By Jibrin Samuel Okutepa, SAN
Today, I may not make sense in this write-up. Please bear with me. God is gradually answering my prayers in Nigeria. I am happy that the vast majority of Nigerians are finding life tough. Prices of everything have gone beyond the reach of many homes.
The poverty level does not know tribe. All the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria are suffering from bad leadership. Indeed, those who insisted and are still insisting that leadership is turn by turn and it is our turn to rule are now seeing the repercussions of foisting on us those who lacked visions and capacities to lead us to the promised land.
In the past governments, those who lacked capacities were foisted on us. Everything and every appointment was based on ethnicity, and we did nothing. We started turn by turn politic, and the merit and capacity to lead were not the requirements for leadership recruitment in political parties. The results of these are there for all to see. Those who have something to offer in governance were chased away by unhygienic polluted godfatherism in politics and money politics.
Thank God that we have jettisoned merit and now embraced connections as core requirements of recruitment processes. I thank God that stealing public funds to steal your ways to power has become an accepted norm in Nigeria.
Thank God that our judiciary has, in most cases, chosen to ignore realities of the situations and behave as if all is well. Thank God some judges and some of our courts are living in utopia and do not concern themselves with the problems bedevilling our nation.
Thank God we are seeing and witnessing how some of our courts continued to give, and we are witnessing absurd decisions that continue to encourage evils and corruption in Nigeria.
Thank God that we now have and see judicial obstacles erected in judgements in most electoral disputes and in some corruption related cases, even when some of these judgements are really not based on justice.
Thank God we have allowed the stream of justice to be polluted, and many practitioners in the legal profession see nothing wrong with what is wrong. Thank God the legal profession has become puppets that sanctions democratic desecration and sacrilegious abuse of the sovereignty of the people.
I am happy that the heat of the evils we encouraged either wittingly or unwittingly is getting closer, and everyone, both the good and the bad, are feeling it.
Today, the prices of food items and essential things of life, including medicines, are out of the reach of ordinary people who are the majority.
Thank God political class are abusing their power and putting the wrong people in wrong places. Let people who have opportunities to serve continue to steal and misuse their power.
Today, dollars are no-go areas. The cost of travels by air has become something else. I thank God that we have bad leaders and bad government. The lesson for all these is that the more we suffer, the more we may get senses to insist on the right things being done in Nigeria.
We are all docile because most of us are still waiting for opportunities to steal. How do you explain the level of moral decadent in Nigeria society, including the judicial arm of government.
In those days, the appearance of improprieties was not permitted to be seen in the judiciary. But today, we defend improprieties in that hallow arm of government on the altar that “it is my right to do it and nothing will happen.”
It is my hope and prayers that let more suffering and poverty be visited on Nigerians so that Nigerians can take their destinies in their hands and subject the three arms of government to strict accountability. Thank God for the level of poverty and high costs of living in Nigeria today. It is our turn to suffer for what was foisted on us by those who have no love for the vast majority of Nigerians.
