Mujahid Yushau Yusuf
“And if the women grew up illiterate,
the men will be suckled in ignorance and stupidity”
Ahmed Shauky
The above stanza of a poem written by one of the famous Arabic poetry laureate, Ahmed Shauky captures the exact situation Nigeria finds itself today.
Nigeria can be seen as the woman who grew up as an illiterate due to the deliberate policies and inactions of it’s past and present leaders. This woman (Nigeria), will breastfeed the population in ignorance and stupidity, and then looters and thieves will grow.
An illiterate woman will breastfeed a nation of illiterates. When I say illiterates, I do not mean the real illiteracy as the inability to read and write but as not knowing right from wrong.
When a nation failed to educate her population, provide basic amenities, secure the country then, looting, banditry, and terrorism will be the order of the day.
Nigerian leaders are a group of wicked and Soulless people who are United in their quest for power. They do not know the difference in religion, ethnicity or party.
The recent happenings in the country are an eye-opener to all. What began as a peaceful protest against Police brutality tagged ENDSARS forced the government to ban the SARS outfit and replace it with SWAT.
Instead of the protesters coming to the negotiating table and give the government benefit of the doubt, they continued and criminal elements began to burn police stations, burn properties associated with some political heavyweights. Then looters among them took over.
This led to the Lagos State govt to declare a curfew that was not obeyed. Soldiers were sent to disperse the protesters at Lekki whereby they shot at them. Then claims of people been killed by online activists and celebrities went viral. And even called it massacre and genocide. The Governor also said no one was killed but was rebuked by these celebrities and then fake and unsubstantiated news took over.
The looting of COVID-19 palliatives warehouses by Nigerians across the country calls for reflection. It appears that most of the palliatives to cushion the effect of the lockdown were not shared by States.
From Lagos to Kaduna, Cross Rivers to Plateau, Taraba to Ekiti, warehouses full of COVID-19 palliatives material were ransacked by hoodlums and criminals and then looted.
Here, we will be confused as to who the criminal elements are, between those hoarding and hiding the food that belongs to the poor masses and the army of looters that are ransacking and looting the warehouses and other food reserves across the country.
Can we now say that it is hunger that is driving these hoodlums to loot the palliatives or just that Nigerians from the leaders to the led are all thieves or have a criminal mind? In a country where there is a rule of law, both the looters and the leaders who hid the palliatives should be punished.
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But in my opinion, whatever has happened was bound to happen. The Federal government has deliberately taken education to the back seat as we are in the 8th month of strike with no end in sight.
The Northern part of the country is ravaged by terrorism and banditry, kidnapping, and other security problems and the government has failed to tackle that.
As Nigerians, we need to unite and condemn these atrocities by both the leaders and the looters and justice must be done to all.
