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Nothing illustrates our disorderly manner of doing things as a nation than Nigeria’s uncoordinated response to the Sudan crisis as regards the evacuation of stranded Nigerians in that Africa’s war-torn country. Since the white man left Africa after its wicked colonization mission, countries in Africa and even Asia have been embroiled in avoidable wars and needless political crises.
Nigeria has since independence been assailed by monumental political crises and has even fought a bitter civil war just to keep the unwieldy union together. It is in Nigeria and some other African nations that millions of people must be killed to keep a nation together. Over 50 years after the Nigerian civil war of 1967-1970, millions of Nigerians have been killed just to keep the union together.
Even as I am writing Nigerians are still being killed on a daily basis in order to assert our sovereignty. Before President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office in 2015, Nigeria was grappling with daunting insecurity exacerbated by Boko Haram insurgency and other terrorists’ activities in almost all the six geo-political zones in the country. Almost eight years after Buhari, insecurity has intensified in all fronts and no part of Nigeria is free. When the Sudan crisis snowballed into a fierce war, other countries seamlessly perfected their rescue operations and ferried their citizens to safety either through Egypt border or through the Sudan Port, the Nigerian rescue agencies such as Nigerian Embassy officials in Sudan, NIDCOM, NEMA and many others and their heads could not work out pragmatic strategies to evacuate about 5,500 stranded Nigerian students and thousands of other Nigerians still trapped in that war-torn country.
Nigerian population in Sudan may be over a million people. We don’t need all these agencies to rescue Nigerians from Sudan. One agency can do it. Even our Embassy in Sudan can do a better job. We must dismantle all bottlenecks and bureaucracy in the way we run our government. While America, UK and other countries airlifted their nationals through Egypt Airport and some African countries evacuated their citizens through the Sudan Port, Nigeria was stuck with using 13 or more buses to ferry Nigerians to the Aswan border in Egypt.
While other countries that use road to ferry their people to Aswan border just carried everybody, Nigeria was busy moving them state by state in an emergency situation. Trust Nigerian officials for tribalism and ethnicism, and other primordial tendencies, the Igbo students who entered one of the buses were reportedly asked to disembark for other Nigerians. Although the federal government has tried to deny this ethnic dimension of the chaotic rescue mission, the report still gains credence. Why must Nigerians be profiled according to state of origin before being rescued in an emergency situation as war? Whoever initiated that tribal policy must be queried and sanctioned for introducing a worthless element in Nigeria’s uncoordinated rescue operation. Nigeria’s fiasco in Sudan is a manifestation of whom we really are. It is not surprising because this nation has long thrived on tribalism, nepotism, religious bigotry and all acts of economic and political malfeasance.
The sad thing is that we have exposed our faults outside in Sudan. We have demonstrated to the outside world that we are incapable of rescuing our stranded citizens without appealing to ethnic sentiments. We have also shown that although we are called the giant of Africa, we are really the dwarf of Africa in terms of governance and matters around it. All those involved in the rescue mission in Sudan must be taken into account, queried and given condign punishment for treating some Nigerians as if their lives do no matter.
Before the Sudan crisis, many Nigerians didn’t know that Sudan of all places has become another Japa spot for Nigerian students. What is really attractive in arid Sudan, always trailed by crisis and wars, hunger and starvation? It is understandable if Nigerian students Japa to United States, United Kingdom and Canada for further studies. But this Sudan migration is baffling. The Japa syndrome is really a big problem for the country. Whether our youths Japa to Sudan, Niger, Chad or Morocco or even America or France, it is not good for the development of the country.
Nigeria is a good country with abundant resources, both material and human. We must begin to interrogate why Nigerian youths leave the country? Why do Nigerians abandon the country? Why do our leaders patronize foreign hospitals? Why do our leaders send their children abroad to study?
Unfortunately, the country is being mismanaged by our bad and inept leaders. That is why the conduct of a general election is still problematic in Nigeria. Conducting a national housing and population census is also problematic. This is probably why the outgoing government postponed the exercise. When will Nigerians start to do things the right way? Why do our leaders sleep on duty? Why do government officials bungle something as simple as rescue operation?
Why do our leaders always fail us at our hour of need? How do they conceptualize national duty? How do they conceptualize love for country and care for citizens? Why can’t we do things as they are done in other parts of the world? When shall we put the education sector in good shape? When shall we put the health sector in good shape?
There are indeed so many questions to ask over our chaotic and riotous rescue mission. And there will perhaps be so many answers too. The chaotic rescue of stranded Nigerians from Sudan must be investigated and those who mishandled the operation and those who introduced tribalism into it and those who swindled the bus drivers and those responsible for other shortcomings of the exercise must be punished.
Although some Nigerians have been brought home by Air Peace, those in charge of the rescue operations must endeavor to ensure that other Nigerians still trapped in Sudan are brought home. The government should also rehabilitate the returnees and give them some money to start a new life in Nigeria. Next time around, let’s respond to emergencies with dispatch and accuracy without necessarily reverting to clannishness and those things that permanently divide Nigerians. The way we responded to the Sudanese crisis is riddled with chaos and therefore unacceptable.
