I know that immediately some persons saw the title of this article all that came into their minds was nothing but economic indices. Yes, the economy is important, but it is the result of several other things. Any nation that lacks a well-schooled workforce cannot have a healthy and growing economy. That country can hardly produce anything, repair its infrastructure – just like Nigeria. Yet, the economy alone is not the thrust of this article, even though Buhari has failed, just as Goodluck Jonathan failed and as Olusegun Obasanjo failed to grow jobs or the economy. The manufacturing sector has been contracting since 1999, worsening unemployment. Inflation has been rising unchecked, the Naira depreciating daily.
By 2003 Naira to the dollar rate was N127. 1 USD fetched 199.2570 NGN in 29 May 2015 when President Buhari was inaugurated President. But what do we have today? On Wednesday, 28 October 2020, I got this from the internet: a “₦460/US$1 in the parallel market”. And yet, nobody is apologetic. Instead, there is a fierce pride among the members of government, even as Nigeria manufactures almost nothing, and so imports almost everything, so the cost of almost everything, imported and not imported – whether rice, yam, beans, orange, loaf of bread, banana, petrol, clothing, etc, has increased over a hundred fold. No, the exchange rate against the American dollar is not the true measure of the health of a nation’s economy; that relates to the purchasing power of say, the minimum wage. So, how much can the minimum wage buy today from the Nigerian market? What about the pump price of petrol? How can it be said that Nigeria, after over five years of a government headed by a former Minister of Petroleum, under whose watch in that past government some three refineries were built in four years, cannot get a single refinery to be functional? And to add to the disappointment, this President, who had been a former Petroleum Minister, had also served as a Military Head of State, yet, the government lurches from one disaster to the other as though Mr. President is sourly inexperienced. So, ordinarily, few Presidents have had as grand a preparation as President Buhari. So, why is that under him, so far, Nigeria has been unable to fully repair a single petroleum refinery or build a new one if the old once have proved to be obsolete? Under him, all we do is routinely increase petrol pump prices – just as Obasanjo and Jonathan did? No Petroleum Minister of State publicly stated his desire to see the refineries become functional again as Dr. Ibe Kachikwu. Surprisingly, a re-elected Buhari did not reappoint him into the Cabinet. Buhari came in with the full promise of ending the Boko Haram insurgency, but today that woe is still befalling us. Added to that is the scourge from some outlaws we now call bandits. What really is banditry? The Merriam Webster dictionary defines a bandit as “as an outlaw who lives by plunder, especially: a member of a band of marauders”. The Cambridge dictionary sees it this way: “a thief with a weapon, especially one belonging to a group that attacks people travelling through the countryside”. To put it in proper perspective, The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (NED) defined “bandit” in 1885 as “one who is proscribed or outlawed; hence, a lawless desperate marauder, a brigand: usually applied to members of the organized gangs which infest the mountainous districts of Italy, Sicily, Spain, Greece, Iran, and Turkey”.
Well, now banditry is alive and deadly in Nigeria. Yet, that is not all the bad news about insecurity; here and there, the killer herdsmen have let loose, a river of blood. China was once plagued by an army of bandits. Reading up on this infestation, I came across this: “Marauding was one of the most common peasant reactions to oppression and hardship. In early Republican China, the growth of warlord armies during the Warlord era was also accompanied by a dramatic increase in bandit activity exploiting the lawlessness. By 1930, the total bandit population was estimated to be 20 million”. But that was before Mao Zedong, also known as Chairman Mao, the Chinese communist revolutionary and the undisputed founding father of the People’s Republic of China, came into power in 1949. Will Nigeria’s history and trajectory change simply Buhari became President? Some will tell you that the issue of the killer herdsmen did not become problematic until Buhari became President, but that is not what I have in mind; here, I am asking about Buhari’s ability to usher in a new Nigeria – devoid of killer herdsmen, who appear to cling to yesterday, spitting on tomorrow, by insisting on taking their herds of cattle to forage for foliage and grass across the land while elsewhere ranching has been proved to be the best practice in animal husbandry.
Sincerely, the killer herdsmen problem predated the Buhari presidency. According to the Wikipedia “Since the Fourth Nigerian Republic’s founding in 1999, farmer-herder violence has killed more than 19,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. It followed a trend in the increase of farmer-herder conflicts throughout much of the western Sahel, due to an expansion of agriculturist population and cultivated land at the expense of pasturelands; deteriorating environmental conditions, desertification and soil degradation;[5] population growth; breakdown in traditional conflict resolution mechanisms of land and water disputes; and proliferation of small arms and crime in rural areas. Insecurity and violence have led many populations to create self-defence forces and ethnic and tribal militias, which have engaged in further violence. The majority of farmer-herder clashes have occurred between Muslim Fulani herdsmen and Christian farmers, exacerbating ethno-religious hostilities”.
