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What is going on in the South East? Despite efforts to portray some parts as immune to the wider nationwide insecurity, it seems the entire area is not even counting the cost. As other parts of the country might even source their tragedy to other parts, the South East seems to be taking on itself. With the alarming rate of insecurity, the pattern in the South East seems to be peculiar. South East also has a common language. Whatever differences are, therefore, better and easier discussed and settled round the table, an advantage not easily available when Boko Haram pounces on other ethnic or religious groups in the North.
Furthermore, the South East had more than its own share of setback on the national scene in the early years of Nigeria’s independence. The current period should, therefore, enable the zone to be put in order. Instead, we have watched in the recent past few years as the South East recorded unnecessary violence. The latest pattern of the violence is particularly disturbing. So disturbing that Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo had to offer a reward of N10 million for any information leading to the arrest of the culprits when criminals in the state decapitated a member of the Anambra State legislature and his aide. Not long after, a suspect was arrested and will be tried soon.
Lately, while the people of Anambra are still waiting for that trial, a former member of Anambra legislature has also been found decapitated. What and where are the glory in that development? We should worry about the prospects of this sad development of beheading victims becoming a feature of crime in Nigeria. Kidnapping was a rare crime in Nigeria until about six years ago. Today, no part of the country is safe from kidnapping. In fact, kidnappers all over the country have turned their crime into the fastest growth industry.
It was deplorable when Boko Haram commenced beheading Christians and other ethnic groups, specifically, in the North. It is ,therefore, more deplorable that murderers in the South East are beheading fellow southeasterners of the same ethnic group and the same religion. What is going on? Anybody or group should be ashamed to copy decapitation from Boko Haram. The people must co-operate with the authorities throughout the South East to ensure peace and sanity badly needed in that part of the country. If current or past legislators could not be sure of the security of life and property, who is safe?
What is going on in the South East is far less a revolt and more criminal group self-destruction. It must either stop or be halted.
Poverty and greed here to stay
It now seems needless pitying the poor in Nigeria, since they have resigned themselves to their unenviable state. That was the message poor or starving Nigerians delivered to the nation at the election in Ekiti State for a new government. The entire exercise was awash with reports of money changing hands for votes. In effect, with the seeming legalisation of vote-buying by Ekiti contestants and political parties, that action was a signal for voters throughout Nigeria in any future election.
The corruption in the Ekiti elections set new record as, at least, three of the political parties openly accused one another, while arrests of suspects were made. Within themselves, the hustlers among Ekiti State electorate went home (that) they had had it at the office seekers for whom they voted after collecting the bribe dignified as vote-buying. Unknown to themselves, the voters hurt only themselves. In fact, if offered a choice between voting as a matter of conscience and principle on one side, and collecting money for sold votes, the electorate would always inadvertently entrench their exploiters. That was what they did in the election. What did they do? It went beyond collecting bribery by, in the process, making it plain to their exploiters that not much might or should be done to improve the lot of the trodden masses. Masses? That is underestimating the tragedy which went for the voting exercise in Ekiti.
It was a tragedy in the sense that these self-depreciating Nigerians passing for voters exist not only in every part of Nigeria but are ever unapologetic about what they regard as their own harvest time, anywhere and anyhow elections take place in Nigeria. And they have advocates among miseducated Nigerians who, in enhancing their own interest in society, justify the self-destruction of the electorate selling votes. A worrying part is that, under the wrong impression of being smart, vote sellers went the whole hog at the Ekiti election. Up to three political parties accused one another of buying votes while it also emerged later that voters who sold their electoral rights were discovered in many cases to have patronised up to three candidates, each offering cash at N5,000, N10,000 and N3,000. What could be more rewarding for a voter who turned up at the polling unit without a kobo but went home with up to N18,000 collected as bribe by one voter from three rival agents? Poor candidates. A voter has only one ballot paper. Two of candidates who must have bribed lost their money.
Ideally, those responsible for the poverty of the voters in the first place should have been made to lose elections, whether they were contesting for the first or fifth time. Instead, especially if they were the highest bidders among the vote-buyers, whether the bribe was good or even ignoble. The disgraceful episode might partly have been caused by poverty in minor cases but at the root cause was people’s greed, the tendency to grab what they might not even need. There was just no sense or pride and there are still none.
For those who sold their votes, their poverty and greed are here to stay. Not only do Ekiti politicians believe they paid for being elected, even those who sold their votes realise that they have installed a criminal structure of money-for-hand-and-get-elected.
Where is the President?
It was one of those routine official trips of an American President abroad and in any case incumbent President Joe Biden had to go to to theKorean Peninsula in a show of force and support for a major ally, South Korea. It was also to ward off any temptation by North Korea to threaten the American ally, to distract the attention of Biden from the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia. Very cautious not to be directly involved, the United States is nonetheless the staunchest omnibus supporter of Ukraine.
Towards that end, the American Congress had to appropriate a huge sum of $40 billion to keep Ukraine alive with military might and humanitarian assistance. Despite the urgency of the situation, accountability was uppermost. Neither could Biden’s administration avoid the procedure for public accountability established over the past centuries. As the American President proceeded on his trip to South Korea, the legislature, back in Washington, busied itself with debates on making funds available for the military and humanitarian relief to Ukraine.
In a developing country, especially Nigeria, there would have been unnecessary delay of the trip and timeliness of the delivery of the relief effort. Above all, political tension would have been created by anarchists on who was in charge or should be in charge while the President was away, thousands of miles away, in South Korea. Instead, in the United States, everything was calm on the home front, as ensured by the Yankee system. Neither the average citizen nor Vice President Harris bothered themselves about the state of the Union in the absence of President Biden on a visit to South Korea.
Instead, America resorted to its age-long tradition. That is, the most powerful country in the world operates from wherever the President is, perhaps, including the other room. Without any fuss, as soon as the urgently passed Finance Bill for America’s military assistance and humanitarian relief for Ukraine was ready, a special plane was provided for a top employee of the state to specially fly the document from Washington to Seoul in South Korea for President Biden’s signature. The process was neatly concluded and returned to Washington for instant implementation as Biden continued his official trip to South Korea and Japan. Where is the American President at any particular moment? He administers his country from anywhere in the world.
