In Spite Of Mistakes And Missteps We Are Doing Fine – Really?

EVERYBODY pitched in, like at all birthdays. But really, is it not a little too much to say that in spite of mistakes and mis-steps, Nigeria is doing fine? Even if some former heads of state such as Obasanjo and Abubakar decide to deceive Nigerians that in spite of mistakes and missteps, Nigeria is doing fine, should Nigerians believe them? Obviously, it is in their interest, these successful politicians in an unsuccessful polity, that Nigerians believe that they are fine when they are not fine. Reminds one of the Biblical statement, which states that they say all is well when all is not well. Mistakes?

There are many mistakes that Nigeria has made. Each mistake has been doubled by piling previous mistakes over following mistakes. And when trees fall on trees and nobody bothers to take off the top ones, mistakes pile up and create what we have today. Just one single mistake would do. Look at our roads. Water-logged, muddied to overwhelm the rear tyres and pot-holed to reflect the skies above. Movement is one of the first signs of being fine.

You should be able to move from one point to another. In Nigeria, is this possible today? Of course, our air-borne leaders do fly from one airport to another. So, the mistakes of the roads do not bother them. In fact, in spite of the mistakes of the miserable roads that were never maintained they are doing fine. The rest of the country must make do with new airports created for the landing of, definitely, not modern flying aircrafts but witchcraft! Mis-steps?

We have made many a misstep. The military coup d’etat of January 15, 1966 was a misstep. Read the aims and promises of the first statements. They were in no position to deliver on those promises. Compare the first statements of all the military coup d’etats of the country and it is the same misstep. Promises made and not kept. Each promise more idiotic than the one that went before until we even got the one that wanted to cut off part of the country in order to cure the ills of the country!

The mistakes and the missteps of the past destroyed the physical infrastructure of the country. Funds went into sponsoring coups d’etat and paying off those who would not be the immediate beneficiaries of the new coup d’etat. Like all political ventures, those who pay for it want to make their money back and some. So, over the years the mistakes and missteps piled up and here we are with collapsed physical infrastructure and non-existent moral strictures. Let us know that when every set of military leadership promise to hand over power, commit themselves to routing corruption from the polity, swear that they would not be candidates in the elections they intend to conduct and then go ahead and fail to rout corruption from the polity, forswear that they would not be candidates in their returning the country to democracy and five stupid political parties through one idiotic spokesperson nominate them for that candidacy the moral fibre of the country is destroyed.

Years later, there would be crimes undreamed off at our beginnings. There would be transgressions we did not scare ourselves with when we were setting out on the path of independence. Or did we dream of a country where there would be hospitals set up to sell new born babies? And nobody has been convicted of that horrendous crime? Did we dream of kidnapping and adult-napping for money? Or parents doing computer-generated examinations for their children? Or men and women doing both wholesale and retail trade in human parts; and how many have been prosecuted by our law and order institutions? Did we imagine a situation where some of us would blackmail the rest of us to give money or else we would make the country impossible to govern? It is not that we have made mistakes and we have taken missteps. We have not done anything to correct our mistakes. We have not retraced our missteps. As a result we cannot be doing fine. Those who tell us that we are doing fine are telling us lies and we should let them know and tell them to stop it.

The reason they must stop it is because it is because the mistakes of the past have not been corrected and the missteps of the past have not been retraced to find the correct path to take that we are now at the present crossroads of immobility. At the cross roads, we are stuck because we have moved from four different directions wanting to go forward. But because we have not corrected our mistakes, because we have not retraced our missteps we are stuck at the crossroads. Like the traffic jams. And the thieves at the traffic jams doing business with our mistakes and missteps.

What about the mistakes and missteps of today? I expect that in another fifty years, our leaders of today would say that in spite of the mistakes of today and the missteps of today we are doing fine when we arrive at 2060, October 1. And the mistakes of today are already piling up. Before-before, we had laws and there were even judges and so on sworn to do something about something called justice. Now, we do not remember such things as judges. And nobody has told us about something called justice. We make our own rules and when we are told that no, those are not the rules that the rest of the society should go by we say they are political being vindictive and jealousying us and unwilling to play fair with us!

We are in a state without laws – not the laws of nature, which catch up with us and at which point we praise each other to nonsense. There might be laws of the society but we do not obey them because they do not benefit us and we make our own rules and laws to become presidents of senate and senates of presidents. Nobody must question us when we then become the persons who try others and weigh them whether they measure up to rules and regulations, laws and orders that we have meticulously avoided. Oh, come unto Macedonia and help us here before more mistakes and more missteps are said to be good for us by the Obasanjos of Nigeria!!!