By Anthony Kola-Olusanya
What a country we have in Nigeria, what a people we are. Politicians (including elected officers) of all shades and characters have turned Rotimi Amechi’s (Rivers State Governor) crisis with his Party’s (PDP) leadership and President Jonathan to an opportunity for seeking national prominence and visibility. Not let out are the so-called new-day ‘progressives’ from ACN/APC who sent a prominent team of their Governors to visit Amechi’s ‘Mecca of troubles’ on a ‘progressive pilgrimage’ and to lure him to joining them.
I also read in one of the national dailies (Punch, July 20, 2013) that Dino Melaye’s ACN (anti corruption network), Trade Union Congress (TUC), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and other kinds of groups are planning a pro-Amechi NATIONAL PROTEST to Abuja (like that of Tahir Square, Egypt) tagged “Touch Amechi, Touch Nigeria”. Even our own respected Kongi, Prof. Wole Soyinka couldn’t help but get himself dragged into this charade.
While this madness is going, Academic Staff of Polytechnics (ASUP) in Nigeria have been on strike for 3 months. Academic Staff of Universities’ (ASUU, the umbrella body for university teachers in Nigeria), strike is going into its 4th week, millions continue to look towards Heaven for succour as hopelessness and despair continue to reign in the land.
As if all these are not enough, the Nigerian Senate reduced the legal age for marriage to 13 at time when Ghanaians are calling for a change in legal age for marriage to 23 so that young women can be educated and better prepared for marriage. Yet nobody is planning a PROTEST against the newly passed legislation legalizing PEDOPHILIA in Nigeria, to ameliorate the sufferings of millions of Nigerians, to force governments (both at the Federal and State levels) to negotiate with ASUP, to respect 2009 Agreement it entered into with ASUU.
How time changes. Once upon a time, Nigerians of note and repute would have called protests. Nigerians students and youths, market women, and entire populace would have been bracing up for an imminent nation-wide protest. Lawyers would have gone to court.
What is next? We don’t know. Maybe the Senate will legalize RAPE, MURDER (like the Stand your Ground rule in some American States), or Exportation of our young women for PROSTITUTION abroad (like it once existed in Korea) and killing of young vibrant men (like in China’s Tiananmen Square) or even SLAVERY. What is this Senate not capable of doing?
It’s so sad and embarrassing to be alive to witness a once prominent and promising nation and peoples degenerate so fast into abyss. Like a colleague recently said to me, “We live in a SELFISH Society, mind your own business”. Nigeria has become a nation/country of the SELFISH.
However, there are still many selfless people out there (in the civil society, labour unions, students’ and youth movements, among concerned professionals, women groups and the military and other paramilitary organisations) who can be counted on to genuinely rise up and once again come to the defense of Nigeria and Nigerians and bring this country back from the Abyss.
To continue to wait any further will not augur well for us all. May God bless our people and the labour of our heroes and heroines past. EVERY ONLOOKER IS EITHER A COWARD OR TRAITOR!!!! (Please share and pass on the message).
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