By Modiu Olaguro
Nigeria is in a mess. One ponders profusely to come up with a more apt word to describe the Nigerian conundrum to no avail for the rot is deep and the problems gargantuan. Although the solutions appear conceivable, yet the road to repair seems riddled with contours and cumbersome streaks.
It’s an orgy of emergencies. Orgy as a period of overindulgence in a particular activity comes with a price. Confusion and corruption are chief on the list. A nation that swims in corruption must bear the burden of an emergency at the very heart of it. As the renowned physicist, Isaac Newton states in the third law of motion that “action and reaction are equal but opposite,” the consequences of the betrayal of public trust by persons who were custodians of public business are here with us creating a national emergency in every facet of our life.
In education, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) last week addressed a press conference where the examination body alleged that nineteen states with no less than 400,000 candidates owed it to a tune of N4billion, an unacceptable situation that have strangled the council to meet its financial obligations to examiners and logistics. As it turns out, a mere 38.68% made a breakthrough in at least five subjects including English and Mathematics – a national crisis that is a manifestation of dilapidated classrooms, empty laboratories and lack of qualified teachers. The few who are in service are largely underpaid.
Did you see the soldiers in the torture chamber? The Daily Trust Newspaper projected it for the whole world to have a look at how unprofessional a military could become. The man was alleged to have pilfered a property but instead of allowing the law to take its course, the men in uniform become the law by creating a courthouse in the open. While this was on, the member of the vicious sect, Bokoharam whose might has done so much to tarnish the image of the military continues its mission. The president challenged the Americans to waive its Leahy’s law because to him, the allegations of Amnesty International were not close to real. With this open trial, the army is telling its Commander-In-Chief to enroll for a course on complex numbers to fill the vacuum of the knowledge of the real and imaginary.
The orgy seems not to spare the field of medicine either as doctors also are warming up to strike just as their counterparts in the schools of higher learning. Since the assumption of the new sheriff, yesterday men and women of yesteryears have been falling over one another to book a stand on hospital beds across the world. A yesterday minister has been said to be held by a cancer while another went under the knife on a knee adventure. It remain unclear if there is more to this than meets the eye but whispers have it that a number of them dipped their hands into the public till to a level that is unprecedented in the history of Nigeria.
An emerging emergency in the ancient kingdom of Ife stormed the arena a while ago as the custodian of the king to the grave was reported to have fled. By tradition, the life of an “Abobaku” terminates when his king bids planet-earth farewell. An emergency search is reported to be on for this deserter whose absence is believed to deny the spirit of the king from ascending to heaven. Until he is found, the gates of heaven remains shut to the royal one. It’s an emergency mission but until the search is complete, long live the king.
Up there in the south, a former governor and sitting senator rushed-in to the government house and state House of Assembly to retrieve documents of transactions that were carried out while he held sway. It was an emergency mission of either life or death and our distinguished lawmaker chose the former. He is holding up to the rope of life so much so that he led his team to a press conference intimidating the new sheriff on the anti-corruption crusade.
What could the former President Jonathan have discussed with his successor at this time of the season? It’s surely an orgy of emergencies! Even the members of the peace committee were not left out as the cleric, Mr. Hassan Kukah is also lending his voice to the public discourse of the events behind the scene, a committee Nigerians have likened to fit into Malcolm X’s description of “the bourgeois type who blinds himself to the condition of his people, and who is satisfied with token solutions.”
Talking about token solutions, Mr. Bruce, a distinguished senator of the federal republic has one for us as a remedy for the lack of hands in the education sector. “We have an over-bloated civil service, yet we have schools without teachers. Problem has met solution. Send them to teach!” Who says teaching transcends holding a chalk and facing a chalkboard?
It is surprising how emergencies emerge like manners from the sky. As alleged, Mr. Fashola spent a fortune on a website while he was governor of Lagos. The complainants also tells us how he spent over a billion naira on a few overhead bridges- issues they want the alleged to respond to in a manner a doctor revives a collapse VIP.
What about the VIP’s in this month of Fela’s transition? The Afro-beat maestro had his own version of the popular acronym. As was reported, the hallowed VIP’s are warming up to throw-out a report that recommends, in the light of cutting the cost of governance to slash their pay by 30% which would save the country some millions of naira. The proponents call it an emergency call that must be obeyed.
It’s a time of emergencies brothers and sisters. When the country would emerge is for the time traveler to reveal.
Modiu Olaguro writes from Jebba.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @ModiuOlaguro
