The Prospect Of The Post COVID-19 Era: A Great Awakening For Nigerians -By Muhammed-Bello Buhari

Today I woke up without coming across posts, articles, and trends, on terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, religious bigotry, tribalism or ethnocentrism. No arguments between APC and PDP, Muslim and Christian, Southerner and Northerner, or a Hausa man and an Igbo man or a Yoruba man or vice versa. Today, I’m not hearing any case of corruption. Infact, the Inspector-General of Police has issued an order that he doesn’t want any unnecessary detention in police stations, cases that aren’t supposed to be detention should be resolved as soon as possible. Yesterday, I watched an APC Governor telling his people how the Nigerian health sector is in a debilitating state. And I’m still anticipating more collective and united #CoronaVirus agitated nationalist posts and voices.

The prospects of this trying time is that we may all wake up from the docility of of our blindness. Now, nobody have to tell you the state of our country. It’s obvious that our health sector is not upto standard to contain us in this moment. Just imagine if it is only this country that is affected with this virus? Just imagine? It’s very rhetorical. By now, no politicians, elite-pastors/imams, and our elites would be in this country. They would’ve travelled to foreign countries for hospitality with their families by now. Leaving us the death materials to die! But it’s otherwise today, no place is safer, infact our country is safer than those countries. This should be a wake up call for the common man and his blindness. That had it been this pandemic is only concentrated in our country, we would’ve been left to die miserably without any care or consideration by the elites. I hold this to be self evident that the elites careless about the plight of the common Nigerian and until we are collectively ready to challenge the status quo in this country, we will remain to be semi-slaves in this globalized world.

The conflict between the common Nigerian and the elite-politicians is a conflict between justice and injustice, between hunger/poverty and affluent few corrupt politicians, between man’s hunger for better life and man’s inhumanity to man.

So let’s after this pandemic go back to our life in all humility and with gratitude to Almighty God for saving our lives. But l would be terribly disappointed if we go back to our docility and blindness. It should be a time that we must evince active participation. We must not allow religious/tribal sentiments to continue to manipulate us. Blinded political docility should not come from any of us, for if we become blind and dociled again, we will have suffered in vain, and the status quo of oppression and bad governance will remain intact.

We must be able to have a common voice, we must be able to have a common drive for justice and good governance. We must be able to stand up to the guardians of the status quo and say that:
‘We’re here today for a serious business. That we’re Nigerian citizens, and we are determined to acquire our citizenship to the fullness of it’s meaning. That there comes a time when people get tired. We are here today to demand and to say to those who have mistreated us so long that we are tired – tired of being humiliated and deprived of our basic fundamental human rights; tired of being kicked about by the brutal feet of affluent few corrupt politicians. And that we have no alternative but demand this consistently!’

With this dedication we will be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of our broken system to the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom, justice, and good governance.

Muhammed-Bello Buhari is a Human Rights Activist and an Advocate for Good Governance.
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Open Minds Young Voices – 2020 Youth Activist Fellow.
embbuhari@gmail.com
Twitter: @mbbuharii
Facebook.com/muhdbellob