Afrigather 
I possess neither the mind of Albert Einstein nor the anointing of Apostle Matthew, the tax collector and Jesus’ disciple. I’m solely a Lagos-born hunter from Igbajo, the Citadel of the Courageous — an inheritance of Osun State. Not like Einstein and Matthew, I’m no Jew, no scholar, no thinker…..CONTINUE READING
By no means can I maintain a candle to Einstein’s erudition and groundbreaking theories even when creation imbued me with a dozen brains plus the sturdiness of Methuselah. Even when I spoke in a thousand tongues, I’d be unworthy to the touch the hem of Apostle Matthew’s garment. One of many mouth-gaping miracles, aka ‘ise iyanu’ in Yoruba, that I understand how to carry out lies within the capacity of my mouth to refrigerate frying-hot hen or steaming ‘isi ewu’ goat pepper soup with out flinching. I additionally blink and breathe – a whole trinity of miracles.
Regardless of my dwarfness in comparison with the personae of Einstein, and Matthew, who was also referred to as Levi, I want to use the privilege of my penmanship to touch upon a difficulty these two nice males had written about a few years in the past. The difficulty is i-n-s-a-n-i-t-y.
Einstein says, “Madness is doing the identical factor again and again and anticipating totally different outcomes” whereas Matthew preaches that the wealthy shall get richer and the poor shall get poorer, and I add: if each proceed to do the identical factor.
However I might somewhat be Einstein than be Matthew. Why? The Lord commanded, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it…” Genesis 1:28. Me, I’m not Mathias; I can’t ‘come and die’ like Matthew, the martyr did.
Joking aside, Einstein is matchless. His panoply of works are groundbreaking. At simply 26, his improvements equivalent to Quantum Concept of Mild, Particular Concept of Relativity, Brownian Movement and so on planted the seeds of world development within the soil of boundless prospects by offering the templates for nuclear energy, Google Maps, laser invention that revolutionised agriculture, manufacturing, exploration, safety and drugs, simply to say a couple of. Whereas taking out the gospel of Matthew from the Bible received’t render the Holy Ebook incomplete because the gospels of Mark, Luke and John include virtually the identical essence as Matthew’s.
Madness in Nigeria tick-tocks with the 2 arms of the clock counting kidnapping, unknown gunmen, Boko Haram, banditry, barbarous herdsmen, militancy and ritualism as heritages of the outgoing All Progressives Congress presidency.
Madness is treating insecurity with levity, the best way the outgoing President, Main Common Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has executed in eight years, and anticipating peace, regulation and order to abound. One other apostle, Paul, says, ‘God forbid’ the abundance of grace within the plantation of sin, a synonym for heaven helps those that assist themselves.
Earlier than Buhari’s tragic years, insecurity was a shy ogre booming behind the cloud, leaping out to wreak havoc, and working again into the cloud. In Buhari’s time, nonetheless, insecurity deserted the cloud, took up everlasting residency in Nigeria, bodily attacking Aso Rock, violating the Nigerian Defence Academy, taking kings hostage, killing troopers and policemen for sport, trampling on the skulls of the poor.
President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, made Buhari potential. With the èkù-idà hilt of the sword firmly in his grip after coronation, nonetheless, the king unsheathed the I’m-for-nobody sword, sending the kingmaker scampering, lest the power-drunk king walked on Iragbiji blood into the palace as ceremony of passage.
100 and two (102) worldwide journeys in a interval of eight years make Buhari a prime contender within the race for World Itinerant President trophy. Statistically talking, 102 abroad travels imply that Buhari nestled overseas greater than as soon as each month with, economically talking, nothing to point out for the quite a few roaming about.
When speaking in regards to the madness of doing the identical factor the identical method and anticipating a special consequence, Nigeria’s political class wants a remedy. President Olusegun Obasanjo had his time within the air. His godson, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, shared airspace with birds of passage in his time.
The three main candidates within the 2023 presidential election, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and Mr Peter Obi, held many conferences with ex-president(s), governors, ministers, senators, and different politicians in international metropolis capitals, but Nigeria laments dwindling international change earnings.
A press release by the media group of the President-elect stated a couple of weeks in the past, “After a really exhaustive marketing campaign and election season, President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has travelled overseas to REST and PLAN his transition programme forward of Could 29, 2023 inauguration.”
Who made Nigeria unsafe to relaxation and plan if not the political elite? Do leaders of sane nations go overseas to relaxation and plan? Our dead-from-the-neck-up leaders proudly run to docs in international lands for old-age surgical procedures; their ostrich buries its head within the sand at dwelling whereas its fantastically corrupt rump is on exhibition overseas.
Nigeria’s currencies, Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines, army {hardware} and software program, telephony, and different strategic tools are sourced from international lands, opening up the nation’s safety to manipulation and assault. Is the nation going to proceed on this insane course underneath the incoming Tinubu authorities, and anticipate improvement to fall from the sky?
That the retired Main Common Buhari failed woefully within the easy job of policing Nigeria adequately is a tragic truth. How the nation, nonetheless, anticipated a unidimensional soldier with a contentious college certificates to successfully encourage the army and supply nationwide safety beggars sanity.
The first and secondary college claims of the incoming President got here out smeared underneath searchlight. Is Nigeria, once more, not doing the identical factor, and anticipating a special consequence?
Not too long ago, the outgoing president requested for forgiveness from Nigerians, with out stating which of his numerous sins he needs Nigerians to forgive.
I’ll decide only one sin right here, and that’s the Nigeria Police. If Buhari acknowledges his failure on this regard, and sincerely asks for forgiveness, I feel many Nigerians will forgive him, realizing full effectively that the police characterize only a tip in his iceberg of sins whilst this sin-and-forgiveness train is able to bringing to closure the horror of the final eight years.
If Buhari was a acutely aware President, he should know that the nation’s underfunded, understaffed, unmotivated police serve solely the wealthy. If you want police service in Nigeria, you pay cash to non-public accounts of police chiefs, who assign to you the variety of cops the load of your cash can procure. The Nigeria Cellular Police Unit is probably the most bastardised on this respect. Cellular policemen are actually posted to church buildings, mosques, colleges, and filling stations for numerous quantities of cash.
Policemen and policewomen who ought to be guarding the citizenry are actually sentries in personal properties throughout the nation in Cash-for-Mopol offers between moneybags and police chiefs who swindle officers on obligation by giving little or nothing to the boys within the solar, regardless of receiving cash on their behalf. The racketeering throughout the police is now so rampant that common and cell policemen are secretly and unofficially drafted from state to state to do guard obligation by some members of the police hierarchy who accumulate cash for the service offered. That is the explanation why police response in occasions of emergency is torpid in lots of states of the federation as policemen, particularly MOPOL, would have been posted out unofficially to protect fats canines in different states – for cash that results in personal pockets.
It doesn’t take rocket science or juju to unravel this safety info I lay naked; it solely wants a accountable President to place his ears to the bottom, and do the needful. The primary of the needful here’s a complete reformation of the police by guaranteeing satisfactory staffing, good wage, coaching and retraining, attractive retirement packages, housing and so on.
The function of the police in guaranteeing safety, regulation and order in a democracy can’t be overemphasised. The incoming President, together with his international publicity and college training, ought to know this. Failure of the police is without doubt one of the sins of Buhari. Aare Tinubu ought to take be aware. Giving ill-trained, hungry and indignant males weapons and anticipating them to behave sanely is like setting a beggar on horseback – he’ll journey to the satan!…..CONTINUE READING
