By Jude Atupulazi
Every so often you must have heard people say, ”Nigeria I Hail Thee!” well, not for me. I hate and despise this country with all my soul. There’s absolutely nothing here to be hailed or liked, because, in the first place, the country doesn’t love her citizens. Whereas some countries can go to war to save a single citizen, Nigeria can lose a thousand citizens and carry on as if nothing happened.
It wasn’t long ago that America launched a great man-hunt for her soldier whose plane was shot down over Iran in the ongoing U.S.-Israel War against Iran. Despite the soldier bailing out of his plane and landing in the middle of hostile territory, the American Government did not say since it was only one soldier there was no need to risk the lives of others to get him out.
They did not say it was risky to search and rescue him because more planes could be shot down. In fact, in the mission to rescue him, they even destroyed one of their planes by themselves because it malfunctioned and they didn’t want it to fall into enemy hands. All that mattered was that they had rescued their citizen. But this is going too far.
A few years back, an American citizen was kidnapped by Boko Haram in a neighbouring country and taken to Nigeria’s Sambisa Forest to be held captive. America stormed the place and rescued him, because to them, every American life matters. Imagine if it was a Nigerian that was held captive. The government would not even talk about it.
But mark you, that was same forest where many Nigerian schoolgirls had been kept for years before then and being turned into baby factories by their captors. The Nigerian Government knew where those girls were but made no attempt to rescue them. Instead, occasionally, they would negotiate with their captors to have a few released.
This is a country where senior military officers like generals are killed by Boko Haram, often in suspicious circumstances, and the man who calls himself the President will keep silent. We are still reeling from the Brigadier General killed the other day. His killing was probably seen as the killing of a chicken by the Federal Government.
Some days ago I read a pathetic story of a Lt Col in the Nigerian Army from Enugu State who was stabbed in the Army Barracks in Kaduna. The Nigerian Government did not participate in his funeral. It was his sick father who paid every expense to get his body down to the East for burial. Neither the Nigerian Army nor the Federal Government contributed any penny to assist the family. None also turned up at his funeral.
The Nigerian Armed Forces have probably become the least attractive in the world because of betrayal by the government they serve. There have been tales of soldiers being sacrificed to the enemy and nothing happens. Yet, they want young Nigerians to enlist in the Armed Forces. I laughed when I read the recent advertisement to that effect. I told those escalating it to have their children enlisted. Perhaps when parents see the children of the Akpabios, Shettimas, Tinubus, Soyinkas, and Omokris enlisting, they will take the call seriously. No one wants their child to be used as a sacrificial lamb.
Nigeria is a big joke and the leaders are jokers. They travel abroad where things work but they pretend they don’t see those things and come here and continue messing up everything and everybody. Any sane country would since have chased out this government we have today if they refuse to leave through the ballot box. It is a government that frustrates her citizens, beats them and asks them not to cry.
It is a government that is seemingly doing everything to invite chaos and the other thing I don’t want to call its name. This government is daily pushing Nigerians to the wall and though we have been docile for long, there is no guarantee we will forever remain that way. There is this thing called snapping point. Even sane people can reach that point and something will go boom!
This is a country where laws are made for some people to break at will and go free, while those who complain are arrested and dealt with. A country where human life is valued less than a cow’s. A country where the power situation keeps getting worse with each passing day rather than improve. A country that produces fuel but the citizens pay through their noses to buy it. A country where the ruling party that is not doing well does everything to muscle the opposition. You vote and your vote is stolen and given to another person.
Is this then the country anyone would want me to like? I have since decided not to stand up during the singing of the national anthem because it makes no meaning to me. It even seems ridiculous seeing those the country is killing standing up in respect to the anthem; an anthem which wording the leaders don’t even understand. Nigeria? Nothing good can come out from the present bunch of leaders and nothing can make me like her.
It is a country of mad people and madder institutions. The police spend their time extorting money from road users and causing traffic jams. If you complain they will threaten to shoot you. The extortion has permeated the ranks of soldiers, civil defence, road safety and VIO officials. And talking about the VIO (Vehicle Inspection Officers), when they heard that a court had banned them from staying on the roads, they quickly changed their name and returned to the roads. Like all other such groups, their interest is to make money and not to protect citizens. Once you see them on the road it is to collect money under various guises and then they disappear.
As for officials of the Anambra Road Traffic Management Agency (ARTMA), theirs is worse, or is it pathetic? They can run after somebody in a car from Aroma to Kwata just to beg for money. When I see them do this I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The madness in this country is just everywhere you go.
Even the masses who complain are no better once they are given an opportunity. You see commercial drivers who will look at the sky and once it appears like rain is coming they will add money to their fares. Yet, they are the ones shouting, ”Biafra! Biafra! Give us Biafra!” Is that how their Biafra will be? A Biafra where people will be exploited at the slightest opportunity? A Biafra where decisions are taken at the whims of some neurotic leader? That’s why I never want to hear the Biafra nonsense.
I’d rather remain in Nigeria than in that kind of Biafra where anyone can wake up and declare war on certain people, accusing them of being their oppressors.
Sometimes, I feel happy that I have reached the half way mark of my sojourn on earth because I fear for what will happen in this country in twenty years’ time. I remember when our flat in Enugu was N120 a month. If anyone had told us that a time would come when the cost of a loaf of bread would cover six months’ rent we would not have agreed. As it is, it would not surprise me if in the future a loaf of bread costs N10, 000, more than the price of a brand new car in the late seventies and early eighties. Who still wants me to love this country?
How could anyone love a country that can’t provide the most basic of needs, not because it is not possible, but because the leaders are very wicked, greedy and gluttonous? This is a country that has defied prayers. Who doesn’t remember the Prayer for Nigeria that is said in many churches? This prayer is older than many of you reading this.
Yet, the prayer has not yielded fruit. Is it because we don’t know how to pray or because we don’t want the prayer to work? It is a country where hope is killed every day; reason that crime keeps multiplying. It is a country where it is difficult to remain disciplined or lawful as those asking you to remain so, are the ones ripping you off.
Yet, we must not be lawless. Lawlessness has consequences and they are dire. Difficult times don’t call for people to be lawless or to take to crime. If you don’t have money like me, beg, keep working hard and keep trusting in God. If you are honest and hardworking, I believe that help will come.
Beyond this, though, Nigeria is not an ideal country. I have no love for her and I will continue to hold her in contempt because she doesn’t care whether I live or die. Nigeria? I hate thee!
