When govt silence signals support for corruption

In the past 57 years since the attainment of political independence, Nigeria has been led by loquacious and clueless politicians and military dictators who promised so much but delivered so little. During this period, the country suffered immeasurably owing to weak leadership, endemic corruption, collapse of infrastructure, disregard for the basic needs of ordinary citizens, failure of the government to investigate strong allegations of fraud, embezzlement of public property, deteriorating quality of university education, poor condition of public hospitals, and most disgustingly and most recently the sheer inability of Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha to identify the priority needs of the citizens of the state. At times like this, citizens of Imo State must feel like dissociating themselves from their state of origin. Well, just like the uninspiring leadership we have at the centre, the citizens must learn to live with what they have as political leaders until the next election. In various parts of the country, things are falling apart. Various ethnic groups are seeking to abandon the current arrangement in which they feel their best interests are not being served. It is that feeling that has fuelled and continues to instigate militancy of sorts across the country. Boko Haram terrorists continue to pin down security forces in an endless war in certain parts of the country even when we are informed the armed forces have degraded their capacity to mount serious attacks on citizens. The southeast is just recovering from high-handed and brutal attacks by the army on citizens in the name of chasing members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). What is the outcome? The group has gone underground. A problem that should have been dealt with through dialogue has been postponed, not eliminated. The Niger Delta region remains restless. The communities that produce crude oil, the country’s main foreign exchange earner, do not get to see much of the revenue derived from oil that is produced on their own soil. This is a major contradiction that has blemished the country’s image. While communities in the Niger Delta produce our national wealth, other people nowhere near the region manufacture half-baked arguments to justify why they have to sit in judgment over how the oil revenue should be shared, most times to the disadvantage of the communities and states that produce the oil revenue. It is the perpetration of this longstanding injustice that was captured in the local phrase – Monkey dey work, baboon dey chop. Everywhere you look, there is trouble, there is injustice, there is denial of civic rights, and a deliberate policy of marginalisation is being enacted against people in some regions because of the way they voted in the 2015 national elections. Beyond these contradictions, there is the case of the Chibok girls whose conditions and predicaments remain unknown. Even after we have celebrated the return to life of some of these young women, they are still denied their right to free expression. They are shielded from journalists who are keen to interview them to tease out the appalling conditions they suffered in the hands of their abductors. Is the Federal Government overly protecting the Chibok girls who gained their freedom under inexplicable circumstances? Why is it that, of all those who have been reunited with their families, none has spoken publicly and none is willing or eager to speak up? There is something mysterious not only about those Chibok girls still in captivity but also there is something creepy about those who have gained their freedom.

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