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Requiem For Nigeria

130

By Tony Eluemunor

Recently, the question of whether Nigeria is still alive as a nation or dead was finally answered. But before I delve into that, I have to give a back grounding of how that morbid thought came my way. 

It was around 1988 and I was in the 113 Ogunlana St, Suru-Lere office of THISWEEK newspaper, assembling quotable quotes to be used for the end of the year magazine. 

Then, an item in Newsweek magazine made me stop on my tracks: the Lebanese Foreign Affairs Minister was going to the airport when he noted the level of devastation within the capital city of Beirut. Then he shook his head and declaimed; “for long this country has been dying, but it is now dead”. 

Those words have stuck with me all through the years since that day. 

Some may say that it is a meaningless twaddle to say that Nigeria is dead when there is a country that bears that name and it is recognised by the African Union and the United Nations Organisation, has a government, a currency, and Army. To such people, I would counter that a dead body does not lie still immediately it has breathed its last; no, it usually suffers death spasms. A chicken whose head is cut off while go into a dance of death. Cut off the head of a snake and that reptile would go into a prolonged moment of meaningless wriggling, writhing in a meaningless dance of death. 

After death, we move our muscles as a result of an electrochemical reaction in our nerves. The chemicals that cause this reaction are stored in our nerve endings, and when we die, they’re gradually released. Usually, though, the resulting movement is just a twitch. 

And to all intents and purposes, Nigeria is gone. Even though Chinua Achebe referred to the defunct Biafran Republic in his last book; THERE WAS A COUNTRY, many Nigerians have started using that phrase when they are talking about their country. 

This dire or even morbid realization hits me like a kick to the groin a few month ago when several strange things happened in Nigeria, and were assumed to be normal, yes, normal. 

It all began when the bandits in the forests of Katsina State upped their ante and abducted students of the Kankara secondary school, in Katsina State. That shame of a nation happened in the evening of 11 December 2020, when over 300 pupils were kidnapped from a boys’ secondary school. 

When the students were released, the nation heaved a sigh of relief, the government gave itself a pat on the back, and business continued as usual. That was sad. At least, when the Chibok girls were kidnapped and taken into the bush, there was national cry of anguish; it was as though the soul of the nation was in danger of being lost, and those who stood for its regaining, cried out against the then President Goodluck Jonathan, who deservedly lost the presidential elections that followed. 

Up till the time of writing, not all the kidnapped Chibok school girls have been reunited with their parents. The poster girl of that sordid kidnapping, Leah Sharibu, has all been forgotten. Nobody remembers her, nobody talks about her any longer. It is like she and their parents do not matter. It is like we have all forgotten that she is a Nigerian and has her God-given rights that deserve to be protected. 

Nigeria has failed Leah Sharibu terribly. 

In 2017, the UN estimated that the conflict between Boko Haram and security forces had destroyed 1,500 schools from January 2014 to December 2016, with at least 1,280 teachers and student casualties. Attacks on schools decreased after 2015, possibly due to the closure or destruction of schools in northeastern Nigeria, which left Boko Haram fewer institutions to attack. 

An Amnesty International report stated that up to 50 schools were attacked, burned, or destroyed in Borno State alone in 2013, resulting in the deaths of 70 teachers and dozens of students. Another report, The Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, noted that until mid-2013 Boko Haram carried out most attacks at night, when schools were empty. But after mid-2013, attacks began happening more frequently during school hours, according to Amnesty International. 

Not even Primary schools were spared: on March 11, 2013, unidentified attackers set fire to Gwange I Primary School in Maiduguri city, Borno State, burning it down. Unidentified attackers reportedly set fire to Gwange III Primary School in the same city two days later. On March 23, 2013, three private schools in Biu town, Borno State, were burnt down at night. 

On July 6, 2013, members of Boko Haram attacked and burned down a secondary school in Mamudo, Yobe State, during the day, killing at least 29 male students and one teacher, this was after the terrorist organistion had actually earlier threatened to attack the school and kill any student found there. 

Human Rights Watch reported that on September 6, 2013, Boko Haram bombed the science laboratory at the Government Secondary School Gajerai and the principal’s house, before abducting the principal and capturing six students. Boko Haram members forced students to point out the homes of teachers and local education administrators in the village, then killed the teachers they found and destroyed their teaching certificates. They then abducted one of the students and killed the other five. 

