THE GRAND NIGERIAN HYPOCRISY.
DOES A NATION OF THIEVES AND PLUNDERERS HAVE ANY MORAL STANDING TO QUESTION ITS LEADERS?
While not being a Jonathan advocate, I find it pertinent to say that as a nation of thieves, we all have a Jonathan in us....save for a few exceptions. We eagerly bear false witness, we gleefully steal, cheat and are committed givers and receivers of bribes. Our values stand on their heads. Worse still, as friends, cronies, relations and colleagues of those in politics, we outside politics, are the ones who pester, bully, and encourage those in politics to steal. We hail them and honour them with chieftaincy titles as they do so....and denigrate, ridicule, insult, disrespect and malign those in politics who refuse to steal. Fathers, mothers and grannies shamelessly urge their kith and kin in government to steal our commonwealth! They not only fail to set enviable examples worthy of emulation, they lead other family members in drawing honest relatives in the mud! There is a scary paucity of exceptions to this inglorious rule....
Yet we eagerly queue at foreign embassies to procure visas in our desperate attempts to leave this land. Our gumption does not tell us that if the owners of those nations had plundered their nation as we did our, such nations would not be so attractive to us!
Is it not a shame that our govt had to invite foreigners to solve the Chbok abductions? Yet solving such crime is more a duty of our Police than the armed forces.
Solving the Boko Haram problem is not a job directly for the military but for the Police and spy services....who may then invite the army for backup. But since our police is more competent at extortion, bullying, arrest, brutalization, unlawful killing and betrayal of confidential info by citizens to armed robbers, kidnappers and terrorists, no citizen would readily approach the police with such info....even anonymously....as a the Police would betray him to the accused persons! And yet, it is only by such info that a solution would be found for this problem!
Do we have a police....in real terms? Each time I watch the meeting of the Security Council on TV, I just cannot stop seeing the IGP as the weak link in the security chain! The Police seem not to realise the real meaning and consequence of instilling fear in the minds of citizens....as they make the illiterate and educated alike avoid them at all cost ! They are ever so eager to tell lies and deliver slaps! A bunch of rogues and bullies in uniform. A nation of thieves and plunderers has no moral podium to label its leaders as thieves!
Dr Tosin Akindele is a Lagos-based medical practitioner and social critic.