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The past week was a feast of some extraordinary sort. Every available space was filled to the brim. Every Dick and Harry talked. They wore confusing togas: Commentator, analyst, critic, judge, pundit, appraiser, observer, stakeholder, et al.
It was an all-comers’ season. And they really enjoyed their sumptuous meal. When they felt it lasted. Lavishly served and recklessly too. You couldn’t have resisted the strong aroma.It was, indeed, the melting point of absurdity.
Perhaps, unknown to us. These gone days have done much wonders to our psych. Individually and collectively as a nation state. The days brought the good, the bad and the ugly out of us all.
We displayed varied actions and inactions. Many of which couldn’t have been imagined. We literally threw our collective sanity into the gutters.
And practically, everyone went his or her own way. It has been worse than the biblical Babel of voices.
The queer ways we live our weird lives? Oh, quite amazing and amusing. Awkward and odd. Stranger than fiction.
Yet, we stubbornly forge ahead. Pretending to ourselves that we’re strong-willed. We elevate vanity and drag our values along like filthy rags. We put a prized price on inanities. Our rulers with fleshy chests brag about in reckless abundance. And recruit willing braggarts to brag loosely along.
To make matters worse and richly hopeless. We do all these with deliberate intention. What a country with eerie species.
And we’re callous enough to feign ignorance. We dwell in self-denial, absolute lies and maximum falsehoods. Fakery, deceit are the watchwords our leaders watch out for. Those words delight their cruel and crude hearts. They are the greedy in our midst.
Still, we won’t learn. Not even from our past missteps and misdeeds. It’s our intentional negligence. See what we have on our fragile, breakable laps. Terrorism all the way.
“Terrorism has become the systematic weapon of a war that knows no borders and seldom has a face. Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint. We can’t accommodate terrorism.”
This was once supposedly attributed to Vladimir Putin. Russia’s toughest leader of all times. That’s the firm way he perceived terrorists and their terror.
Here in our hideous clime. Our stiff-necked rulership tacitly embraces terrorism. That’s our conclusion from our past sordid experiences.
And we are up in arms. Ready to crucify President Donald Trump. We’re miffed with his perception of us.
Aren’t we what he thought we are? A country that needs his help very urgently. To take us out of our self-inflicted mess. He chose to tag us: “Country of Particular Concern (CPC).”
And we flared up like flaming gas. What’s wrong with us? He needed to diagnose us. To know our specific infirmity. Ours is peculiar. He appropriately identified us so. And he isolated us accordingly.
What’s bad in that? Why are we crying over spilled milk? He’s offering us humanitarian service. He’s being generous to a fault. Reject it at your peril.
But consider what Trump’s outburst has thrown up for us to ponder. They are the gains from his invasion threat over Christian genocide.
It instantly threw our government and its agents off balance. Woke them up from their deep, snoring slumber. Kept them on red alert since. And on their thick toes.
It sent the Tinubu Presidency back to its drawing board. It compelled it to churn out drawings endlessly. They are of various shades and shapes. Some ridiculous, others permissible. Yet some others unthinkable. Many are outright laughable. At least, Trump got them doing something. And they are uncomfortably kept busy.
More. There’s this unverified breaking news: “Chad shut border as terrorists plan to flee Northern Nigeria over planned US military attack.” The carriers of the report didn’t bother to go further. They left us guessing.
And then. This video clip of a supposedly “American envoy meeting Tinubu in Aso Villa. Claiming Trump has recanted his invasion threat.”
I saw that only on one platform. If it’s true. It’s cheering and heartwarming. If not, too bad. But till now, no word. No follow-up to that video clip.
The Tinubu propaganda machine we all know won’t keep mute on such rare happening. It will feast on it to the fullest. Even to the ridiculous. That’s totally absent here.
More and more narratives are competing for attention. And very insensitive to our differed sensibilities. Playing out with the speed of light. Very difficult to keep up with. Our choked space is awash and saturated.
We need a genuine reflection at this critical crossroads. Let’s remember where we are coming from. Who brought these foreign Fulani-turned-terrorists? The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) did. Alhaji Abubakar Baraje confirmed that in 2020. He’s Fulani, still kicking.
That’s the fundamental of our predicament. They detest us talking about it. But we won’t relent. We won’t oblige them the luxury of being silenced.
Trump’s threat stems from this APC’s despicable action. They hired those Fulani mercenaries from Mali, Senegal, Chad, Niger. To fight the 2015 elections for them.
That’s where Trump’s threat derived its strength from. It is the huge fall-out from that inordinate action of our politicians’ desperation for power.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari happened to us in 2015. Then there was neither terrorism nor banditry. Not in our midst. All we were contending with was the Islamist sect, Boko Haram. Strictly restricted to their North East enclave.
Buhari landed with his dubious Change mantra. And everything changed for the worse. The centre couldn’t hold. Never again. The current characters in power supported him throughout his eight dark years. They never blinked or raised an eyebrow. They coasted home with him comfortably. Sad!
