The Deluge of the Nation and a Complacent Cat -By Jimi Bickersteth

It is amazing how the nation has made its 360 degree turn from a humbling majesty to a dwarfing grandeur and with a head hidden in the clouds and the faint light of the never-quite-dark twilight which has given the once colourful and ebullient nation its present dark glow. The problem is not Nigeria, it is you, you, you and you.

The state of the nation, today, leaves most Nigerians, most of who did not grow up among the best of influence, griping in horror, and has raised serious doubts as to whether, there indeed would be any future – a sorry epitaph for a nation. An epitaph that is in fact true, as the nation has been turned to a sturdy fairly tree limb that had been recently stripped of branches and bark.

A nation whose magnificence seemed almost superfluous, and an embarrassment of riches that was grossly unfair to its men, women and children, because the political leaders have stripped the nation’s soul and left the people naked to the world.

Now the future arose slowly and Nigerians have different reactions to the happenings in and around the country. Some indifferent, they try to put such prospects out of their minds, but that does not remove the danger. A rapidly growing number of others, relieved, have formed survivalist societies, in the hope that those who will survive, particularly, the political leaders, have built “Burj Khalifs” and other places of refuge in isolated areas around our shores, and stocked these with food for selves and families, and with a misplaced look of enjoyment and satisfaction on their faces.They think life is all about them and their ‘beautiful’ spouses and children.

Meanwhile, a large percentage grew disappointed with violent crimes, kidnapping for ransoms, kidnapping for rituals, widespread unemployment and inflation, that has generally made people prisoners in their own homes. The outlook truly bleak, and thoughts of what to do next chokes their minds with a startling panic that always drove them to concentrate on something, anything, else.

Wither the hope of the hopeless and unselfish willingness, scurrying around so immersed in their own lives and cleverness that they never search for anything greater than themselves. The happenings in the land today is a mirror that reflected us in x-ray form to reveal emotions and motives that we ourselves scarcely know. But, who is going to stand up for Nigerians, who are frothed with indignation, but couldn’t express it. And, Anything with a minor semblance of a way out is pathetically embraced with a warped and deeply frustrating outlook.

Blanket of pessimism about our future seems to cover everywhere; and saddled with leaders that couldn’t breeze through the obligations and commitments that go with status. Flying away from the problems, running away with trillion of our oil money, monies meant to raise our nation from squalor and doldrums of poverty, privation and frustration, so much so that the fraud agencies are not building intensity, but instead saddled with layer after layer of complexity and intrigues.

The APC government, may the nation’s political class have increasingly exposed the nation to a therapy; therapies that calmed our limbs but not our pulses, pulses which seem to grow in loudness as it grew in speed. Therapy that cannot help, but might hurt the people leaving our cheeks burn from embarrassment and anger.

Its been a constant tale of blatant breach of trust, a rape of honours, mandate, dignity and decency from the leaders, in the process, the nation has confused the container with the contents and unable to recognise the contents in its substantive form. It is sad that the nation and the people cannot totally protect themselves. Why. Because, the political class always have an agenda and ever will and all they want, is our money, which they’ll use to feather their own nest. They often forget that to be self-centered is a grand step toward poverty, even as they keep bleeding the nation dry asking for the citizens understanding.

The political class have deliberately reduced the quality of life in and around the nation, and we have all been pauperized and the general feeling is pathetic and so poor. A nation, whose politicians are yet to come to terms with the simple fact that the purpose of a “made in Nigeria” budget, a phrase I wish to deploy guidedly, is to help assist to have necessities, in so far, as attainable, to enable the nation realise its most cherished desires by defending them against casual wishes.

The people’s representatives arrest every fibre of our patience, consider the people as miniature adults and are constantly asking them to tighten their belts and straighten deck chairs on a sinking ship crippled by a storm. This democracy appears to be blurring our leaders vision. Power blocks their vision and causes them to often vacillate, and as a result, sap the peoples energies, as they are asked to work for the benefit of a few people in government; which has constantly been a barrier to creativity, and has consistently render the people less powerful and politicians more powerful, the resultant effect is that it stalls the nation’s group and collective attainment.

