Nigeria: In Need Of A Reset

By Dan Koje

Some persons are celebrating the death of the Chief of Army Staff. This is regrettable and unfortunate.

The average Nigerian psyche has been terribly traumatised, battered and de-sensitised to violence. Our humanity and sanity have been severely tampered with such that any ounce of sympathy for our leaders or their proxies who have meted untold amounts of State sponsored violence on citizens, has evaporated.

The Buhari regime has messed up terribly such that people now rejoice over the demise of government officials.

Citizens are now used to seeing death and blood on a daily basis and those saddled with the supposedly sacrosanct duty of care, have refused to act nor show any form of remorse or willingness to help.

The late COAS Attahiru had vowed over his “dead body” to see a Biafra or Oduduwa Republic. That was not a smart thing to say. These ethnic groups have genuine concerns for statehood and anyone who says he’d rather die than see it happen, clearly is bringing upon himself the genuine wrath of the suffering people.

Do I blame the citizens? Certainly not. We are being led by deadly leaders who have absolutely no sympathy for the pains and sufferings of the masses. The Lekki Toll Gate incident of October 20, 2020, the massacres by the military and police across the country, are some of the instances revealing the callousness and wickedness of our leaders.

The immediate past COAS, Buratai deeply offended many people in the course of discharging his duties and he was unapologetic about the civilian bloodletting and war crimes under his watch.

Just last week, the Acting I.G of Police was on record, urging his men to pursue and kill IPOB agitators, vowing that they shouldn’t worry about human rights and he would protect them from any form of prosecution. Femi Adesina, President Buhari’s spokesman was said to have remarked that people in the Middle Belt should choose between death or their lands being taken over by Fulani herdsmen.

When death becomes the official language of State actors, you really cannot blame those who jubilate when the tables turn. Our leaders must learn to guard their utterances in public. Be sensitive to the plights of citizens and most importantly, take actions that unite rather than amplify faultlines.

Nigeria has lost its soul. We are in dire need of a reset. There’s too much bad blood in Nigeria.

RIP to the dead.

(c) Dan Koje 2021