Yet, now that Buhari is President, is there hope that this problem will be solved? I am really afraid that with five years gone and three years left, the outlook is not promising. He has talked about Cattle Routes, Cattle Colony, RUGA, yet, I have heard nothing about getting those individuals who own the herds of cattle to imitate the best practice world-wide and care for their herds in ranches – owned by themselves. As the problem is not being faced squarely, it festers more with every passing day. And so far, there is no special police focus on this killer herdsmen problem.
Hey, I owe the reader special and heartfelt apologies please, because the history of youth uprising in Nigeria, which I promised to dwell on this week if events permit, will wait till next week. I set out while choosing this theme fully convinced that Nigerian columnists have often failed to see the big picture because we have been unduly fascinated by the story of individual government functionaries. Those who see the big picture, the likes of the late Dr. Stanley Macebuh and late Prof Claude Ake (may their names and ideas live forever) are no longer writing today. So, today, I am more concerned with the state of the MIND of Nigerians than individuals who run or ruin the country … or the economy. That is why Nigeria has little to offer any one that is interested in the lessons of history or Social Science interpretations of our character and actions. That is also why Nigeria disdains the truth about events, no matter how heavenly or hellish, no matter how heroic or courageous or demeaning and divisive.
State of the mind? How wholesome is the state of the mind of a people that justifies murder of non-members of their religious or ethnic groups? How excellent is the state of the mind of a people to whom excellence in the workplace or in education means nothing, but to whom prebendalism and favouritism is everything? How can the state of the mind of a people be raised when not even the government tells the truth?
What state of the mind does the government expect its citizens to have when even the government itself has refused to acknowledge the Asaba Massacre and the random killings that went on throughout the Anioma area of Delta State during the Nigerian Civil War?
To really understand my stance, please consider the My Lai massacre of some 500 South Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops on March 16, 1968. Now we know that U.S. soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd (American) Infantry Division (hey, what can be more detailed than this?) carried that massacre. Yet, the Asaba massacre took place a year before that (1967) and till today, the Nigerian government or military authorities never asked questions on it. The US tried twenty-six soldiers charged with criminal offenses over it but Nigeria charged no one.
Now we are asking questions about what took place at the Lekki Toll Gate on Tuesday October 20 this year, when protesters were allegedly mowed down. Has the Army commenced any investigations? All we hear is that the Army was not involved in the shooting. Such sweeping away of crimes against the nation deaden peoples’ consciences and reduces the state of peoples’ minds.
Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., a helicopter pilot saw dead and wounded civilians as he was flying over the village of Sơn Mỹ, providing close-air support for ground forces. He played a major role in ending the My Lai Massacre and later testified against the war criminals responsible, even though US troops did not shoot at Americans. That is how the state of the mind of a country marches from one step of civilization and development to the next. Thompson and his crew members Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn were awarded high military decorations. Glenn Andreotta was awarded his medal posthumously, as he was killed in Vietnam on 8 April 1968.
I have been terribly worried about the kind of Nigeria that will arise from the ashes of the #endSARS protest. Will we not become more dehumanised? That is the only way to go if those who killed unarmed protesters at Lekki Toll Gate, Lagos, are allowed to go unpunished. Hey, who ordered that military action against defenceless Nigerians? Yes, Nigerians, who were waving the Nigerian flag and singing our national anthem. One social media video has shown a hooded soldier who allegedly warned his mates not to shoot and later allegedly videoed the carnage, and it was later claimed in that same video that the whistle-blowing soldier would be court marshalled. If such a soldier exists, and released such a video, he should be applauded. He is a true and courageous Nigerian. He deserves high honours and a Presidential handshake. In such a way, Buhari will taking Nigeria to the next level and humanising and Nigerianising our minds. Such a soldier should be to us what Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr. was to USA; the conscience of a nation and a civilising agent. Without people like him, Nigeria will become a hell because the mind is a terrible thing to deaden…as Boko Haram terrorists, bandits, killer herdsmen, thieving bankers, criminal public servants, in-human SARS officials, corrupt leaders and killer security agents have proved.
