Festival of Tears[1]
11.10.2015
If you are expecting me to condemn the wanton destruction of people’s means of livelihood in Ebonyi State by reckless environmental taskforce contracted to do the dirty job, there you miss the mark; I will just say few words. The Governor Dave Umahi had since distanced himself from the ignominy and apologized to the internally displaced traders. I admired his courage in accepting that the actions of his violence-ready henchmen are condemnable. Those defending the action can now hug a nearby transformer.
Regrets! For the first time since the current governor assumed office, his mobile line was off. That is the safest way to explain his inability to get timely information on how the heartless taskforce paid back the Ebonyi electorates who defied fears and allegedly queued behind them during the 2015 elections swept by the PDP. Their payback is to vacate their shops because we want to paint our sepulchers called ‘Abakaliki Streets’ and force them reflect their kinds in other cities.
For weeks now, different Chapels of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration have been beaming with city residents forced to pray by regrettable policy which has seen their shops, the only means of livelihood, destroyed and some of their wares soiled, burnt, and looted. Run into them, you are likely to be treated with harrowing tales of how they had worked to build up shops that have been left in ruins. Such tales are intermittently interrupted with streaming tears that can make a professional consoler to break into cries.
Their stories are heart-breaking. They have debts to service. They have family to feed. They have children to send to school. They have house rents to pay. They have power bills to settle. Some have their loved ones in the mortuaries and were hoping to raise little money to foot the burial. They have marriage ceremonies to host. Some who had earlier scheduled their wedding dates in many churches are calling in to cancel their plans and let the ministers of God be. Some who are building projects had planned to use their businesses to finance their projects. But these have become forgone proposals, shattered dreams made possible by agents who are worthless.
Micro financial institutions are counting their losses too. Their primary constituents have been badly demobilized. Most of their customers servicing soft loans have been left idle with their collateral destroyed. Some who have run away to escape humiliation have put economic strain on their guarantors who must work extra mile to service loans they never enjoyed; and that is if the guarantors are not themselves victims too.
In the weeks to come, I guess the number of Ebonyi hawking at various transit points and mega cities in Nigeria will increase. The last time I checked my charity list, three of those whose shops were destroyed had collected money from me to travel to Lagos, Onitsha and where no one has gone before to try their hands on anything they can find. One day, we will wake up to behold a neat and clean Abakaliki city with scanty or no one living in it. I do hope that Akanu Ibiam will be proud of it. I am praying that Senators Polycarp Nwite and Vincent Usulor will not break their terminal siesta in the land of rest to fight back the saboteurs of Ebonyi destiny.
I hope some political appointees didn’t take advantage of temporary switch-off of governor’s mobile line to withdraw huge cashes from government accounts. That was the most favourable time to do so, when alerts would hang and perhaps rebound before the mobile line is switched on again. If you are confused one what I mean, you can ask those who had thought that this government was corruption and looting as usual. They had gone withdrawing money recklessly from government accounts unknowing that the alert was ringing in the Chief Executive’s mobile line.
I have avoided the temptation of commenting on the recklessness of environmental taskforce and I will not go further before it is seen as an attack on the government. I can’t even do that. The path I have toed is a spirit that is far from suggesting that. I appreciate the effort of the current government to give Abakaliki a facelift. I hope to do a piece on it very soon and commend in a special way the Ministry of Works. One does not need a Nostradamus to know that the Commissioner in that ministry must be a round peg in a round hole. His ability to identify bad spots is unlike current politicians who once appointed to high offices become deaf and dumb, blind and lame. There are bad spots I never imagined he could see but each time I drive to see his men trying to patch them. I owe him a piece I say and I will fulfill it even if anything funny happens in near future.
I also owe another piece to the Ministry of Power. But that is only when the street light revolution is sustained for more than a year and there are concrete plans to sustain it beyond that. To keep them in my commendable wallet, I advise them to liaise with Ministry of Works and find way of patching all the intersections in the Capital City they are destroying with pickaxes.
What I have been trying to say is that every developmental policy must have a human face despite its exigencies. This is a mistake Nigeria has been making. When such policies with negative effects are anticipated, alternative plans are created ahead of their implementation to absorb their fall outs. Such alternatives are test-run long before the implementation commences; and such policies are implemented in phases.
Unfortunately Nigeria policy has been human-face unfriendly. The country has refused to engage her youths after graduations. And to make ends meet, many resorted going to different countries to buy products and come into the country to sell and save some monies for their upkeep. But the recent fiscal and economic policy which is alleged to be a tackling measure of the global economic reality has made their businesses to thrive again.
If you had expected me to tell President Muhammed Buhari that reneging of political promise was not peculiar to the PDP government then you miss it too. Nothing explains Buhari’s confusion than closing office on September 30, 2015, just to realize that he had not appointed his Ministers as he had promised many months ago. Submitting the list to the Senate President alone few hours into the month of October has not made him a smarter democrat. If after 120 days in office, the submission of ministerial list still caught him unawares, he must do the needful and tell Nigeria that a new political curriculum has been developed between AD 1985- 2015; meaning that he can no longer rule the country. Time Changed yesterday. If it will take the resumption of senate plenary on Tuesday October 6, 2015, to open the letter and schedule date of screening the nominees, Buhari has failed Nigerians and the world after his promise in America three months ago.
This piece wouldn’t have been on Ebonyi Governorship Tribunal. Tribunal issue is an art meant for lawyers and not writers of Dragnet rank. Nothing explains my border offence more than when I wrote one piece and got over hundred calls and many written critiques. Who am I to predict court ruling in Nigeria, a land where everything is possible?
I guess you know what time we are. This is 55th Independence and 18th creation anniversary of Nigeria and Ebonyi State respectively. At independence on October 1, 1960, the country was overtly mighty but inherently vulnerable. And that is why we have resisted every effort to move forward. At creation Ebonyi was hopeful but mentally unprepared and the creation caught us unawares. The freedom is still far from us than when the state was created.
Just a note! Ebonyi, nay, Nigeria have survived not because of the wisdom of leaders but the foolishness of its citizens who have continued to believe, tolerate and support the mess of the leaders. As we celebrate Nigeria @ 55 and Ebonyi @ 18, I join Sunny Okuson to ponder ‘Which Way Nigeria?’ While instinctually responding to anniversary complimentary text messages from friends, I had mistakenly replied: ‘Shame to You!’ When I realized it, I advised them to let it hold after all it is all about anniversary and festival of tears.
[1] Published on October 11, 2015
