Nigeria, her love for pretence and self-denial. Nigeria hates to tell herself the truth.
Nigeria likes to pretend all is well even in the face of impending doom, then she suddenly starts preparing for serious issues at the late hour.
How could Nigeria had forgotten so soon the numerous irregularities that accompanied the just concluded presidential election? The millions of underage voters that partook in that election as against the electoral laws. This was well captured on photos and videos. How could Nigeria had forgotten the massive thumb printing carried out by members of both major parties? How could Nigeria had forgotten the failure of several voter card reader machines that prevented majority of eligible voters from voting? Or the intimidation of voters in many parts of this country? How could she easily have forgotten that out of the millions of registered voters, she recorded a low turnout in overall numbers of votes casted? And that this was largely due to ugly reasons.
For one to adequately address a problem, one must first acknowledge by agreeing that one has a problem. Are those electoral inadequacies problems? Yes they are. Does Nigeria realize the implication of these problems? Is Nigeria concerned about these problems? Does she know that these problems if not properly addressed could lead the nation into a more negative turn? I do not have answers to majority of these questions but I sure do know that people placed in authority have them. Are they putting measures in place to drastically address these issues, so as to prevent them from reoccurring?
Now Nigeria has gone partying as usual. Results have been announced and a winner declared so ohh yes,let us pretend like everything is normal. Let us go to sleep and probably wake up in 2019 to start doing things improperly and hurriedly again. Damn the consequences, we don’t care!
This lack of admitting our problems, pretending like everything is normal even when it’s obvious things are not normal has cost us a lot. But we have refused to learn. Nigeria has been pretending like everything is normal from the very beginning when the British forced us together, without proper negotiation( give and take) from the different groups that make her up. We have over the years experienced the negative impacts of these internal divisions, mistrust,ethnic sentiments usually associated with a large group of people forcefully put together. Yet we have refused to sit down as people and renegotiate this entity. We are still pretending, but we know for sure that these problems can’t just be wished away, this is what we must as a people tackle.
We have managed to organize a national confab, some people are even demanding they discard the recommendations of that confab. You now begin to wonder what type of plans, these set of people have for Nigeria. People are feeling cheated everyday, people are feeling dissatisfied with this present arrangement, some want to leave because they feel not being treated fairly. Many are feeling marginalized and bullied. The hatred is growing, the cracks are widening. The signs are obvious. Yet as always the norm with Nigeria, she is pretending not to notice this.
The truth of the matter is that, if she keeps pretending and not do something to address these problems, she will definitely implode. But the question is will she ever learn? Will Nigeria ever listen? Will she do the right thing by addressing these core problems? I can only hope she does.
Tick tick says the clock tick tick, what you have to do, do quick!!!!
Written by Afagha Emmanuel, a political analyst, an advocate for people.