In August 2016, UN data showed that an estimated 1,697 schools were closed in Northeastern Nigeria, of which 524 were in Adamawa State, 110 were in Yobe, and 1,063 were in Borno. 

One of the most highly publicized attacks on education occurred on April 14, 2014, when Boko Haram stormed a government-run secondary school for girls in the Chibok local government area in Borno state. They burned down the school and kidnapped 276 female students. Boko Haram boasted of the kidnapping as a warning against girls participating in Western education. Fifty-seven of the girls escaped from the group soon after the kidnapping, and one was found in May 2016. 

Another 21 were released after negotiations with Boko Haram in October 2016. One more schoolgirl was found in January 2017 with a six-month-old baby, to whom she had given birth while in captivity. Another 82 were released in exchange for Boko Haram prisoners in May 2017. 

Then the Kankara school kids kidnapping took place. Despite the gory tales it produced, Nigerians did not feel outraged. Thanks to Usman Aminu Mali, we have some heart-rending stories about that abduction. He recounted: “Marching at gunpoint in a forest Usama Aminu Mali wondered whether he and hundreds of other abducted schoolmates would survive. 

The 18-year-old said he overheard one of his captors ask in a phone call, “Sir, should we release or kill them?” The order came through: Keep walking. Relieved, Usama kept moving and praying. 

He was rescued Sunday morning, over 30 hours after his ordeal began, because he had lagged behind because of chronic illness, and so was saved. 

If the abuse and the sufferings those kids encountered did not outrage Nigerians into vowing never again, nothing else will. “They kept hitting us as we walked, there was no food, so we started picking fruits and leaves from any available tree. I was so weak and couldn’t stand up, so other students had to bring me the leaves to eat. It makes one thirsty, and there was no water to drink,” said Usama. 

The students continued marching into the night Saturday. “After walking for a long time, they asked us to kneel down while they waited for other students to catch up,” Usama recalled. He realized they were near a village. “I decided to find a place to lie down because I was in serious pain,” with aching bones, he said. “I could not walk anymore. I was saying to myself, ‘I may be lucky for them to leave me behind.’ I started praying.” 

The gunmen, trying to avoid detection, moved the group under cover of darkness – and didn’t notice Usama’s absence. 

Then, students were kidnapped in Kagara, Niger State and soon after that, in Zamfara State. 

We should face the bare fact that reason governments exist, to protect life and property, has been destroyed in Nigeria. There is general insecurity everywhere. Inter-city travel has for long become a dangerous adventure. Now, even an intra-city jaunt, has also become an arduous and hazardous task. 

Nigeria has been dying for a long time. It was in the throes of death when we elected President Muhammadu Buhari to salvage it – as he promised. Now it is dead. Ask before whoever will occupy the president’s office come 2023 will be to resurrect Nigeria. 

You may dismiss my submission with a mocking laughter. But history is littered with the tales of dead states which were unable to protect their citizens. The important thing here is that most of them actually rotted before they were overwhelmed. 

It is actually sad to watch the beginnings of a decays –such as Nigeria experienced. Some of us clapped when the decay set in especially during General Ibrahim Babangida’s watch. He annulled a free and fair election, took Nigeria into the Organisation of Islamic Countries – from an observer position to full membership. Thus, to our ethnic problems, he added the religious one. 

And in came Buhari …and instead of solving any of the old problems, the cattle problem became a real and present danger. For years now, Nigeria has been in a spasm of death, all because of cattle. 

How many Bandits are in the Nigerian bushes? Sheik Gunmi has made matters worse; he has said that the bandits are enraged and mistreated Fulanis, and he went on to tell them that the soldiers attacking them are Christians. 

In any country of the world, once the army is divided, so goes the nation. Yet, that division of the military is what Gumi attempted to do. 

One final fact remains that any country that has failed to, or is incapable of defending its citizens from the whims of outlaws, is, to all intents and purposes, dead. The sure sign of this death is in the fact that never have the bandits or the terrorists who have abducted Nigerian school children, were pursued and arrested and tried – to tell the citizens that there is a government in Nigeria. This is the only way to rebuild confidence and to warn the outlaws to quit fighting a war against their own country. 

Some students were abducted just days ago. How would they and their parents be feeling now? That they have a real country? I doubt it…and as I write this, I feel their pains. We have failed our children. Yes, there is no doubt about that. 

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