Sometimes one wonders if some government officials in Nigeria live in the same world with other citizens or their own world is different.
This is because they are often disconnected from the realities and hardly see things from the same perspective as others. Even when every other reasonable person is seeing black, this set of people will claim that the colour is white and will do everything possible to defend their position. At all tiers of government one can see these political office holders and government officials defending the indefensible all in the name of protecting their bosses or their jobs or what?
Last Sunday, former President, Olusegun Obasanjo while reacting to the recent Kaduna train attack said that President Mohammadu Buhari’s administration had been overwhelmed by the security situation in the country and called for more concerted efforts towards tackling the situation.
A few hours after that, the Minister for Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who like “the Presidency” must react to any criticism of the current government, no matter how constructive, took a swipe at Obasanjo, saying that the security situation in the country is far from being overwhelming. As usual, he reeled out all his perceived achievements of the administration, particularly in the area of security – how the government wants to install surveillance and monitoring systems on the Abuja-Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan and Warri-Itakpe rail tracks and stuffs like that.
I searched the dictionary for the meaning of overwhelming and it says, “very great in amount, profuse, enormous, immense…” Is the minister telling us that the daily killings in the country which has resulted in the loss of many Nigerians is not yet enormous? We hear stories, watch video clips of Southern Kaduna people being massacred every day, the same thing in Niger State; villages are being sacked by terrorists; people can no longer freely travel by plane, train or bus for fear of being kidnapped or killed by the terrorists; Mondays have remained a ghost day in the South East because hoodlums want it so and someone says the security situation is not overwhelming? Pray, how overwhelming can it be?
On Tuesday, no fewer than 11 soldiers, some vigilante men and some civilians were reportedly killed by suspected terrorists in a military base at Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State. The ragtag terrorists were said to have stormed the facility in several motor bikes, engaged the soldiers in a gun battle for more than two hours before eventually subduing them (soldiers), razing the troops Armored Personnel Carrier and carting away weapons.
Many people have lost their fathers, brothers, husbands and uncles in the military to the endless, senseless battle against terrorism. Just last year a friend of mine was made a widow at a very young age because her husband, a colonel in the army was killed by Boko Haram terrorists while fighting in Maiduguri, Borno State. How many people have remained refugees in this country for many years? How many citizens are dying of hunger today either because their farm lands have been seized by herders and terrorists or they are afraid of going to their farms for fear of being killed, kidnapped, maimed or raped? What about the hundreds of school children that have been kidnapped, some fortunately regained their freedom after huge ransom were paid by their families and others like Leah Sharibu still in captivity till date? And someone is in the comfort of his office or home being maintained by the people’s money, claiming that the situation is not overwhelming?
Was he not the same person that boasted during a media briefing a day preceding Monday, March 28 Kaduna train attack that, “ we are proud that in our time Nigerians are once again able to travel by trains in total comfort and safety.”                                                                                                  That was how the same minister a few days ago blamed the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who handed over power to the current All Progressives Congress-led government over seven years ago for the nation’s present economic woes.
I mean, when will all these denials and blame games stop? How will Lai Mohammed be made to know that Nigerians are tired of reading the achievements of the current administration on the pages of the newspapers or hearing them from the government’s mouth pieces without the citizens having a feel of it? How can someone make him realise some Nigerians found loopholes in the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration and that paved a way for the APC, who claimed to have a magic wand for all Nigeria’s problems?
What the citizens expect from the ruling party is to make the country better instead of making it worse. The country is more of a hell for many citizens right now.
What the leaders at both local, state and federal levels need to do now is to urgently find lasting solutions to our numerous problems and quit playing politics with people’s lives.
All along, some people have posited that the authorities in the country are not bereft of ideas on how to put an end to the lingering security challenges. That, I believe. The Nigerian army is adjudged one of the best in Africa given their exploits in many foreign missions in West Africa and other parts of the continent. Again, going by the way the leader of Independent People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu was arrested in faraway Kenya, and the stories behind the arrest and detention of the Yoruba activist, Sunday Igboho in Cotonou, Benin Republic, it is obvious that the Nigerian security agencies are not lacking in tactics and effective intelligence gathering. Will they not then know how to deal with the real people that have been terrorising the country for several years, should those in power sincerely deem it fit.
During a television interview a few days ago, a member of Northern Elders Forum, Prof. Usman Yusuf, aptly captured the attitude of some of our leaders to the security problems in the country. Reacting to the question on the threat by the Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, that he and the governors of the North West may resort to hiring mercenaries from outside the country to come and fight the terrorists in their zone if the Nigerian soldiers fail to do the work, he called it political grandstanding. According to him El-Rufai knows that he has no power to carry out his threat, that he has had security issues in his state but he never does anything about it. And that all he does is talk and talk without taking any action. There under his watch, some ethnic groups have been constantly lamenting about the move by the governor’s ethnic group to wipe them out of the surface of the earth, yet no concrete action is seen to be taken to salvage the situation.
As it is with El-Rufai so it is with our leaders on different levels, particularly the federal government.  How many times have the citizens been told that Boko Haram has been defeated, only for us to hear of more deadly acts carried out by the same group? Can we count the number of times our leaders would talk tough after an attack by herders, bandits, gangs, kidnappers or whatever they choose to call them, claiming that the criminals will be decisively dealt with and nothing happens in the end? One analyst said the government is in love with the terrorists in the north and is romancing with them and that is what it seems to be.

By: Calista Ezeaku