Now, come with me. Of all that has played out so far: The narratives and counter-narratives. Claims and counter-claims. Accusations and counter-accusations. Arguably, this is the hugest of them all. Succinct and concise. This is the biggest takeaway. It’s headlined: “When a nation competes over who suffers more. “ Its author is Sa’adiyyah Adebisi Hassan. Have a sweet bite:
“In a village, a great flood sweeps through the land. Houses are submerged. Families are screaming. Lives and properties are being lost.
“Amid the chaos, one man sees his wife drowning and cries out for help. Then suddenly his neighbours get angry. They’re not angry because he caused the flood.
“They’re angry because he dared to shout for help first. Their argument? ‘He shouldn’t call for help because everyone is drowning, not only his family.’
“Read that again. Let it sink in. That is the madness happening in Nigeria today.”
When sympathy becomes a crime
“The moment someone says, ‘Christians are being massacred.’ some Nigerians rush out shouting, ‘It’s not only Christians!’ As if being victims of the same tragedy is now a competition.
“What kind of twisted reasoning is that? So because Muslims are also being killed, Christians shouldn’t cry out? Should we all keep quiet and let the country drown because suffering must now be shared equally before it becomes valid?
“This is not logic, it’s lunacy. It’s the mindset of lost people, drowning in hypocrisy, who have turned national tragedy into a political scoreboard.”
The leaders are no better
“Our leaders are busy playing politics over corpses.
“Show me a country that gives amnesty to terrorists who massacre its citizens, and I will show you a nation led by men without souls.
“Nigeria doesn’t rehabilitate victims, it rehabilitates killers. It doesn’t comfort widows, it empowers warlords.
“Our politicians care more about 2027 elections than 2025 funerals. Check their official pages, their handlers and even data boys: defections, rallies, and insults to the opposition.
“Not one post about the families wiped out in Plateau State. Not one word for soldiers dying daily in Borno State forests. Not one moment of silence for schoolchildren abducted and forgotten.
“A government that pampers killers and punishes victims is not a government, it’s an accomplice. When a nation competes over death.
“The most disturbing part is that ordinary Nigerians are now competing for victimhood. Instead of uniting against terrorists, we argue over who is dying more, Muslims or Christians.
“That’s not patriotism. That’s collective decay. We have lost our empathy, our humanity, and our sense of justice.
“No sane nation debates which of its citizens deserve sympathy. But Nigeria does it lousy. Shamelessly and proudly.
“This is not about religion anymore, it’s about conscience. If Christians are killed, speak up.
“If Muslims are killed, speak up. If anyone is killed, speak up but stop silencing others for speaking first.
“When truth becomes tribal and justice becomes selective, what remains is not a country, it’s a graveyard with a flag.
“And right now, that flag is still flying over ashes.
That is beyond madness.”
This addition is loud and deep. It is Dr. Yemi Farounbi’s brilliant postulation. It’s dimensionally wonderful. You won’t doubt him. He was once Nigeria’s Ambassador to the Philippines.
Not only that, he is a veteran broadcaster. An astute administrator. He was candid and sincere. No mincing, mixing or missing of even a word. He warned Tinubu not to visit Trump under any guise. Why?
He explained to Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese Ijebu, Ogun State: “He should not visit anyone who once called African nations ‘shithole countries.’ We must act like a nation that values itself, not one begging to be recognised.”
He aptly decoded the US action as “a predictable outcome of silence and inaction.” That’s one sure result of poor response to international criticisms. Clearly, a case of careless neglect. He testified:
“Nigeria has not maintained a full-fledged ambassador in Washington for years, leaving the country’s image undefended. When you refuse to speak for yourself, others will speak for you. And when they do, they will not tell your story with fairness.”
A convincing sampler: “We cannot claim we didn’t see this coming. For years, Catholic bishops from Benue and Plateau states have appeared before the US Congress and European Parliament, presenting statistics of Christians killed by militants. Yet Nigeria offered no strong counter-narrative.”
His parting advice was Frank. And straightforward. The radio reported:
“Farounbi urged the Nigerian government to confront insecurity not through propaganda but through justice, fairness and respect for human rights.”
True. No one should be comfortable with Trump’s threat. It’s a direct threat to our nationhood and sovereignty. It doesn’t fit our bill. His is highly suspicious. Sanctions, yes, to beat our rulers into line.
Invasion? No. Not it. Not at all. We can only witness its beginning. The end is endless. It may last a lifetime. With its accompanied heavy casualties. There’s history credited to that. Unambiguous proofs. What happened to Libya after the US took out its benevolent leader, Muammar Gaddafi? What became of Iraq after the same US neutralised its Saddam Hussein?
None of these countries was better off thereafter. They never recovered either. They remain a shadow of their glorious, old selves till date. We don’t want a shared identity with them.
All the same. Honest. And with a sincere heart. I cherish what’s fast playing out in our space with relish. The throw-ups are delightful in every sense of the word. It made them to lose their famed grandstanding dexterity.
Those are the gains of Trump’s threat. The sumptuous meals we have been waiting for with bated breath.
Indeed, we asked for it. Grateful we’re getting it in bountiful measures. Pressed together! Thank heavens it came when it came. We’re living and lively witnesses.
It’s good to be partakers of these pleasing tidings. May they never come to an end. May they endure forever. And seamlessly too…
