The series has returned. It will, in the coming weeks, keep a tab on the country’s compulsive march towards the abyss. The hell-hole is in sight. It is a product of the state capture that Nigeria experienced in 2023.
This series, by the way, was given birth to on November 6, 2023. It was a chronicle of how the Nigerian state was captured by the cabal that installed Bola Tinubu as President through the overtly manipulated presidential election of 2023.
Five months after, I ended the first part of the 22-week-long series with these lines. “Having grabbed power the way he did, Tinubu has a responsibility to ensure that the country works. Unfortunately, he has been failing steadily. Nigerians cannot clap for a President that has failed so far to manage their country’s affairs. Even though he bulldozed his way into office, Nigerians expect that the government he formed should not choke them to death. Now that things are not working, those who are working for Tinubu need to put heads together with a view to getting him to have a sense of direction.”
This was my submission in this column on April 8, 2024. Regrettably, nothing changed, regardless of this admonition. If anything, the spiral towards damnation continued unabated.
Ordinarily, Nigerians would have shrugged off the bare-faced deception that culminated in the Tinubu presidency. But they were forced to stay hooked to the unfortunate turn of events because the power grab came with very unusual happenings. It brought about hardship of immense proportions, the type never seen before in the annals of Nigerian history. It was and remains so bad that many can no longer find food to eat. Hunger and anger have become the order of the day. Significantly, I ended the opening article of the series with this apocalyptic prediction. I had written:
“The plotters have won. They have captured the Nigerian state. But this is just the beginning. The motion of history towards instability in situations like this is the next inevitable phase.”
I was right. Instability is the next inevitable phase. That is where we are now. Having endured the bizarre happenings that the Tinubu administration unleashed on them for 14 months, Nigerians have been stretched to the limit. They can no longer pretend that all is well. That explains the rage that has just begun. The #EndBadGovernance protest that erupted on 1st August is an expression of discontent by Nigerians. It is a purgation of emotions of frustration and anguish.
But what has the state capture thrown up? In the manner of all power grabs, those who have cornered the state are putting up a bold face. They must do everything within their powers to consolidate on their hold on power. In doing this, no tactic is too crude to be employed or deployed. The weapon being wielded by Tinubu and his goons at moment is that of blackmail and intimidation. Since it is easy and fashionable in Nigeria to give the Igbo a bad name, the Tinubu gang has descended on the Igbo. They believe that this breed has to be put out or subjugated for Tinubu to enjoy his reign. Therefore, the design before the Tinubu presidency at moment is that of suppression of the Igbo.
In the bid to ensure that the Igbo are labeled enemies of the Tinubu presidency, they have gone for the jugular of Mr. Peter Obi, the Igbo man whose public appearances and statements diminish Tinubu and all he stands for. For Peter Obi’s sake, the opposition must be hounded into submission. This has been the lot of Peter Obi. He has been pilloried for no good reason. The preoccupation of the power grabbers is to ensure that they make him look bad in the eyes of the public. It is so because the man poses a great threat to the Tinubu contraption. They feel that he can upset the apple cart if he is not reined in. Peter Obi is, therefore, their whipping boy. He is the man who must be made the scapegoat in every situation. This time again, they tried it with the ongoing protests. The cabal’s agent provocateur, a certain Bayo Onanuga, said Obi was behind the planned protest against bad governance. He said that Obi should be held responsible for whatever happened during the protests. But the devious effort to implicate Obi did not work. If anything, it backfired on those who set out to lie against him. When the effort to demonize Obi failed, they turned on the entire Igbo. They said the ethnic group is plotting against the Tinubu administration. The Igbo, they said, are the brains behind the protests. But the protests have since begun and there is no Igbo anywhere to be found among the protesters. Whereas different parts of the country are boiling, the South East states are calm. The people are going about their normal businesses. They are not bothered about the sad outcome of the misadventure that foisted Tinubu on Nigerians.
Curiously, the non-involvement of the Igbo has unsettled the blackmailers. They are ill at ease with it all. Their plot to use the protests to demonize and unleash violence on the Igbo in their midst is failing them. They are looking for an anchor. And they just found one in their latest plot. A faceless group has been given birth to in the social media space. The group is asking the Igbo to leave the South West. That is a banal display of hate and intolerance. But those behind the divisive order are walking the streets. Nobody is after them because their declaration fits into the mould the Tinubu presidency has carved for the Igbo.
Under the Tinubu order, the Igbo have become games to be hunted. They must be kept down so that Tinubu can rise to unimaginable levels. They are content with the fact that Tinubu is running his administration without the input of the Igbo. He has shut out the entire ethnic group as his own way of getting back at them. The Igbo are not perturbed that they are not factored into the Tinubu presidency. Yet those who shut them out are not resting. They are even more perturbed by the unperturbed disposition of the Igbo, thus making the people the albatross that keeps Tinubu awake. That is why they want to put the final nail on their coffin by forcing them out of Lagos and the entire South West. That is how far the Tinubu gang are going in their desperate effort to dismember Nigeria.
But is anybody listening? Are the authorities paying heed to the divisive overtone of the nation-wreckers? I do not think so. The reckless wreckers cannot be accused of indulging in hate speech. They are immune and protected from such accusations.