Still no respite

Recognising the fact that no nation and no people are sure of tomorrow and what may be lurking in the shadows, I have come to a tentative assessment that leaders of tomorrow will have more than the economic collapse of their lands to worry about. There is this air of forebodement of uproar, palpable to see and feel. More than three quarters of reports, whether in newspapers, electronic media or the social media which has opened wide the door for citizen journalists of different colourations, all point the reader in the negative direction. All are depressing reports and you want to switch to occupy yourself with something uplifting for the joy and pleasure of the day. On realizing that this would amount to ostrichism, you pull back but begin to wonder if the reports were true or they were products of fertile imaginations, but for the multiple sources and portals confirming them.

It’s confusion everywhere. As I write this Brexit No Deal palaver is unresolved, threatening to cost PM Theresa May her job to which she has devoted her whole being. Her plans have been defeated in Parliament three times. She has lost some key ministers in her quest to fetch the United Kingdom a fair deal. Northern Ireland and Scotland not particularly keen on Brexit ab initio are hovering hawkishly over Mrs. May to play into their hands. It should always be remembered that she relies on Northern Ireland crutches for her government to stand. So, she must be beholden to them. The tough Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and leader of Scotland National Party, is waiting in the wings to strike. Both Northern Ireland and Scotland prefer the protection and rights provided by EU’s Single Market on free trade and freedom of movement.

But the pro-Brexit are worried by the influx of immigrants into the UK, which they say is altering their culture, defacing their land and bringing pressure on their social life and facilities. There are also security concerns as well. By the time Mrs. May flew to Aberdeen in 2017 to meet Miss Sturgeon, the latter already had the mandate of the Scottish Parliament tucked in her handbag to press for a second independence referendum to quit the British Union. In the first referendum on 18 September 2014, Scots voted 55 percent to remain in Britain and 45 per cent to disentangle themselves. Among those who voted to remain, some did on the ground that seeing the picture of the Queen on their currency notes was fulfilling enough for them.

Almond Salmond, the chief protagonist had to quit upon the drive being defeated. A poll conducted by The Independent with the renewed pressure by Nicola Sturgeon said she had the backing of England and Wales with 60 per cent of the respondents saying she was right. She believes that with Brexit there would be palpable change in the material circumstances of her people. Mrs. May calmed her down urging that the deals of Brexit be awaited before any discussion on the second independent referendum was tabled. The EU godfathers are getting impatient and are eagerly waiting for 14 April deadline to arrive to slam the door on Mrs. May’s face. They are not willing to grant her any extension to go back to Westminster to sort out things with her people.

Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump is grappling with his own self-induced headache. He is rooting to call Barrack Obama’s officials to account on how the whole story of his campaign council colluding with Russian on the American Presidential Election began. He is targeting the security that served Obama, with James Comey as the main focus. Even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller issued a clean bill of health that took a section of American establishment by surprise, former FBI director James Comey was not convinced Trump did not have a query to answer on the episode. He said: “The Russians really did massively interfere with 2016 elections with the goal of damaging one candidate and helping the other. That was not a hoax. That was a real thing.” Close associates of Trump are up in arms to get to the root of the matter that got Mueller sitting for 675 days.

From Mueller report Mr. Trump has moved to Affordable Care Act, more widely known as Obamacare, which he is fighting hard to repeal, especially after having a court backing on it. However, conscious of the formidable huddle awaiting him in the Democrats controlled House of Representatives, he is shelving his battle to take it to his 2020 Presidential campaign to return him to the White House. Sensing the reality of the road block in that direction, Mr. Trump is getting to refocus his attention on the border wall controversy. The warning to him this time is coming from the auto manufacturers. The first salvo even came from his supposed right-hand man, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He said to Trump that if he sealed the border with Mexico, economic ruin was a certainty.

“Closing down the border would have potentially catastrophic economic impact on our country, and I would hope we would not be doing that kind of thing.” Washington Post reports that sealing the US-Mexico border could halt all US automotive manufacturing within a week and affect at least 1million jobs.

