The price of peace

WEDNESDAY COLUMN BY USSIJU MEDANER  

info@medaner.com, justme4justice@yahoo.com

Permit me to take a little detour this week as it is is very important that we all recognise that all is currently not well with our globe; it is not just Russia-Ukraine, but a potential world war and if and when diplomatic settlement finally failed, no one, anywhere in our world would truly be unaffected. Our world does not need war now but understanding and peace. There are enough troubles already screaming for attention. 

This week, the events as they unfold in the Russia-Ukraine tussle present concerns that bother me. This is a war in which the leaders involved take decisions that literally would not in any guise personally affect them, nor their families or wealth but rather in the words of Mahmoud Darwish,“The war will end. The leaders will shake hands. The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred son. That girl will wait for her beloved husband. And those children will wait for their heroic father. I do not know who sold our homeland. But I saw who paid the price.”

Who is paying the price for the political devastation of the Nigeria nation? For the past 62 years since independence, the politicians have taken turns to discreetly transform the country to a permanent war front. Cold war, economic war, direct war and name it. We have severally be coerced to take up arms against one another for the sake of the politicians and power drunk citizens; deceived into seen ethnic struggles as a just cause while we kill ourselves and altogether now, insurgency, banditry, the IPOB, ESN and the rest have become permanent internal wars that have continued to decimate our population; breeding widows, orphans and street destitute while the politicians, who orchestrated the battles remain strong in their wealth and control of their national or regional power bases.  

Eventually, it is the common citizens that pay the full price of the unrest in the polity of the state; it is the orphaned children that bore the brunt of lost parents; the widowed women, the pains of lost husbands and the depraved parents, the agonies of lost children. In the corridors of power, their children are perpetually insulated from the heat of the wars and their wealth and possessions roundly secured if not even boosted by the unrest they cause. Nigerians, let us learn that we do not need these internally created mini wars and unrest that come with huge consequences to our survival. These wars do not determine who is right but would only eventually determine who is left.

We should all be well aware that with the latest Russia-Ukraine war, global businesses are already being rattled; some Nigerians are rejoicing the global market price of crude is on the rise, already at $105 per barrel but they are failing to see the immediate downstream effect of the same on domestic pump prices of oil and gas except we have forgotten that we import the products from the same countries who buy at the war-induced prices. At a point, oil bearing cargos would be stalled on the sea for weeks running to months without passage into our sea, while we grasp with scarcity and untold increase in pump prices. We would also have to wait to see and to bear with the serious inflation that will hit major food items that are directly imported from both Russia and Ukraine. Till now, Nigeria has been overly dependent on the two nations for the bulk of its wheat and flour importation among others; so what becomes of the price of bread and related products, only time will tell. 

While we roundly renounce the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war, join the rest of the world to call for peace, we must also simultaneously look inward to say no to wars in our country. The mass effect of the long trending Boko-Haram insurgency, resulting in debilitating consequences on the nation and especially the people of northern Nigeria, cannot and would not benefit us in any way and must be stopped by all means feasible. It is time we stopped playing games with the menace of banditry, and similar uprises against the country; Nigerians are belaboured already with countless trauma, let not add to the problems. 

Now to my point for the week, the way to peace and peaceful coexistence of Nigerians lies in Nigerians’ decision to shun emotional political alignments that got us to the point where antagonism has become the status-quo; where we are shred into parts that are ready-made and programmed to look out for errors of oppositions and more worrisome to reject noble achievements and propagate them as non-achievements, while we beam all focus on what are not working and possess the capacities to break us apart.

Some weeks ago, the famous rice pyramid in Abuja was in the news. That feat, perhaps and from many indications was an expression of one of the best things that has ever happened to Nigeria since independence; achieving self-sustenance in rice production, yet, rather than join in the celebration, in some quarters people spent time and resources to propagate the news that the pyramid was a deceit, that the bags were not filled with rice but mostly sand. That is pathetic and a disservice to the country. We cannot continue that path if we truly love this country. Our persistent rejection of realities for the cause of maintaining political relevancies and projection of our selfish alignments has remained one of the many factors that predisposes us as a country and people to the many divisions and the clashes they have caused and the injuries inflicted on our body polity.

Going forward, in the interest of Nigeria, the paramount and the deciding factor for all our reactions, actions and non-actions while relating to the country and fellow citizens across boundaries should be patriotism; the selfless love for the country. This would require us to jettison our bent resolve at seeing nothing good in the government of the day. When we see good things, we should appreciate and commend the makers or doers. 

In the last seven years, it has been very unfortunate the stance of the PDP-led opposition to critical issues of national development and security. Despite the visible record of infrastructural development across the country and across regions, the party unrepentantly chooses the path of constantly undermining the feats and setting the citizens up to discredit whatever good work that is being done by the current government. The consequence, as we have been seeing is hatred for the ruling party by the section that aligns with PDP and a tussle between the divided groups of APC and PDP.

I would not sing praise of APC because of my affiliation to the party, but when it has recorded incredible, worthy feats, being a member stir up the desire to flaunt the achievements which is normal; even then, I would take the same stance if it were to be a party I am in opposition to that is doing the same. 

I presume that it would not really take anything out of PDP if they recognise that there are changes they did not consider feasible when they had the opportunity to hold sway years ago, but which have happened now and have transformed the developmental outlook of the country for the better. For the sake of Nigeria’s coherence and continued progress, accepting that the remarkable second Niger Bridge, a deserving credit to the Buhari-led Administration, is a big plus to the nation and would have probably redefined the agitation in the South-east; rather than fueling the hatred for the government at the center. For decades, Bonny Island remained inaccessible by road, despite recognition of the need for one; shouldn’t everyone praise the effort to finally link the hinterland with the island? The construction of the Bodo-Bonny Bridge should not be undermined by anyone, PDP inclusive. I think the narrative should have been, APC is working but we promise to do better.

GOD BLESS THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGRIA !