half-blind world of politicians lay at the doorsteps of a people suffering and depressed in a depression (not recession); amidst plenty of riches, lots of wrong doings and the insipid and lame efforts to right them.
As we kept driving and surveying the colourful and interesting sight of the countryside turned to a burial field, wandering around the towns and absorbing the atmosphere of the places, with a feeling of uneasiness mixed with irritation, my senses queried, how did we get to this.

The approach to Maiduguri after the university campus later in the evening turned out to be something special, but the sight of curfew and smell of deaths did not match to my thinking, the set-up with the scenery and the pleasure it offered, as we turned right into the Damaturu road, my Recce training still alive in my mind.

A half naked youth, his right shoulder horribly deformed through carrying heavy burdens slung on his carrying pole grinned happily as he gave us direction to inquiries from my smattering Hausa, and at the same time bustled a group of tiny dirty looking children ahead of him. One watching with fatherly amusement and tolerance as they all moved with the speed and ease of a gymnast, time bombs, you think!

That night, we drove all the way to Nguru via Gashua without seeing the movement of anything alive. We left Nguru about midnight with the intent on wandering around what we see as a vastland of emptiness and ruin, to Potiskum, Azare, through to Kano via Dutse in Jigawa.

Staring out into the moonlit night, in spite of the coldness and stillness, it is shocking, seeing the extent of collateral damage the BH insurgency had wrought on a once peaceful and prosperous people and nation. There was a depressed expression on the face and a drawl on the well made-up lips of the lady riding in the passenger seat, looking unbelievably stunned, even with the black hair adorned with two lotus blossoms, as if she were concentrating on something that saddened her, and that stopped all talking, from our comedienne and chatterbox. My mind got busy on getting our next refill, as we have only one of the eight 50-litres remaining.

We couldn’t make it to Madagali or Sambisa forest or whatever they said remained of it, in any case, I can’t imagine anyone would toss their bonnet over a windmill to hear a humble writer on adventure and fact finding mission, couldn’t be bothered to help search for the Chibok gals, we don’t have drones nor sorties ni o.

In the middle of all this, my take:
i. The conquest and winning the battle of Sambisa after so long a time and loss of lives, property, history and in some cases even identity, couldn’t have come at a better time, as it infused new life into the debates and running commentaries, about credible and or failure of leadership, basically, because of the nation’s leaders poor response and below par attempts at tackling the challenges of ethnic domination, religious bigotry and intolerance.

ii. If the nation had done a case study, the Boko Haram war it has just won, or the ND insurgencies, or even the Biafra agitation, and what have you, could have been nipped in the bud, if the nation’s leaders had a. applied the correct test under the rule and b. applied measures congruent with the seriousness of the situation, using dialogue as a major weapon at the table of democracy.

iii. National development, democracy and insurgencies are mutually exclusive and of the trio, democracy is believed to be a rehash of constitutional imperatives. But as a rallying point it requires selfless leaders, to:
a. make it work,
b. facilitate the handshake across the Niger:
c. determine who governs the people through fair and free elections;
d. work on a collective attempt to drastically reduce all corrupting influences in the society through legislation;
e. give workers right to full and gainful employment and right to decent living by legislation.

All of the above are salutary reminder of the positive correlation between the quality of life of the people, good governance and democracy. All of which are antithetical to the ploy inherent in the six geopolitical expression – a mere ploy by the strong nations to bully the weaker ones.

It is amazing how far the pompous bureaucratic monster and leaders Nigeria’s politics has created and laden with will go to make systemic change, rather than making an exception that would easily fix the problem. And the similarity is like the difference between puffy spring rain clouds and the clouds that precede a tornado, one is temporary and normal, the other is chronic and accumulate aggression.

The reported defeats on the sambisa stronghold, is winning the war, and therefore a call for government, on why it must also win the peace; and for that to be successfully executed, the government has to be truthful and honest to itself.
Once government is committed to being honest, daemons, fear in and around them that encourages insurgents and or rebellion will scamper for safety and disappear.

The issue should no longer be about what went wrong, not anymore. It should be about what we are putting right. It is easy and possible. However, the nation’s leaders and Representatives must desist from the Bonaparte style, who, at his coronation as France king, said, “Dieu me la donne, qure á qui la touche”- God has given it to me, let him beware who shall touch it. Or in plain Yorba parlance, Ati tòjé bolóòṣaà lọ́wọ́, óku baba ẹni tí ó bọọ. Because it can make them more vulnerable.

Once the leaders, have learnt to focus on understanding the people and in the process, be open, authentic, so that the people can understand them, the leaders folly and the nation’s failure is on the way of been conquered, secrecy spawns isolation, not success.

In spite of daunting and overwhelming security issues, power and energy crisis, dwindling oil revenue, there is a flicker of hope that we shall soon leave our dry seasons behind, but that is, if we can confront our national problems with keen intelligence and less cocksureness.

One thing is relevant and germane here though, and that is, while Nigerians do not expect the leaders to rub our feet while feeding us grapes, we are heavy hearted and exhausted with their greed and lack of care. But life has taught us that because we are late we should not turn back. We should still believe in our country. We can show the leaders how we want to be led and if they choose to remain stubborn and self-absorbed, we have a way of taking the bull out of the China shop, and as a clever maitre d’hotel serves up as a specially choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in the kitchen would have cared to eat.

The insurgents, and seccession and other agitations, thought the nation a great lesson, and the lesson is that the insurgents thrive in a remoteness afforded by a vast grassland and natural creeks which had hitherto made for uneven control of resources. Added to this was the character of life itself in a land of seemingly unending reach.

In such a situation natural conditions promoted a tough individualism, as people became used to making their own decisions far away from the FCT in Abuja, and allow conditions of anarchy often prevail. It is incumbent upon the leaders to provide answers to the myriads of national question. As I tried to figure it out, I saw a situation where all instincts and good conscience tell our leaders to move forward, but to get moving, they must have to shift the weight back.

To gloss over it, or paper the cracks, or plunge into decisive action. As I contemplate the possibilities of each, my sense of control transforms into a feeling of falling helplessly down a giant hourglass. I feel Nigeria expect the deep cadence of PMB’s speech and leadership skills to steer our senses and our hearts. But right now, he is not saying much and he is not inviting much to be said either. Can there be recession in words and deeds.

Meanwhile, PMB should exert such soft political power his office guaranteed him to douse some of the tension in the land, as he wittingly, should propose a constitutional amendments, where all the states in the federation, are considered as commonwealth of states, having a loose association with Abuja; in one way or the other, the present state of, exclusive rule as if we are running a unitary system, would wither away and proper fiscal federalism and an even more complete self government would take the front burner.

Another alternative is to propose what is called the, “Mayflower Compact”, where we can combine states together into a civil body politics for a better ordering and preservation, enact and frame just and equal laws as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the people. Otherwise, the nation risks the fear of insurgencies succeeding and becoming self-governing, simply by asserting that they were beyond any governmental authority and then setting up their own political systems outside of the current inefficient political party structure and system that lacked cohesion, and who left the people largely to their own devices.

We bid farewell. They chorused, it was a pleasure to have met me. I could see it gave them more pleasure to see me go.
What an adventure!
What a way to wish someone au revoir.

#JimiBickersteth

Jimi Bickersteth is a blogger and a writer. He can be reached at Twitter

@alabaemanuel,

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