Breaking Silence

I have been hibernating for a while now; observing rather than speaking, meditating instead of rationalizing. So many things going bad around the globe: from mass shootings to going on a killing spree with a truck. Sometimes I wonder whether humanity hasn't somehow degenerated into some primeval mode. On the other side of the spectrum is the mass killings from the sky, with drones and fighter jets. The same humanity that is being ravaged by myriad diseases and natural disasters still finds itself honing the skills for the production of weapons of mass destruction rather than collectively working towards finding a way to solve their other more salient challenges.

I have always believed that much of the world's conflicts stem from the disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

Let's look at the balance of power amongst countries. The West against the rest of the world. The "West" also includes Europe and Australia which are not in anyway in the West, and excludes some Latin and Central American nations which geographically belong, but are economically somewhere else. They also say the global north and that defies geography as well, because Australia which is one of the southernmost nations on Earth belongs to the global north. Don't bother looking at the manner some nation's bully others and the way some are courted by world leaders because of what they can offer. Take a look at Rwanda, a tiny central African nation which saw a gruesome genocide in 1994. It has risen from the ashes of its crisis to become one of the most respected African nations today. Ghana is also on the rise, while their Big-for-nothing neighbour has taken a dive for the pit, and has kept digging deeper into its new home. 

When some of us shouted ourselves hoarse in 2015, we made so many enemies. Today, we stand vindicated that we were right. No person gives that which he or she doesn't have. Nigeria and Nigerians have never seen the kind of rudderless leadership that it has been seeing since 2015. Incompetence has become inadequate to describe what is happening.

But when I sit back and look at it all, I can only see that the battle line is drawn between the haves and have-nots. Those who have can use their wealth to purchase votes during elections. Those who have can build massive houses all over the nation and flaunt exotic cars just like Dino Melaye. People see the difference in party affiliations, I see the difference in the depth of pockets. Those who are stealing cannot let go of the coffers of the nation. Everyone is stealing. Everyone is calling the other a thief and looter. Amidst all these, the greatest loser is the Nigerian people.

Senegal just launched their own national airline. Rwanda has had theirs for a long time now. South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia have airlines flying all over the world. There's even Asky which flies out of Togo. The funny thing is that the largest patronage of these airlines come from Nigerians. The governments of these nations have seen the market gap in Nigeria and decided to boost their economy by floating these airlines. The day this Nigerian government starts seeing beyond inexistent pencil factories, importing straw and sperm for cattle, and opening radio station for herdspeople; and decides to float an airline for real, that day, all these airlines will record huge losses and the country will make what it deserves because we travel a lot and some of the revenues should come back to the nation.

I tried booking a flight out of the US to Lagos and discovered with so much disdain that no flight flies out of the US to Lagos directly. The two US airlines which did us that favour before have somehow withdrawn it. Go to Dubai, Casablanca, Kigali, Nairobi, Addis Ababa, J'burg and even Lome in tiny Togo, and see the benefits of having an airline hub. Planes take off in Dubai, Frankfurt, Amsterdam like molues do at Oshodi. Air Maroc flies out of two US cities to Casablanca. Even Asky flies to Lome. And Lagos and Abuja are just destinations. Why are we so unlucky?

We look at ethnicity and religion because that's what they told us the problem is. Recently, some youths from Zamfara went physical outside the Supreme Court because of politicians who do not care anything about them. The governor that carries dollar ATM in his babaringa is shamelessly reinstalled without any visible achievement in his state, yet his equally-pauperized supporters won't let us hear word. 

I don't even blame these politicians. They are so smart. They tell you how you are not the same with others, but when they steal, they know no tribe, no religion, no.nothing. They only thing that brings you to that table is that you have at all. Theirs is a personification of the mostly misapplied statement: "Those who have will be given, and those who do not have, even the little they have will be taken away."

The problem with Nigeria is not ethnicity, neither is it religion. It is simply a battle line between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots. In my 40+ years on Earth, the worst kinds of inhumanity, mistreatment and wickedness I have seen is not between the two classes I mentioned, but among the poor, the dispossessed themselves. This is why the rich has been very successful: they cajole, brainwash, co-opt and ultimately purchase the worst of the poor to fight against their fellow sufferers. That's what's happening with Yahoo(+) cases, BH, Herdspeople violence, and other kinds of terrorist acts. It also defines the xenophobic attacks in SA, among others. A responsible government that wants to stop all these would think and act more seriously at fixing the economy because doing that will jobs, and when people have jobs, they earn money and when they earn money through these means, they will surely abandon vice. Then those who are criminals would be smaller in number and the police can take care of them with very little resources. Am happy that Senator Ben Murray-Bruce told them that if you don't buy books, you must buy bullets, because those who didn't get books will need to be out down with bullets. I wish to add that those who think that they are benefitting from the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Nigeria are truly foolish. It is just a matter of time. Foolish leaders never learn from history because rather than learn from the mistakes of leaders before them, they wait to also become examples for future leaders of people who didn't learn. No form of oppression lasts for a long time. Everyone of them has an expiry date. It's happening already... there's still room to get it right this time, Mr President. Listen to the voice of reason and write your name in gold.