Nigeria: Impunity Brought Us Here
Somewhere in my heart, I still believe that God must be a Nigerian, because of the amount of love and mercies He has shown this country.
Just like many other Nigerians, I may not be too impressed by the state of our economy but I am definitely happy for one thing. For once, in our recent history, people are been held accountable for their deeds. Even though people have argued that the ongoing war against corruption is selective, that is debatable.
But I strongly believe that we are where we are today as a nation not only because of corruption but because of impunity. Any society where crimes are committed and nothing happens is a jungle. And that is what we have witnessed in the past few decades. A situation where it okay to be a criminal as long as you are a big time criminal and close to the people in power.
Today, we are all facing the music of BokoHaram because some policemen killed Yusuf, their leader and nothing happened.
We entrusted some people with the security of our lives and properties but they starve the security personnel of funds and equipment to fight criminals and insurgents, they turned security votes to booties, looted and shared for all purposes.
Our schools are no longer functional because some people stole all the monies meant for education, sent their own kids abroad to study and nothing happened.
Today it’s okay to be a militant because the government will grant you amnesty, give you money, pipeline contracts and send your foot soldiers to the best schools abroad while children of taxpayers take lectures under the mango trees.
Our public health is in shambles because some people that we trusted with our votes embezzled all the funds for the health care development, allow the wives and kids of the poor to die but send their own to US and UK for the best health care, yet nothing has happened.
We produced crude oil, yet we cannot refine because some people grounded our refineries just to imported fuel and make billions from the subsidy, and yet nothing happened.
We have created a system ridden with mediocrity, where a man that has failed in every life endeavour including managing his home, goes into politics and all of a sudden becomes a billionaire, and instead of answering questions about the source of his sudden wealth he receives the highest title in the land.
Real business men and women are daily counting their losses because the lack of infrastructures and support for their business and when they turn to the government their competition is no longer among themselves but the civil servants who equally have companies and give contracts to themselves through proxies. In the end, an officer in public service owns estates, fleets of luxury cars and nothing happens.
The revelations of the past few weeks and months #DasukiGate, #EkitiGate #SarakiGate #DezianiGate and other Gates are mere reflections of the moral decadence that has permeated every sector of the society and it is evident in our lives, from the quality of our music to our movies, from our school system to our business ethics.
Please don’t confuse me for a Pastor or an Imam, I love the good things of life but I am also a firm believer in the concept of hard work, people need to pay their dues and earn whatever they own. Any society that creates opportunities for criminals to succeed and reduces the hardworking and honest citizen to idiots only creates a TIME BOMB for societal disintegration.
But my hope is that at the end of four years, even if President Buhari achieves nothing, which is impossible, I want to see a Nigeria where people will fear the consequences of their actions.
God bless #Nigeria
TAOPHEEK BABAYEJU
twitter facebook linkedin youtube