At the moment, the Giant of Africa is buffeted on all sides by a stream of seemingly unending problems. In practically every part of the country, there would seem to be a problem which is doing everything it can to disrupt the harmony of the country, and dissolve whatever unity it has left, with its peculiar armory of difficulties.
The ruinous years of the Babangida and Abacha military regimes of the 90s gave rise to Nigerias historic transition to democracy in 1999.Upon the return to democracy with Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo in place as president, Nigerias biggest challenge became corruption. The vice which has contributed in no small measure to ravaging the country was and still remains largely responsible for the slow pace of development the country has witnessed across different sectors.
The rampaging and ravaging cankerworm of corruption has also lent a huge hand to the negative perception Nigeria cups abroad, and the hemorrhage of patriotism that Nigerians home and abroad suffer from, especially young Nigerians.
If corruption posed an existential threat to Nigeria at the turn of the new millennium, insecurity took over about a decade later. It was in 2010 that Boko Haram finally decided that a full-scale assault on the Nigerian state was not only possible, viable and feasible but that it could force Nigeria to negotiate and be on the backfoot while doing so.
The immediate results of Boko Haram`s assault on Nigeria was a deadly tailspin of violence and insecurity. The shattering effects of terrorism in its rawest forms on people whose major challenge up until then was dysfunctional poverty, have been profound as families have been decimated, and their livelihoods obliterated.
Of course, when Boko Haram successfully plucked hundreds of girls like low-hanging fruits from Chibok, Borno State, in 2014, the Giant of Africa was forced to assume the weaker hand during negotiations with bloodthirsty criminals servicing the ranks of an organization that reeks of everything odious. That about eight years later, the last of the abducted Chibok girls is yet to return home is a poignant testament to the fact that the Giant of Africa returned from the negotiating table with its tail between its legs, and a weakened hand.
Like a cancer, Boko Haram has since metastasized, producing the seemingly far more dangerous ISWAP. Even the bandits who now threaten to overrun long-suffering rural communities in Nigeria`s North have been emboldened by the audacity of Boko Haram and ISWAP, and especially by the fact that such audacity largely goes unpunished by a country that rakes in innumerable losses every day.
These days, to add to everything Nigerians have been going through, the prices of products and services in the market have been soaring into the stratosphere as if to take bread out of the mouths of Nigerians, and rub salt into their injuries.
Many simple items which Nigerians took for granted in the relative past have now been priced out of reach. These include staple foods like rice, bread and beans. Even cassava flour which has long been a go to for struggling Nigerians has been priced out of reach.
The cost of cooking gas has also gone up and only recently, those Nigerians who still had the luxury of electricity and subscription for any of the satellite services were rocked by hikes in the prices of same.
In all this, the average Nigerian household has to live with the reality of rising fuel prices, suffocatingly long fuel queues, and the interminable frustration of being a Nigerian, living in Nigeria. It is becoming obvious with every day that passes by that being a Nigerian living in Nigeria is increasingly become too expensive, in addition to being too exacting.
Unless something is done and done fast, a country founded on the hopes of everyday Nigerians may just be priced out of their reach.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
