2022 will be remembered for the injustice suffered by the common Nigerian through unfavourable government policies and inability to bring to book those who perpetuate heinous crimes across the country, while politicians stocked their homes and warehouses with Nigeria Naira, most of which became expired and dissolved to shreds, while the common man wallow in hunger and lack.
A video of a young female security personnel who was a victim of the Unknown GunMen – UGM, as it is abbreviated – trended online recently. The unfortunate woman was stripped to her skin, binded in hands and ankles, with swollen face and a pathetic look which says she must have undergone serious torture.
Another video of a young female lawyer recently killed while in the car with her husband by a trigger-happy cop, also trended online. This is aside from a similar case of a young man who was killed in the same manner. Should we forget in a hurry the young lady who was killed in a popular Lagos bus?
This is not to mention the daily report of killings in villages and communities, by terrorists, bandits, unknown gunmen, and all manner of cult groups. This induced mayhem happened in 21st century Nigeria, as Nigerians ask if they have a right to safety and freedom in their own country.
And if these sad events are not enough, we do not forget the economic hardship which has caused many breadwinners to lose their jobs or means of livelihood, while families are brought down to abject poverty, and crime rates shoot up. Not minding these ugly situations, many families were forced to cough up millions in Naira as ransom to free loved ones – some of whom did not even survive. The lists of woes and pains go on.
Many Nigerian families are still trying to get out of the shock which characterised 2022 for them. There is no doubt that there are those who had it easy and smooth sailing. Our concern here though, is for those who didn’t. For these ones who were battered financially, emotionally, even psychologically; what hope will 2023 bring, given that it will be an election year? Considering also what election years have been in the past in Nigeria.
Many of the sad events as mentioned would not have been if we had an organised and sane society in Nigeria; if Nigeria was not a private enterprise in the hands of a few, while the general public are the puppets. No modern society going through what Nigerians are enduring in their own country today, can advance.
The popularity of any worthwhile political class and their government, is judged by the priority put on the safety of lives and properties, while ensuring modern developmental structures that impact positively on the people – both directly and indirectly.
It is important to take stock of what 2022 had been: a year where flood victims were left hapless in their own country; a year where newly born babies where taken from their mother who were still coming out from the shock of childbirth, by the now trending Unknown GunMen; a year where it has now become fashionable for depressed Nigerians to take their own lives – something we once considered alien in the country.
2022 will be remembered for the injustice suffered by the common Nigerian through unfavourable government policies and inability to bring to book those who perpetuate heinous crimes across the country, while politicians stocked their homes and warehouses with Nigeria Naira, most of which became expired and dissolved to shreds, while the common man wallow in hunger and lack.
The Nigerian situation is indeed a pathetic situation; and 2022 witnessed much of those woes. Will 2023 give us hope: a time when we would right our wrongs, by holding our leaders accountable; a time when we understand that the pain of another Nigerian is the pain of all Nigerians; a time when we have some value for human lives and consider as our common enemies those who waste lives for whatever excuse – and those who collect ransom and make a public business of human lives?
If we do not save the Nigerian State, we would have a country where barbarism and fear thrives. Whereas other nations are surging forward with more positive and human development thinking, what would be our story in Nigeria? Let us think about it.
Nigeria, whether North, South, East and West, is blessed with enormous human and mineral resources capable of making the least potentially viable country great. Why must we allow ourselves to remain our own problems? Nigeria in 2023 is not one for rhetoric, but one to right the wrongs.
As I recall the face of the female security person who became victim of unknown gunmen, I see a woman who would have risen in her career to become a national pride, wasted just like many others we never got to know about. These people have one question on their lips: if this is happening to them in their own country; if their life is insignificant, and they are not worth our rescue?
We know of the American mantra which says: ‘better ask what you can do for your country, than what your country can or will do for you?’ It is easy to try and employ such phrases, while failing to consider that America values the life of each and every one of her citizens, just as much as they value the American dream.
In Nigeria where we do not have wars, we have the death toll rising to fifty and even more in days and weeks, and months. This truly is a very dire situation, one which requires urgent redress to revamp the faith of the ordinary Nigerian for her country.
As we will join some other countries across the globe to a joyous noise of happy new year in 2023, let’s not forget those in shock; those who still mourn their loved ones; those who are victims of the society we now find ourselves in. We truly can build a better and prosperous Nigeria. It is in our hands to do.
Happy New Year, Nigerians.