Thieves As Chiefs And Looters As Leaders

Every Tom and Jerry often harps on the serendipitous note to enunciate this truth so dear to my heart. "All I know of tomorrow is that providence will rise before the sun". With this truism in mind, many Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike truly believe that Nigeria is loved, gifted and endowed with various resources and opportunities. God's devine providence all too often rises before the Nigerian sun. It is now common knowledge that Nigerians believe that the invisible messenger of death that came through the instrumentality of the Indian call girls and the Igbo virgin harbinger, was simply divine intervention by its true name. Or, who would have been able to deal with the evil monster, the personification of immorality, the semi-illiterate megalomaniac, the vindictive butcher and the very smart kleptomaniac in the person of Sani Abacha. Not with the dreaded security apparatus that encapsulated him. All this however fell like a pack of cards when the yearned for divine intervention finally came calling.

If Abacha is now gone, his evil spirit, it would seem is still very much around. This must be exorcised and pretty soon too. If one may use the medical analogy, Abacha as Commander in Chief (read in "Thief") and chief leader (read "Looter") of the nation's financial vaults, was a "foreign body" that was miraculously and providentially extracted from the "national anatomy". To punch this anatomy a bit further, one would believe that like a cancerous tumour, the latter had already begun to do the damage to the system before it was quasi-belatedly removed. 

It is precisely in understanding the frightening dimensions of this anatomical and physiological analogy that one has to worry about the possibility of having with us chiefs moulded as it were from thieves, and leaders who are really looters in a different dress, who are going to be with us for a long while. Abacha it must be pointed out, learnt the ropes real well from his friend Babangida, but he was to raise the art of stealing and looting for his family and henchmen to such heights that all of Nigeria with its nooks and crannies would have been his, without any body daring to blink an eye. Not with the corrosive influence of the Youth Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA) contraption. And these are the leaders (read "looters") of our dream tomorrow. 

 Notwithstanding even with the earth-quaking and devastating mass media revelations of the colossal sums of money looted from our local, state and federal government coffers on the one hand, and the savagery and brutality of the security operatives and Abacha's killer squads on the other, the late leader's die-hard supporters, as lackeys and cronies were seen making sort of remarks that betray their impenitent and recalcitrant nature. These views came from the members of United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP). As at then, the UNCP happens to be the ruling party and government party.

The cataclysmic revelations of impropriety and misdeeds on the financial and moral spheres have now proved many a human rights activist or pro-democracy propagandist right after all: nothing good can come from any military regime. Nothing but doom, death and disgrace. Nigerians can now begin to say 'never again! Never again!!' This is what we can resolutely do in an individual and collective capacity. Concerted efforts must be made to bring to book all those at the helm of affairs at least from the time of Baba if not from all the past leaders. Their misdeeds in political, economic, financial and the moral realms must be correspondingly redressed, and their loot recouped in a most transparent manner. Only such a measure can help stem the tide of thieves becoming chiefs and looters becoming leaders and vice versa, before a traumatised populace.

Lifestyle and Stories May 03, 2016

Joseph Etim

Joseph Etim (B. Tech) is a blogger, mobile web developer and a tutor with a zeal for positive effects.

Website: Pepetimsblog