In our blighted climes, rather than making democracy a coefficient of abundance, equity and liberty, it is fast becoming a meaningless metaphor, meaningless in the heart, mind and life of the individual. It is making a terrible mess of a people submitting to the state. As the peoples representatives miss the fact that there are no science, formulae or theorem in the art of governance, because it is psychosomatic, and a matter of the hearts.

The nation is becoming heated and worrisome as it appears politicians are that very obstacle to the nation’s path to get the often elusive winning formula to the will-o-the-wisp called success. The NASS, is presently preoccupied and crippled by distractions, disabled by insincerity and handicapped by half-heartedness, and by its own body language, presenting the president to the world, as the one attempting to break its spirit and resolve, in each instance emphasising what they did wrong rather than what they think they’d done right.

One can substantially and sincerely doubt the stance and claim that the executive arm and its uncompromising as justice reactions to the ASSU eight-month old strike overbearing postures and as vain as a peacock infallible postulation were to point out their faults than deal with its own! Or that by dwelling on their shortcomings, the executive feel better about itself, thereby trying to increase their stature in the eyes of the people, to have that at the back of their mind would be a political miscalculation. But one can hazard a guess here, that those criticisms, if at all they are one, valid as they are, were merely meant to strengthen the democratic institutions and relationships on one hand, and on the other hand, to encourage them to enter the fullness of their avocation.

The criticisms are to remind them, that the nation is carrying within it unhealed wounds and unresolved issues of the past maladministration, injustice and corruption. Therefore, trolling the president and attempting to make the nation ungovernable is a misplaced priority.

That it has even gone ahead to give a 3-point demand to the acting president, owing to, perhaps, their:

i. self-importance, which like all Nigerans, when we have achieved a certain level of success, we think that “we know best”. But sometimes what we are ready to teach are things people have treaded the paths in time past. In that event we’d do well to remember the old adage: “A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.”

ii. gifting by virtue of their position, status and influence they expect everyone else to come up to their level, and  put them down when they don’t,-back off! They must. They must change, their thinking, attitudes, carriage and begin to line up what can move the nation forward.

The relevance and real tests of trust and truth in a relationship and that could strengthen any relationship is to be able to share our secrets and struggles, our inner fears and failures-intimacy based on honesty. It takes courage to be honest, perhaps you’ve been so hurt in the past by n the executive, then the legislators will be living in a tower. Where they are safe from life’s threatening grasp, but will be so detached from life, from reality, that they’ll lose consciousness of people, places, dates and events;and end up continue rehearsing  what no one,including the 

legislators, can change-the past.

While the executive continue to assert its rights even as it refused to be cowed or forced to kowtow in the absence of the Lion, the NASS must note that achieving peace and a buoyant economy are destinations that are achievable, but the nation can only reach such Eldorado, only if the politicians know where it is.

The NASS has to tangentially and in conjunction with the executive to jointly and conscientiously midwife a new nation through a national discourse that will

exposé the thin glaze of uncertainty and arrogance covering a lava core of fear in the minds of the people.

The discourse must signposts an end to the 

nation sleeping in the tropical sun on a golden bed of basmatic rice. The nation cannot afford further mass suffering, hence, must commence the process of negotiating a political settlement which should be the norm rather than the exemption, in the extremely unpleasant, unacceptable and monumental metaphor that Nigeria is, today.

The discourse must further put a lie to the regime of politicians and government functionaries who speak and defend nonperformance as a finished work. The truth of our situation must be unearthed, the truth, that, when we finish growing we are finished. This will stretch us. It will challenge us to rethink assumptions we’ve always believed to be right. It in deed, will cost us, but when a nation is committed to growth, it cannot settle for less.

#JimiBickersteth

Jimi Bickersteth is a blogger and a writer.

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Email jimi.bickersteth@yahoo.co.uk