A human rights activist and a constitutional lawyer, Chief Mike
Ozekhome, SAN, has listed out all that Nigeria is currently facing
even as she celebrates her 59th birthday.
Chief Ozekhome, expressing his bitterness Tuesday, at the way in
which the country has gone from bad to worse appealed to God
Almighty to help our Nation Nigeria and the people living
therein.
According to him tears, sorrow, blood pains, pangs, anger,
hunger, melancholy, dejection, hopelessness, haplessness,
disillusionment, poverty, ignorance, termites, and maggots eat up
the national edifice.
“Chaos and anarchy reign supreme Impunity triumphs Irredentism
cronyism clannishness and nepotism strut around like a proud
peacock.
“Corruption multiplies geometrically, ravaging the land. Nigeria
is now the second most corrupt country in West Africa and one of
the 148 most corrupt in the world. Rule of law is subsumed, human
rights crushed
To him democracy is vanquished.
“Even basic civil liberties are suppressed and subjugated Judges
are brutalized, humiliated and denigrated, for doing their
jobs.
“The Judiciary is weakened, traumatized, pauperised. The
Legislators hemorrhage the national purse with fantastic and
indefensible out-of-the-world pay packets.
He added that the Executive acts imperiously, untrammeled,
uncontrolled, like Louis X14 of France.
“The cabal holds the nation down by the jugular.
“Less than 20 people dictate the fate of 200 million Nigerians.
There are no checks and balances.
“Absolutism, dictatorship, fascism, brutality, bestride our
democratic space like a colossus.
“Yet, the people, the Civil Society, remain docile, complicit,
frightened and cowed. Mediocrity is enthroned in place of
meritocracy.
“Hypocrisy, lies, revisionism, propaganda are elevated,
celebrated and dressed in the false garb of truth and
patriotism.
“Genuine criticism, dissent, opposition, plurality of views, are
treated as treason and at best as treasonable felony.
“Nigerians now murmur, rather than discuss freely. Soliloquy and
monologue take the place of robust dialogue.
Nigerians now live like walking corpses, like the living dead.
The common man and woman languish in abject penury.
The middle class diminishes. Industries relocate to neighboring
countries.
“Massive disinvestment becomes the order of the day. Nigeria,
once upon a time the biggest economy in Africa and the 3rd fastest
growing in the world, is today the poverty capital of the
world.
“Parents now sell their children to survive and the children do
likewise. Husbands kidnap wives and wives husbands, for cheap
ransom.
“Insecurity becomes the order of the day. Boko Haram, herdsmen,
kidnappers, armed robbers, hired assassins, control our highways,
pathways and forest routes.
“Nigeria has been turned into a gruesome crimson field of a
bloodbath. There are mass suicide and homicide.
“Mass unemployment is the order of the day. Retrenchment becomes
a norm.
“Education and certificates are racketeered. Children learn
under uncovered roofs in rain, storm and sun, sitting on bare
floor. Graduates roam the streets without jobs. Our beautiful
daughters and sisters are sold into second slavery as sex objects.
Young able-bodied men take to kidnapping, armed robbery, internet
scams, and otokoto rituals.
“Money bags are celebrated, no matter the illicit sources of
their wealth. The church and the mosque are complicit in this
societal degeneration.
“Morals, ethics, values, recede into the abyss of historical
oblivion. Prices of food have gone out of the of the roofs, leaving
the poor prostrate and defeated.
“The tail now wags the dog, the leaders molest the people whose
mandate they utilise. They laugh the people to scorn, exploit them,
beat them, scourge them, impoverish them and misuse them.
He asked a question, God, where, when, how and why did we find
ourselves in this scandalous state of nadir, doldrums, and national
calamity? Nigeria at 59!!!
“A woman still crawling, flat- breasted, misused, dehumanized
and degraded. There will still be sunshine at the end of the storm.
Yes,a silver lining on a dark cloudy sky. God help us.