By Prince Ejeh Joshua.
Forget about religion and face reality for once. Our lives are not only in danger, but the Nigerian government seems to have signed away our death warrant on a platter of gold. Nigerians are all living to die at any time. The worsening state of insecurity in our land has escalated beyond the grip of the ineptitude government of the federation. Those meant to protect us are not even safe. They also live in fear and confusion. Indeed, there is a palpable fear of imminent death across the country. Nigerians are dying in thousands. All hope seems to have lost. Anybody that sleeps and wakes up the following day should see it as an act of providence by nature.
Nothing is working in the country since the All Progressives Congress (APC) took over power in 2015. All the gains made before then have nosedived. Today, all we could see in our land is darkness. It’s blood everywhere. It’s misery. From every part of the country is an echo of sorrow, the cry of the bereaved, the wailing of the downtrodden. Indeed, we have reached the end of the tunnel but we could still do not find the light. We have searched outside the end of the tunnel, and it’s all darkness. It’s pain of maims. It’s all tale of sadness. It’s song of the dead. It’s song of sorrow. There’s no glimpse of hope anywhere.
Sadly, we have nobody to tell our story as those saddled with the responsibility to protect the good and law-abiding citizens have turned fiend, hounding and maiming innocent people. When we turn there, we’re slaughtered by the Fulani herdsmen, and when we turn here, we’re hounded like common criminals by security agencies. Where then do we turn? To President Buhari, a man who doesn’t know he is the President of Nigeria? To the cabal that have sold their conscience to materialism, and condemned the common man to death?
Yesterday, it was Boko Haram slaughtering thousands of Nigerians. They shot recklessly. They operated with impunity. They strut up and down the towns shoulder high with their bloodletting guns and daggers. Woe betide you if they don’t like your ugly face. In the video clips released by them, they threatened to capture the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria at his Aso Rock base like a grasshopper. Impunity taken too far. They took the war to our military base and walked out victoriously leaving behind the carcasses of our gallant army. And today, it’s now a dystopic ceremony of the Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram, armed bandits and kidnappers. All overwhelming the country.
While armed bandits are ruthlessly causing havoc in some parts of the North in broad daylight, Boko Haram terrorists are walking freely in many states of the federation brutally killing, incinerating and displacing their victims. As if this madness is not enough, then comes the most ferocious, fiend, brutal and rampaging Fulani herdsmen. Under the Buhari administration, they become more powerful than the country’s constituting authority. They walk the talk. They have never made any threat without executing it. In every corner of the country, it’s these herdsmen looming large. They kill at will. They displace our countrymen in a way that shows that when they sneeze, the law quivers. Their threat has now assumed a new dimension of kidnapping.
Sadly, in the face of all these heinous crimes, the federal government seems unperturbed. Any dissent voice calling for a proactive system is crushed ruthlessly by security agencies. Citizens that demand for the overhaul of security architecture are arrested and paraded as enemies of government, and with all the aggressive frustration from the government’s inability to curtail insecurity, terror is let loose on their victims. The Buhari government has become a predator on the citizens that voted it into power. Nigeria is running on a thread mill, and each step taken by it is backward.
Recently, news of prominent Nigerians being slaughtered by Fulani herdsmen across the country is gaining credence. It has got to its climax, depicting Nigeria as a failed State. Unfortunately, Nigerians woke up very late. The media had always overlooked thousands of innocent Nigerians that have been slaughtered in their farms, villages and markets by these government-backed criminal elements because they had no voice. Today, we’re appreciating the magnitude of this sorry situation because wealthy Nigerians are now involved. About a month ago, Pa Fasoranti’s daughter was assassinated by suspected herdsmen to get back at the Yorubas for criticising the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association. Within this same period, hundreds of people met their untimely death in the hands of bandits, and the story continues. In Enugu State, some priests took their protest over all the city for the killings of their fellow priests. In the face of all this, government says it’s on top of the situations. Even when the killings perpetuate unabatedly.
This worrisome trend shows that nobody is safe in the country. Not even those in high places. There is a total breakdown of law and order in the country. The message on the ground now is that we all should be prepared for death. Nobody is certain of going out and coming back home alive. If this trend continues in the next four years without the government taking any step to tame this scourge, I fear if we’ll live to see beyond the Buhari presidency. Things have, indeed, fallen apart.
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DISCLAIMER: All views expressed on our opinion page are those of the writer and do not represent the position of INSIDER or any of its reporters/editors.