Amana Online - Articles - Barka Da Zuwa

I was told of the joke that when God created the earth and was distributing resources He made sure that there was equity in the distribution of same, almost at a rate of one per nation, to those He gave oil, He denied water, or rainfall in abundance, to some He gave water, and denied oil, others had technological prowess, and my apologies I think some were given daftness as a gift.

In the course of these sharing arrangements we saw how others got the Amazon forest, the Sahara deserts, and so forth, then came the turn of a people, West of Africa, He gave them everything, resources both human and material, intellectual and economic potential in abundance, He made sure they lacked nothing. When others noticed the ‘partiality’, they started complaining, and all God had to say was “wait and see the kind of people I put there”.

It is against this backdrop that I write this essay from the Nigerian capital Abuja. As I drove into the city to resume on my desk as Group News Editor of Leadership Newspapers Group, I took time to reflect on an assignment given to me by a comrade and friend that I have not met. He had asked me to while driving into Abuja to look, to see, to notice, how that was possible I did not know but I tried and the following are my observations.

Indeed I looked, I saw, I noticed, though not for the first time, but quite deeper this time, from the young innocent boys that had become mechanics not by choice but by circumstances, to the ones that lined up the roads hawking everything and nothing. I saw our mothers and indeed our fathers, above all these I saw a people with faces that told the story of a marginalization carried out by their own leaders.

My friend had asked that I take notes, and in my notes I was supposed to ask why; with the marked difference I would notice in Abuja, do our farmers in the villages still use hoes and cutlasses. I was supposed to find out what the problem was, I was asked to think up solutions and help draw the ignorant Nigerians out of their ignorance.

While I went about this task I took the opportunity to reflect on the whole saga that has become Kenya, I reflected on Kenya as a nation, yesterday, today and what all the present impasse would lead to in that once upon the cradle of democracy in Africa.

In Kenya, the elections were rigged no doubt about that, and the reaction is a function of many factors, poverty, illiteracy, years of neglect, or maybe a lack of better options to express their dissatisfaction. Some have called it an ethnic bath, and off course another opportunity to call Africans savages, but as usual when the West does it, we call it revolution.

Well less I deviate from the issue at hand; whatever it is that has brought Kenya to its feet is not far away from Nigeria, we rigged our own elections, we are still jaw jawing at the various tribunals, and we are still a far cry from any semblance of providing the basics of life for our citizenry.

We have refused to look the issues in the eye; all words no action, another electoral reform, even when the report of the Committee on electoral reform of the National Political Reform Conference could do.

As I drove into Abuja I watched in broad daylight like we say in these parts as poverty ravaged the land, bad roads, no fuel, fake mechanics, corrupt cops on the road, villages without electricity, not that the city Abuja can boast of any consistency in providing same And then I asked myself are we any different from the Kenyans.

Despite the façade that God is a Nigerian we have not been able to exploit it. And anyway, if God is a Nigerian is the Devil Kenyan, it has happened everywhere, a case where a people long exploited wake up and say no, a time when enough is enough, when that time comes, would we be ready, can it be avoided, is our own Kenya not around the corner?

Judicial workers went on strike, doctors have issued a warning…most times I ask what manner of nation and a people are we. We treat the incredibly important as nothing and kill ourselves over infinitesimal issues. In my lifetime I have seen, the police go on strike, teachers, from primary to tertiary too, doctors including psychiatric ones; I recall a point in the Obasanjo era when legislators threatened a strike.

The farce in Kenya is a function of a system that was neglected, while it collapsed the people turned a blind eye, it was the usual things were getting better that was the theme song, underlying a vast tourism market, a seemingly stable democracy laid a time bomb of displeasure, a people bottled up in their feelings, and it was just an election, an ordinary election and that bomb silently diffused into the present disaster.

In the time the Kenyan political imbroglio would have lasted many analysts may have lost touch of the Kenya that through same coalition ousted former President Arap Moi, many saw a victory then, but beneath very little had changed. The graft, corrupt practices, ethnic jingoism and parapoism were there.

Government through leadership continued to rape the treasury and the picture of sanity that was painted, only temporary.

In Nigeria it is only a matter of time, we have tried to justify the go-slow nature of our gentleman President, Mallam Yar’Adua, and we have said he needs more time. How much time till we get to Kenya. There is an emergency in the power sector, several states have one emergency or the other, it is only a matter of time, with all the agendas, either seven, ten or ‘one hundred thousand of them’. The fact remains that we are far from reality.

Did the Kenyans see it coming, no, but with an old man, it is said that what they see while sitting a young man cannot see while on a tree top. Most people often tell me I criticize a lot and offer very little in terms of solutions and I say in return that there are several files with panel reports on what needs to be done in every facet of our national life.

When a number of tragedies strike in most developing or third world nations, and especially political ones we often say that it is not our portion in Christian parlance, and I ask in my mind what then is our portion, the right to suffering, a life sentence to poverty and servitude by our leaders, lack of the basic necessities of life, what really is our portion.

We do not deserve to be like Kenya, but do Kenyans deserve their present peril. At the pace we are going the obvious is being stated. Daily we stare at a looming political disaster, and daily we deny it, the question is not why, but we are lucky for now as very few can place a when and how to when our Kenya would come.

If I am asked today, with what I have seen of the Federal Capital Territory, all I can say is that we are far away from reality; we are dancing to a false beat. For a nation that prides itself as a giant yet still crawls, for a nation that sees 2020 now and still will get their defective, I earnestly hope that hope will not cave in for not only our sake but our children’s sake.

I end in the following words, “endless hope is better than hopeless end” though I honestly believe that none of them is any better, because some day we may look back and wonder why, how, and when did it all go wrong…questions that may never be answered. With all the opportunities this nation is blessed with, again I pray that the Almighty Allah save us from ourselves.