By Tony Afejuku

These are nasty times. Really nasty times we live in, and we will continue to live in – unless we hesitate not to say or affirm that the nastiness we tolerate should no longer be tolerated. Indeed, these are nasty times we live in, and which we should tolerate no longer. What the Glitterer is saying or implying or intending to imply has to do with the thesis, the main thesis, of “the nastiness of nastiness” – hammering. And what does the Glitterer want to hammer forthrightly in his desire, in his attempt, to help our people to get rid of their troubles and our troubles in these nasty times?

The intrigues and lies and actions and un-workable experiments of our politicians and leader-less leaders should no longer be justified and legitimidsed by our silent silence. The emotions of silence and of a people dominated by the dominance of euphoria-less euphoria should cease to shock us, and should no longer shock us. We must cease to accept the willingness to continue to live the tragedy of our country. And the tragedy comes in different forms, in different concrete forms.

There is the need for elaboration – or – clarification. But how comprehensive can this composer make it?

The just concluded FIFA World Cup that Spain, via La Roja, has won after beating Argentina’s La Albiceleste in perhaps the most one-sided final in the World Cup history tends to provide one answer to my ceaseless inquiry. In what ways have the current Spanish and Argentine footballers better than our current Super Eagles players who could not – and did not – take Nigeria to the 2026 FIFA World Cup? Four years earlier our country’s players did not land our country in Qatar which Qatar hosted from November 20 to December 18, 2022. The state of mind of the people – and of our leaderless leaders, who are responsible for more than just their personal conduct – is tragically our collective bane.

In other words, the collective bane of our society is the tragic mindset of the people and our leaderless leaders, who fail to take responsibility beyond their personal conduct. What the Glitterer is at pains to elaborate and clarify formally and philosophically is this: We are collectively doomed by the tragic mentalities of both the general public and the leaderless leaders responsible for matters far beyond their private conduct.

There is seemingly no true patriot in charge of our human affairs in our current times of nastiness. Your country my country our country is unquestionably held up by the low percentage of reason or of positive intelligence which seems to operate in our human affairs. Everybody in government at all levels is an egoist who never attempts to move out of their thrones of egoism to establish a genuine and viable order or at any rate conceivable on the scale we want for Nigeria that should remain our Nigeria where we should behold several persons and people who possess the expected vision to take us to paradise here on earth. To put this another way, the gleaner-glimpser-glitterer means that our government officials are self-absorbed and refuse to yield power or ego to collaboratively build a functioning society-wide order.

Instead of establishing a genuinely envisioned, prosperous, just society, they fail to act as the just, visionary leaders the country desperately needs. All kinds of propaganda are manufactured against all those who hold contrary views and are in opposition to those in power. Inconvenient truths and areas which the egotists in power detest and oppose in our democracy-less democracy are severely attacked.

Those in power at all levels deliberately refuse to accept that ours is a diverse society where none should be crucified for an idea whatever the idea maybe, so long as the idea does not go against the struggle for individual rights not unknown to our laws and constitution. This is indisputably an epic subject. There will always be persons who do not – and will never – give up what is correct. They will always resist the “struggle not to sign the dotted line for the opposition.”

Nigeria is a beautiful country, a diverse beautiful country, which the nastiness of our contemporary times should not destroy. Nobody should split the baby. But where is Solomon? The light of Nigeria should – and must – defeat and destroy the sub-consciousness of the egotists. This is an epic subject, this composer reiterates. Deliberately, the composer is refraining from citing examples from his Niger Delta terrain and other parts of the country to oil pointedly his observations, which are not unknown to the generality of our people.

The issues he has raised (with deliberately withheld illustrations) are vital to how we should move forward and ahead as a country and a nation of civilised people who want to live and remain civilised despite the current tragic nastiness of (the) nastiness of our country from Warri to Maiduguri and beyond. We must keep on fighting for constitutional and visionary points to save Nigeria our country from perpetual ruin. This is an epic subject. It is time to expect the unexpected visit of the unexpected. Or is it not? Or?

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.