The blunt truth: A long letter to the Nigerian youths (2)

WEDNESDAY COLUMN by USSIJU MEDANER

info@medaner.com, justme4justice@yahoo.com

The last few days almost took us back a whole seven years; to the harrowing years we had hoped and prayed we will never have to remember again as Nigerians. My little daughter does not know what fuel scarcity is and it still sounds very strange to her that there are years in the immediate past when fuel scarcity, a regular queue in petrol filling stations and black marketing across the country were the order of the day. We had woken up to petrol filling stations lockdown over the preceding week with the resultant immediate emergency of black marketers in several locations within the suburbs of the Federal Capital Territory, selling PMS for as much as four hundred naira per liter.
The unbelievable part of the ordeal was that the stations were in possession of products they prefer not to sell, while waiting for price increments that will afford them multiple profits. As bad as the regime of fuel scarcity and the attendant events were and the negative implications on the nation’s development, there are a large number of Nigerian citizens who do not care. They prefer the scarcity and the personal gains it brings them; and they would freely initiate a return of the unpalatable regime. After the three days of agony of scarcity of the product, the same filling stations have all opened selling at the same price without having received new delivery of the product.
This is yet one reflection of who we are as Nigerians; completely selfish enough to take only the action courses that present personal returns without considerations for communal welfare and interests. The leaders sit on the our commonwealth and choose to fill their bellies and bank accounts, making life as easy as it can come for themselves, families and allies without caring for the millions of children who roam the street for crump, or job-seeking youths and graduates who have no hope or assurance of securing jobs to end the cycle of poverty in their family, or of parents who cry daily from inability to feed and train their wards.
Is it not strange that most individuals who had been opportune to assume the lowest political office in the country, even in the most remote parts of the country, regardless of what their financial status was before, have become the lord over their people across the country? Mere local government chairmen are now stupidly rich. Rich because they have had the opportunities to manage communal resources, which obviously they have continued to appropriate to themselves without any effective framework in place to check such avarice.
State governors, past and present, in most states are now obviously richer than their states. While the infrastructural and mental poverty of the citizens of these looted states are on the increase at an alarming rate, these rapacious men have become insanely rich, building mansions across the globe, controlling businesses across the world and boasting of billions and trillions that could not in anyway be proceeds of legitimate incomes. We are at a point where we compare these people to know who is richer. Where does Abacha money come from? Your state governor, how does he become the billionaire he is today; some senators and the members of Houses of Assemblies and Representatives, where do their sudden riches emerge from? The citizens are getting poorer, suffering is increasing in the land, yet the leaders are living more in opulence, sleeping on the commonwealth of the nation.
This has been the pathetic story; the reality of the Nigeria nation, not just today, but since independence. What have we done at any time to arrest the gory situation and halt its perennial propagation through decades and generations? What have the youth’s population done actively at any time to reclaim the glory of the nation? As youths, we have never been silent, but we have only been active, exerting our energies on irrelevances, and acts that eventually aid the continuous desecration of the sanctity, development and safety of the country.
Ironically, the youths roam the streets searching for non-existing means of survival; searching for non-existing jobs, sleep on empty stomachs in a super endowed and rich nation. The youths are quite aware of the permanent culture of diversion of the riches of the country; they are fully conscious that hundred percent, the wealth of the politicians in their street are the commonwealth of the nation that should have relieved them of their unending struggles, yet, the youths, rather than responding in a way that change the narrative, sending the clear message that stealing their commonwealth is no longer permitted, have, nationwide, rather become the readymade tools for protecting the rich and the some corrupt politicians who daily deny them of their livelihood, propagate their graft against the country and defend these enemies of the state against the law when the need arise.
The same youths take to the street to demand for infrastructure and good living standards after they have helped the enemies siphoned the resources meant for the development they wanted to see. It was the same youths who wanted the nation to do away with bad leadership; the same youths who were canvassing for the full implementation of the not-too-young-to-rule bill, that were the same youths who were ready to turn the whole nation “Atikulated” and ready to die to get a politicians with perhaps the worst record of corruption in service against the country into power; a politician who had apparently no remorse for all the atrocities he had committed against the country. It was the same youths who were busy projecting the narrative that Atiku may be corrupt but he is not the only corrupt one among the lot. It was the same youths who, for the affiliation they have for PDP, have become careless and dismissive of the evidential financial atrocities committed by the party against the country.
