Africa which cuddles a lot of developing countries bears one curse like a hunchback: the curse of bad governance. The continent carries it wherever it goes but with a lot of help. It has handmaidens, handmaidens of bad governance, countries in Africa which help Africa continue its legacy of bad governance. These countries which count some of Africa`s biggest countries in their ranks by their overbearing influence show just how it is done and just what needs to be done to perpetuate a culture of poor governance
Governance is no easy feat. The task of melding people and systems into efficient entities within which people can live securely and with the full repertoire of democratic dividends remains a formidable task if not a forbidding one. Yet, in Africa, there are many who think it is easy. There are many who presume to reduce governance to a tea party. This kind of people and the deceptive easy-does-it mentality they harbour are the walking dead who have turned power in many African countries into a sacrifice for the dead and the corridors of power into a graveyard.
In 1960, as the colonialists finally withdrew from Nigeria after more than half a century of invidiously invasive politics, Nigeria was awash with a forceful promise of prosperity. Things sailed smoothly until 1966 when some shocking folly from some military men aborted that promise. From 1967 to 1970 brothers within a country went at each other`s throats with swords whose tips glistened with the poison of ethnicity and ambition. It has been over sixty years now, but with more military follies having since followed, blood has continued to cry against Nigeria.
In 1999, the country returned to democracy and with it, institutional corruption. In 2009, Boko Haram signed the country up for insecurity, and in 2015, the country penned a deal with a government that has since shown itself gritty in preparing the gruel of bad governance. The deal was renewed in 2019.
The last month or so has been a period of prayer for many Nigerians. While Muslims are observing the holy month of Ramadan, many Christians recently concluded the Lenten season which culminated in the holy week and Easter Sunday on April 17, 2O22.
During this time, prayers have been offered for Nigeria. There have also been calls, some of them critical, on those in government to ship up or shape out. As usual, these calls have pierced a paranoid government as painfully as pins. In response, the government has deployed its spokesmen to bite back at those who have had the audacity to criticize it. All manner of names.
But it remains a government of gaffes and gluttons. In Nigeria, the government often makes many gaffes, rinses and repeats those gaffes and goes after those who would dare raise eyebrows.
Different groups concerned about the dramatic descent of Nigeria into the doldrums of insecurity have since spoken up and have drawn the ire of a government that is bent on silencing all and sundry even as Nigeria continues to march into disintegration.
Nigeria is in a sad place. People can no longer travel without having to carry their hearts in their mouths. People retire to their houses and are attacked and taken away never to return. The nightmare comes full circle when the eggs of rising costs of goods and services is whipped into odious omelet.
For each day ASUU remains on strike, the future of many Nigerian undergraduates cascades into uncertainty. For each day abducted Nigerians remain in the lair of terrorists, the hearts of family members are freshly wounded by pain. Each time an army base is attacked in the Northeast or Northwest of the country, Nigeria`s defenses are exposed even further. Each time a police post is attacked in the southeast, the country suffers yet more humiliation.
Many Nigerians are asking if at all there is still a government in the country, and whether the corridors of power in Nigeria have not become a home for the deaf and dumb? It appears that the government in Nigeria is now populated by gluttons for power who by their many gaffes think they can goof their paths to remaining relevant.
By their gaffes and gluttony, they are leading Africa`s most populous country to the graveyard. With everyday being as crucial as the next, if Nigeria is not to find itself in the grave before the 2023 elections, urgent steps must be taken to rescue the country from the gnarled fists of ghosts and gluttons many of whom occupy government offices in Nigeria.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
