By Ali Abubakar Sadiq
The US Council of Foreign Relations, the most powerful think tank on the planet, after the inauguration of President Jonathan in 2011 had created the Nigerian Security Tracker, a weekly report on the security situation in the country. One popular mindset of the superior race is “When you want to control the future, create one”. That same year Gaddafi went down with his Libya, as the Arab spring sparked the fires that sent Syria down the drain and still draining. Two years earlier Boko Haram had started its campaign of terror and the first bomb went off in Abuja during Jonathan inauguration and he was quick to blame the northern politicians. Peddlers of doom began the whisper “Nigeria will break-up come 2015” and the dark wish begin to gain strength as Gaddafi’s armory founds its way across the Sahara and flooded sub-Saharan Africa.
The drums of war, fueled by the above whisper coupled with ethnic jingoism, arms proliferation, jihadism and incompetence of the Jonathan administration heated the Nigerian polity to the point of collapse on the eve of the 2015 elections. All the parameters of a failed state as predicted by the whisperers were on board during the 2015 elections. Gordon Duff earlier prediction of Northern Nigeria becoming like a garrison has come to pass, as human-bombs in the shape of young females detonated themselves in markets and bus stations. As Soldiers filled our streets, traveling had become a nightmare and people of the North are becoming accustomed to the rat-a-tat sounds of gun-fire and bomb explosion.
The Christian Association of Nigeria had become a part of Jonathan’s kitchen cabinet, ethno-religious sentiments whipped in the North to the point that the recurring Jumu’at Khutba (sermons) weekly chastises Jonathan’s administration calling for its sack come election day. It was under this scenario that Nigerians poured to the polling booth. The opposition APC, had traversed the length and breadth of the nation, with strange bedfellows on the podium showcasing the messiah, Muhammadu Buhari, addressing mammoth crowds never before seen on a campaign trail, with his messianic rhetorics.
Nigerians trooped to the polling stations and casted their votes, which were divided along ethno-religious affiliation in the core North, the Middle belt, eastern Nigeria, the south-south and south-west. As the results trickled to INEC Headquarters in Abuja, Orubebe’s dramatics at the national collation center suspends the breath of the nation, while few kilometers away in the Villa, the hawks had gathered around Jonathan prodding him not to concede defeat. It is only God’s grace and perhaps the Holy Spirit descending on Jona that made him sneaked away from the hawks surrounding him and stole into a room and made the most important telephone call, as far as I m concerned, since that first phone call by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. This congratulatory phone call to Buhari by Jonathan had been the thin line that separated Nigeria from the brink as prophesized by the whisperers and the continuation of not only democracy but the corporate existence of the country as one nation. Thank you Jona once again and stay blessed.
The euphoria and celebration afterwards has been unmatched in the history of this country. Expectation had never been so high but unfortunately halfway into Buhari’s second term, the whisper of doom had resurrected the scenario of Nigeria’s break-up come next election in 2023.
I read with nostalgia an article released over the weekend attributed to US Council of Foreign relations going one step further as they elevates (or shall we say demotes) Nigeria’s ranking from a failed state to a collapsed one, adding that we have reached a point of no return in our march towards total collapse. The whisper is surely resurrected and the worst of my fears (which should be yours too) is the indices on the ground far exceed those in 2015. I saw some naïve reactions dismissing this article as nothing to worry about, but I think we should learn from history considering how Syria, Iraq and Libya were destroyed by the same forces, and the way we narrowly escape the same fate by one act from one individual.
If we want to save this nation for our children and our children’s children, we must wake up from this slumber and realize that no one can save us but us, and collectively. The ethno-religious hatred that is subtly being replayed and the way we go about it could consume us for good. As the hay is packed and sprinkled with gasoline, it is only waiting for a match to stoke it, come 2023 elections.
The killing of Ahmed Gulak in Imo or something similar could easily spark up this fire, thank God it didn’t for now and it may perhaps be a test for grander plan. Thank God, no matter how you perceive IPOB, they quickly came out and exonerate themselves from having a hand in it. Let us not allow the death of any individual, no matter how high-up in this country struck that match, if we do, we may all be burned. Our bigotry will surely be our doom if it remains unchecked and we continue our gullibility in being susceptible to it.
It is becoming a tradition for our politicians, whenever an election is around the corner, especially when the incumbent is leaving office to witness heightened agitations from one section of the country that thinks power should return to them, to create mayhem in their region as a bargaining chip to power. It seems the Igbos are learning the trade and subscribing to it.
Everyone of us should realize that Nigeria is no better than Syria, Iraq or Libya and they had been at war with themselves for the better part of last decade, losing billions of dollars from outright theft of their oil, hundreds of thousands of human lives lost besides the untold human misery especially on women and children. If the world can turn a blind eye as these countries descends to chaos, what made Nigeria immune from treading the same path? Our only strength is realizing the ruse foisted on us, and the fact that it is only us that can plunge ourselves in that direction.
If we dare let this country descend into such situation, our elites will have more to lose than the masses because if the ENDSARS carnage is anything to go by, our youths everywhere in the country are angry, very angry at our leaders and elite and they will attack them at slightest opportunity because they blame them for their woes. Our epileptic power supply will go down to zero in many areas. The northern states are not farming as they used to and with civil disobedience food will skyrocket that no one can afford it except few and the ethno-religious war being triggered will quickly transform into the Darwinian theory of “Survival of the fittest” when it comes to daily needs everywhere in the country. Schools will be shut, travel will become impossible, sport and entertainment will be something to reminisce about. In short life will be unbearable to everyone as there will be acute shortages of food, water, power and loss of livelihood. Our current leaders should realize the dangerous ground they are treading and rise to the challenge which their selfish and unpopular economic policies had unleashed on the masses, they must avert the looming disaster approaching us, because if nothing tangible is employed in the next twelve months, I am afraid 2023 may become our waterloo, and we might not have another Jonathan to rescue us once again.
Sadiq can be reached at: aleesadeeq1@yahoo.com