We had clear evidence of the diversion of the huge resources meant for consummating the nation’s fight against insurgency during the Jonathan administration. We heard the news of how politicians shared the billions that would have maybe ended the Boko Haram attacks long before now; but we chose to stick to our political affiliations and biases to defend every other politician fingered in the corruption. Despite the gory acts, all the way from Dasuki, Allison Madueke, to Femi Fani-Kayode and the rest, all still till today enjoy an untold mass youth followership in the country.
It is for this same strange commitment to our political affiliations and biases that we altogether choose to ignore praiseworthy events and developments in the country. When in the past we were as a country, the highest importer of rice globally, we wonder and complain why thing could not be done differently, but now that in four years, the country made a turnaround to become the highest producer of the commodity in Africa, we ignore the reality; and when we are forced to comment, we disregard it as a notable milestone and achievement. The rhetoric often used include “is that what we want,’ or “it is his job to do that, so why the praise.” We just overlook the huge infrastructure across the country; wave them aside and snap “is it infrastructure we will eat.”
It is our job mostly as Nigerian youths to set the country right. It is not about what I believe, but a universal reality that in a democracy, the people, the voting population decide who becomes their leader. After every four years, after all the complaints and open cries, we return back to the polls to select for ourselves again Chairmen, legislators, governors who continue to commit the same atrocities against us. We always vote out those contestants who meant well for us because they have no money to share and spread around. And so, the corrupt men will openly present and represent themselves for election in our communities, local government and states.
Overtly and summarily, while we seem to recognise that the problems facing the country boil down to religion, tribalism and corruption, our population constitute the singular other problem we choose to ignore but which is more potent than the others; the growing population of citizens who do not see or prefer not to see those mentioned problems.
Have we not in the past seen corrupt elected officers who could not be brought to justice in the country but were convicted of financial grafts committed against Nigeria by courts in foreign lands? Have we not seen these fellows serving their terms in prisons abroad only to return back to a warm embrace of thousands of youths who laid the red carpet for them at the airport, and pave the smooth route to their return to national politics and godfatherism?
Have we not recorded politicians who are by chance convicted and sent to serve prison terms in the country, and yet Nigeria youths still patronise them even in the prison, campaign for them from prison, welcome them back warmly and make them feel loved and wanted in the society that should have totally made them outcasts?
There were public discussions of corruption in NDDC not too long ago. Revelation of tons of contracts awarded to serving senators who do not execute them even when they have collected almost all the contract sum, was viral; yet Nigeria youths would let these pass. A senator allegedly cornering almost a hundred contracts for himself does not attract our attention and anger, like whatever a president who is making life difficult for the bad politicians who drop crumbs for us, says or does.
Have we not seen Nigeria youths solidly standing behind Dasuki and asking that Allison Madueke be free to enjoy her life? What gives the likes of Sowore and Femi Fani-Kayode the boldness to continue their popularity-seeking business across the country, if not for the youths that give them the support that is deceiving them to fake acceptability. How can the likes of Sunday Igboho, a known perennial criminal and political tout, wedge whatever influence he claims to possess today, but not for the youths that throng after him. These are men and youths who are technically bent on taking advantage of the national situations to become more politically relevant and for amoral pecuniary gains; they would not have gotten here or succeeded if they do not have our following and support – as youths.
Nigeria youths in 2021 are searching for freedom, yet are more willing to sell their very existence for peanuts paid by the very masters who lord it over them. Must we search for freedom inside freedom? In the eighteenth century, the British did not do anything too bad and unwelcomed by capturing us and chose to have us for keeps. You ask why and i tell you, because that was the order of the period; country dominating and colonising another country, so it was not so much of an unforgiving sin. But the time came, when suppressing others to live in the name of superior power, political or whatever became outdated; when men are classified as equals within the confine of national boundaries; so when Nigeria fought for freedom, our task masters did not let go of the task masters’ rope only because we complained and opposed but because it became an unpopular venture.
