By Prof. Des Wilson
There was a time Nigeria was touted as one of the happiest nations in the world. This was not because they enjoyed the most glamorous lifestyle in the world. After all, the worlds Human Suffering Index (HSI) showed Nigeria high up the ladder of misery.
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the indomitable and highly irreverent music icon who was disrespectful of the thieving class, mainly of the military family, had in his time, invented the freezing phrase suffering and smiling in one of his combative lyrics which summarised the complexity of the Nigerian condition. At that time, while the military were embroiled in one of the most damming corruption scandals in the country, Fela was drawing our attention to the fact that Nigerians were going through excruciating pain of stolen national assets, and the debauchery of commanders who introduced conference girls as play things for visitors to their dormains. Little did these young women know that they were the comfort emojis of visiting government officials outside their states of domicile.
At the time too, insecurity was really not an issue that gained traction like todays Boko Haram and banditry meltdown. Those in power – Fela called them Vagabonds in Power (VIPs) – and their main fixation which bothered on insecurity was how to prevent their ambitious colleagues from overthrowing them. It was common then for officers to rise from a pepper soup joint, as one police officer characterised them, and march into a radio station to announce a coup.
Our dear president was in the crowd that did not like the smell of the khaki the young Turks wore, nor the kakistocracies they set up! Today, it is as clear as the waters of the Kwa Iboe River at the portals of Itauma, the deity that resides in the lush embers of the trove of its dance to the upper reaches of its westward flow. Our president has proved that in all of us, there is a dictatorial-authoritarian streak that runs through our veins. This celebrated democrat has almost turned his government into a dictatorship.
Nigerians woke up the other day and were told that the establishment of State Police, which had been in contention for years now, had suddenly manifested as a new law without his Man Friday at the Senate as much as having the opportunity to snigger or whimper.
We are told there is a state of emergency on insecurity, the way and manner Rivers people woke up and found that Sim was gone, not in their phones, but for his sins against the Ogre of Abuja. Thereafter, a makeshift draft law was presented to Senate for ratification and no serious debate accompanying it.
Since the 2nd Republic, Nigeria has been afflicted by waves of insecurity from the challenges of the Al Qaeda cells in Zaria, Kano and parts of Kaduna, we had undergraduate students burning Obasanjos book Nzeogwu because it appeared to celebrate the public enemy No. 1, Major Nzeogwu, the leader of the failed coup in January 1966. We had the various Maitatsine riots in Kano, Bauchi, which sought to establish Islam, at the time, as the undisputed religion in the North. This ascendancy drive was led by Sheikh Abubakar Gumi, the then Grand Khadi of Northern Nigeria (1924 – 1992).
His son, Sheikh Ahmed Gumi, who has been banned by Saudi authorities from entering their country, has since taken over as the interpreter of Sharia Law and the grand patron of the destructive Boko Haram terrorists.
The puzzle surrounding the activities of the Boko Haram and its robbery and kidnapping wings, as well as banditry, is that the Nigerian military and other security forces are totally powerless against this cleric who is a former army captain.
There can be no doubt that the religio-politico establishment in Northern Nigeria has given Ahmed Gumi the encouragement and protection that has enabled him to bestride the nations insecurity huddles, uttering seditious and unpatriotic statements, and no government official has been able to utter a word even as a reprimand, and our ubiquitous state security apparatuses have not been unleashed against him. He meets regularly with the terrorists, negotiates their ransom and orders the government to provide a chunk of the annual budget allocation to feed this monster.
No one has asked questions, but when small fries like us raise concerns their laissez faire attitude, that is when the security operatives go beserk.
Nigerians have perpetually lived in fear since Buhari, once chosen by Boko Haram to represent them at any negotiation table, became President. Things became worse with the Tinubu administration, when the former opposition leader once told President Jonathan to resign when the same group started harassing the nation. Today, from Sokoto to Lagos and from Maiduguri to Calabar, Nigerians are gripped with fear.
It has reached a stage where Nigerians are afraid to mention the names Fulani or Boko Haram. One young upstart in one of their freely circulating videos has warned Nigerians not to mention anything negative about the Fulanis or they will be dealt with. So Nigerians have adopted Felas song of suffering and smiling in order to survive in these times. But smiles do not reflect happiness because we are at the bottom of the worlds misery index!