Mr. Trump is adamant saying that security is more important to him than trade and commerce, it takes precedence over trade. While conceding the fact of economic costs, he says: “I am ready to close it if I have to close it. Mexico is now stopping people coming in…Let’s see if they keep doing that. If they don’t or if we don’t make a deal with Congress, the border is going to be closed. One hundred per cent.” Such is the state of uncertainty and confusion in a forebodement that is staring the world in the face.

As I was reflecting on this, I received the following in my system. Called Travelers Guide, it reads: Driving Sokoto-Gusau road from 7pm is risky; Driving from Sokoto to Katsina via Koloni-Boko-Kaura Road day and night is a suicide; Driving Gusau-Mami-Dansadau road day and night is suicide: Driving Gusau-Tsafe-Sheme Funtua Road by 7pm is risky. Driving Kaura -Moriki-Shinkafi Road is risky in the day, suicide in the night. Driving Zurmi-Jibia Road is automatic suicide. Driving Mayanci-Anka-Gummi road is a risk. Driving Sheme -Kankara Road is risky by 7pm. Driving Faskari-Marabar Maigora-dandume Road is risky day and night.

The natural inclination is to ask if the police are aware of this state of insecurity in this North West zone of our country. If they are aware and the listed roads are still no-go areas at certain hours of the day, it is either that the police have spread so thin with challenges everywhere they do not have any more manpower to spare, or they are unaware of the magnitude of the problem to concentrate their minds. What compounds matters is that we have a President who is unpersuaded on the need for a second tier of policing in the land, which is the state police. It is amazing that anyone can still argue against or be indifferent to calls for the establishment of state police in the face of serious security challenges the country is facing.

Yet, the same authority has not done any thinking out of the box on how to tackle the challenges beyond the same old beaten track of increasing existing police manpower and retraining them. Is it not sufficiently obvious by now that Nigeria cannot be policed from just one central command? Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has seen it differently and so has the Governors Forum and have all spoken out. Because of the costly obstinacy of the President, lives that should have been saved were the states to parade their own police have been needlessly lost. See the camps of IDPs in the North East and in the Middle Belt. Are we claiming to be wiser than most countries with multiple police formations in the consciousness that security is the primary reason for the existence of government? In the United States it is such that any university with a student population of 5,000 has its own police.

Statesmen, genuine world leaders and many high-minded people must have been worrying about the drift of the nations. Scholars must be poring over books and innumerable writings to find answers to the dangers staring mankind in the face. These are scholars who must have recognized that there are extra-ordinary happenings in practicably all the lands today. It is obvious most societies are gripped by the bug that turns reasoning upside down. Come to think of it the United Kingdom wants to quit the European Union but has found itself entrapped in a web and it is not free. It is afflicted by dissension at home and it is facing stringent conditions in the EU agreement. The decision to quit was as a result of an awakening to the recognition that each people must be allowed to govern themselves, fashion out the ways they want their society to be governed in accordance with their own light and at their own pace.

The British themselves put peoples of disparate backgrounds and cultures together in their age of ignorance of the Natural Ordinance governing formation of Nation States. No doubt. They were deficient in their clarity and went mainly for the economic purpose and market of the colonized peoples. We cannot say their predicament serves them right, for what is right is what must be upheld at all times. Who knows those who have been condemning the practices of that may have been among the protagonists of slavery and colonization in their previous earth lives? Where to begin is to ask ourselves: Are nations for people or it is people who are created for nations? Who am I? Where have I come from? What is the purpose of my sojourn here on earth? What does the Higher Ordinance of the Creator expect of us? The main, indeed the only, reason for a nation or union is to facilitate attainment of spiritual development of a people. And no people are to disturb the other in their striving to attain this goal.

The Laws of Nature which are also called Divine Laws are the eternal counsel and are closely connected, indeed bear, the omniscience and omnipotence of God. They express His Will and Power. It is so self-evident, for example, that people who have a lot in common find it easier to live together, associate, form friendship and clubs than those from whom they are dissimilar. Sorrow and pains are therefore brought about by the flagrant breach of the Laws of Creation. In other words, the circumstances of our world are not willed by the Creator. They are brought about by us human beings on ourselves through wanton lawlessness, through what we think, say and do, using our free will—free decision, that is the inalienable freedom of choice. These attract forms of their own kind to burden us. The consequence is the world that is upside down today, including the reasoning of man!