In 1960, history says Nigeria got her independence from Britain, but are we really free? Are Nigerians truly free? Or is Nigeria state an entity different from Nigerian people, the larger and the teeming population of the poverty stricken, ordinary men, women, youth and children of Nigeria. Can or shall we trade the freedom of Nigerians, the lowest citizens of Nigeria and their right to life and basic infrastructural amenities, with anything however admirable or are we to equate it to the freedom that permit a few to take over from the grand task masters only to become learned task masters as well – keeping the larger Nigerians in a dreamland of freedom.
I am saying it again, as always, this nation will not be free until the least of its citizens is truly free. Today, Nigeria remains in bond, in captivity not under an exile force or a super power but its own; the opportune few who through fate and strife get power only to subordinate as well as mortgage its citizens and its resources for personal cum selfish use. Unfortunately, now, it is a sin, punishable not by laws embedded in the constitution, because it is a big net that catches only the underprivileged. Neither is it in a court of law by any known judge, because they are instruments of greater subordination and suppression. But in the open court with countless jury of Nigerian masses.
Nigerian youths, as we are, sadly, now serve a few among us. We are now our own enslaver. Our freedom, the songs of liberation, is all yet promises, not yet a fulfilment. We are full of shortcomings, full of joblessness, full of poverty and I know we are not ashamed of them, but are we not ashamed of slavery as well? How long shall we continue to submit to undue dominations and manipulation?
What time would it be when we would prioritise the wellness of Nigeria over the minute crumbs we get from the politicians that make us pretend to care for the country when what we actually do all day long is scheming for the downfall of the country. When planting and nurturing rhetoric and narrative that contribute to national disunity is our daily routine; turning the media to a big and broad grooming harvest field of tribal, religious and regional discords in the country and enjoying the proceeds of the discords created.
Man by the youths, the social media has become a burden to national unity, security and capacity to roundly confront corruption as a destructive vice in the country, and will most likely become our undoing as a nation and a people if we do not wake up to the realities of the destructive trend of the current utilisation of the same in the country and the cracks and inciting wounds it continues to create deep into the fabrics of the nation Nigeria as a cohesive unit. While we pretend to care about the wellness of the country, we engage the media, mostly the social media to fabricate, doctor and mass disseminate negative, non-productive, and coordinated destructive rhetoric against the country. Except we consciously marshal a concrete control of the social media and halt the abuses of the same in the interest of national peace and security, it would be only a matter of time before we finally explode beyond redemption.
It is time the youths of this country woke up from their slumber and following permissible media, to demand accountability from their leaders across the country. It is the time for the roles of individuals and institutions to be either appraised or their contributions to the decimation of the nation Nigeria established. It is time for the youths to speak to justice, force criminals and enemies of our commonwealth to face the consequences of their atrocities against us. How can we operate a judicial system that is so predictable; a judiciary we are all sure will always eventually set free corrupt elements that are brought before it, one way or the other, by technicality or delay tactics.
The “ENDSARS” protests, the killings and destruction that followed across the country, and then the famous dramatised Lekki shootings and claimed massacre; what do they say about Nigeria and Nigeria youths? Do not we all mostly enjoy the entire events, rolled out support for the continuous destruction perpetrated by the actors, when we all subconsciously knew it was all a farce? We knew it was all a politically orchestrated outing targeted at plummeting the popularity of the ruling party and setting the tempo for 2023 general elections and yet we chose the path of supporting the masterminds joining the crew to burn down the nation.
Nigeria youth, the time has come for us to come together with one voice to decide what we really want for and from Nigeria; the time has come for us to commence the process of self and public deliberation on whether we want to remain instrumental to the destruction of the fabric of the country or unite to constructively converge and emanate a strong hold upon which a new foundation would be laid for the immediate future of Nigeria. The time is now for us to ignore the call and drag of the crumbs we fall for from the very enemies of the country who care less about the wellness of Nigeria but their personal interests; now is the time for us to free ourselves from all the political, religious, regional and ethnic biases holding us against the interest of the motherland.
Things are getting worse by the day for the country because of the decisions we continue to make. We need to get up now before it is too late. Our failure to act now in the interest of Nigeria will definitely have more disastrous consequences for the Nigeria of tomorrow.
We can stop the wars, the banditry, the kidnapping; peace can return and developing Nigeria at its feasible pace can become the only tenable item on the table of the political leaders if only we would jettison all other considerations as youths and see Nigeria as the only country we have, and have to protect and preserve.

GOD BLESS THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!