We can safely say that Nigerians have lost their sense of outrage. They equally have no rage left in them. Both sensations have been deadened in them. What prevails in the people’s imagination borders on the strange and the ridiculous. The normal and the abnormal appear to be in an unholy marriage in their land. One is hardly distinguishable from the other. That explains the people’s strange and cavalier disposition to issues of importance. In fact, we can posit that Nigerians are just an ad hoc people. In them, nothing endures. Indifference appears to be their new way of seeing and knowing.
Many of us must have, for instance , forgotten that there was once a Deborah Yakubu. Less than three months ago, Deborah, a student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, was gruesomely murdered by her fellow students in broad daylight for allegedly expressing anti-Islamic views. Her killers did not disguise their action. They owned up to it. They said they would do it a million times over if they encountered another Deborah. They even went after those who they suspected had sympathy for Deborah. In the face of all that, Nigerians shouted for a few days. Then the fury faded. The rage was not deep-rooted. It was a mere fleeting impression. The issue was thrown overboard. Never to be revisited. And Deborah was never to be seen again. Even the law became an ass. It became a respecter of persons and institutions. That is the way we are. Our ways and manners approximate to that of the will-o’-the-wisp- here today, gone tomorrow. You cannot pin the typical Nigerian to a situation. In him, nothing endures. Everything is expendable.
This disposition is largely responsible for our effervescent lifestyle. We do not live beyond the moment. Even as important as the education of our children is, we have glossed over their predicament and are behaving as if it no longer matters. In Nigeria, university teachers have been on strike for upwards of six months. There is no end in sight yet to the industrial action. But Nigerians who should stand up to demand an immediate end to the action are sitting askance. They are hardly bothered. That is why the government whose responsibility it is to ensure that the strike is brought to an end, is having a ball. There is no sense of urgency on the part of anybody. Nigerians are simply not enraged. If Nigerians were capable of national anger , they would have dragged government out of its comfort zone. Government would then have understood that it has no business wasting billions of Naira in conducting elections when the future of the country has been put on hold. But this is not happening because Nigerians are ruled by a market place mentality. There is no group interest . Everybody is an individual. The people do not ask the necessary questions. That is why a country like ours which can hardly provide adequately for its citizenry is always playing the Father Christmas. Nigeria is building a rail line from Kano to Maradi in Niger Republic. The project runs into billions of Naira. Yet, the rail system in Nigeria remains at its rudimentary stages . University teachers have refused to return to the classrooms on account of poor funding of our universities. Yet, government has not thought it wise to appropriate part of the fund that is being wasted on charity to save education in Nigeria.
As if this profligacy is not enough, the Nigerian government has just expended some N1.5 billion Naira to purchase vehicles for the same Niger Republic. If we deploy this fund to our national need, it will make some significant difference. Beyond this, some of us are wondering whether Nigeria has any pact with Niger Republic that is known only to the government of President Muhammadu Buhari. Why these devious expenditures on Niger Republic at the expense of the Nigerian state? That is part of the problem we are talking about. Nigerians will hardly ask the necessary questions in matters like this. They just hear about them, sigh wryly , and move on as if nothing has happened. That is why this cycle of familiar evil is unending in Nigeria.
Since Nigerians have chosen complacency as a way of life, those in positions of authority who are intent on hoodwinking the people are rolling out their mind machines with effortless ease. They have to confuse the people the more with sophistry. It looks like we will have a surfeit of this as the country prepares for electioneering campaigns. Festus Keyamo, the man that has been put forward as the spokesman of the Bola Tinubu campaign organization, is already giving us a foretaste of what to expect. Nigerians, regardless of their lame disposition to the closure of their public universities, are worried by the development. But Keyamo has dismissed this subject matter as unimportant. It does not matter if the universities remain shut. Our youths can continue to waste their future by sitting idly at home. Government is not bothered. That explains why the president’s charge to the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, to end the strike in two weeks amounted to nothing. The president’s ultimatum has since expired. Nothing happened. The universities did not reopen. And there is no whimper from the presidency over the obvious lack of respect for the president’s directive. That is a measure of our value. We have an inverted sense of proportion. It is for reasons such as this that the country’s ship of state is screeching to a halt.
From Keyamo’s disposition, it is evident that the government of the day is not prepared to own up to its inadequacies. Rather than government taking a deep breath on how to end the bloodletting that has despoiled the land, the minister is busy making comparisons that do not make sense. I heard him say that the Buhari government is better than Jonathan’s because it (Buhari’s) admitted that there were security lapses in the Kuje jail break and the Abuja-Kaduna train attack. He said that Jonathan’s government, in contrast , did not admit at first that Chibok took place.
Is this the kind of argument that we should be talking about eight years after Chibok? We will not glamorize this idle talk. Suffice it to say that everybody knows that Nigeria was an Eldorado under Jonathan compared to what we have today. But we do not want to expend our energies on comparisons such as this. Rather, Nigerians want an end to the nightmarish insecurity that has crippled the country. The people do not need any form of braggadocio at this time. They want patriots who will confront the country’s challenges squarely. Unfortunately, Nigerians will absorb all the nonsense oozing out of official circles because they can no longer afford to be angry. The rage in them has died a miserable death.