By Bala Ibrahim
Since1966, when Nigeria had the first coup d’état of 15th January, where mutinous soldiers, led by Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu Kaduna and Emmanuel Ifeajuna killed many people, including the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the country has been forced to live with the fear of foreboding and the premonition of presentiment. Every political experiment comes with its own challenges and suspicions.
Although the country now is seemingly democratic, having been under no military leadership since 1999, however, the long period it stayed under undemocratic rule, has had a negatively resounding impact on the nation, with dreadful political consequences, brought about by the activities of naysayers, who are blatant and barefaced betrayers.
These traitors, who turned naysayers after profiting selfishly from the coffers of the country, through all manner of elitists exploitations, were succinctly summed up as sorcerers, by Salisu Na’inna Dambatta, in his article, titled, the failure of political, security and economic sorcery.
Danbatta opined thus: “Nigeria is currently facing a triplet of experts, specialists and pundits in political, security and economic sorcery. They always predict doom for Nigeria. They are simultaneously trading their wares in a country they live in and call home. But for which they do not wish well in their practice of sorcery. Their devilish oracles tell them the untruth that Nigeria, home to over 200 million black people, will break up into an unknown number of tiny entities. A sorcerer had the temerity to swear by the grave of his father that our fatherland will go to pieces in the next six months.”
I totally agree with Danbatta, except where he limited the sorcery to those living in Nigeria only. “They are simultaneously trading their wares in a country they live in and call home”, he said. Methinks the shopping list of such sorcerers should include non Nigerians that do not necessarily live in Nigeria.
Recently, in a blog post entitled, Nigeria: Anxiety over deteriorating security morphing into panic, former United States ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, said “Nigerians are seeking radical options to save Nigeria from failing as a state”. Campbell claims the concerned leaders are yet to come to terms with a perfect approach or strategy to salvage the ship of state from imminent collapse.
Based on the silly statements of suspiciously sly people like Prof. Wole Soyinka, former Senate President Bukola Saraki and Senior Advocate of Nigeria Robert Clarke, Campbell concluded thus, “Something of a consensus among Nigerian elites seems to be forming that the country is in deep trouble and that radical options must be considered.”
Who are these elites, and who gave them the mandate to arrive at such consensus?. Sure Nigeria is faced by some problems, but are they insurmountable?
It may be recalled that in the past, after the abortive attempts of the so called “elites”, to take control of power in Nigeria, they commissioned the same John Campbell to write a book, titled, Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink, with the intent of bullying the leadership of the country to surrender.
Three frightening suppositions with terrifying consequences against Nigeria where made by Campbell in the book, viz:
- Popular alienation and a fragmented establishment have contributed to Nigeria becoming one of the most religious and, at the same time, one of the most violent countries in the world.
- Ubiquitous patronage and corrupt behaviour, fuelled by oil money is a root cause of Nigeria’s political and economic sclerosis.
- The federal government has failed to provide basic security for its citizens and has lost its monopoly on violence, two basic attributes of a sovereign state.
Armed with such mortally moulded mind-set, Campbell was quick to conclude that come 2015, Nigeria would join the league of disintegrated states of the world.
But because God cannot be on their pay roll, nor connive with them to betray Nigeria, the country is now six years in unity, beyond the prediction of the prophets of doom.
Undoubtedly as a Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations and former Ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell is eminently qualified to be classified as someone very knowledgeable about Nigeria and it’s foreign focus, but looking at the calibre, quality and antecedents of his friends in Nigeria, most of whom are betrayers that turned into naysayers, one can see why his predictions always collapse because of bias.
In what looks like supporting the submission of Mr. Lai Muhammed, the minister of Information, shortly after the 2019 general elections, that the opposition was planning to truncate, or frustrate the Buhari regime, an unauthenticated report is circulating in the social media, reportedly signed by Catherine Kerigun, Centre For Diplomacy & Democracy, Washington DC, USA, and said to be an excerpt from Metro Daily, titled, US REPORT INDICTS ATIKU & PDP AS BRAINS BEHIND RECENT KILLINGS IN NIGERIA.
The simple summary of the report is that, Nigeria’s insecurity problems, including the insurgency, kidnappings, banditry and attacks on the police, are politically masterminded, with the intent of causing untold embarrassment to President Muhammadu Buhari in particular. But the ultimate victim of such organized crimes is the country, Nigeria, which would be bullied by it’s betrayers.
