Nigeria is on the march again! ‘On the march again…!’ that was the jingle that made the top of the chart in the MKO Abiola’s unforgettable campaign in the aborted elections that went nowhere.

But this time it is the resumption of the march begun in 1804 or thereabout which started with the invidious slaughter of all Hausa Kings and chiefs and the enthronement of worst mediocrity the human civilisation had ever known.

The murderous march went eastwards from its base and met with stiff resistance and changed course and headed south and cleared all the civilisation in its path including the central axis until the checkmate at Osogbo.

The march resumed in January 1966 with unprecedented velocity and ferocity and assumed more fire in July of the same year and set the country on a path of no return. All the structures of civilised and equitable governance were uprooted with uncommon blind jackboot.

May of the following year 1967, all hell was let loose with human decapitation and disemboweling of pregnant women being the gory sight of the era.

The journey made pogrom its walking stick and the country was plunged into another dimension in the march to Afghanistan.

Our March to destination has continued unabated. We changed course, or let me say our leaderless leaders forced us to change direction and move westwards with stopovers in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire.

Meanwhile, self-serving butchers continued to balkanise the country creating states and local governments that could hardly meet their obligations to the citizens of the confused and fractured land.

Direction changed. Leaders frog-marched everybody in n the direction of Rwanda insisting that new skills at butchering one and another and grabbing other peoples possessions and sources of livelihood needed to be learnt before proceeding further to Afghanistan.

The stay in Rwanda was long and nightmarish. All the same we stayed and our leaders learnt new tactics at expansionism and heartlessness.

What a journey! What a march! We were forced to change route and move northwards. The journey assumed added frenzy as we headed towards Somalia, a country that has had no central government since Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. Our stay in Somalia was most eventful. It was in Somalia that we got lessons from Al Shabab, the world’s third most deadly terrorist group.

We created our own Boko Haram by senselessly murdering Mohammed Yusuf their founder in cold blood. Boko Haram today has become the greatest and most lucrative industry in the land.

Leaders devised a devious means of getting some of us to remain in Somalia to learn and master more skills and muster more energy and more brutishness.

All the same the march is on. Majority of us were forced on the march to Iraq where we saw the world’s hitherto 4th largest and most powerful Military reduced to rubbles and the land that gave humankind its cradle of civilization was reduced to penury. Yes Iraq.

The birth place of Abraham Ibrahim. Iraq, the old Mesopotamia lying between Rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Iraq, the old Babylon. Yes, Iraq the same old Sumeria. Iraq, whose descendants gave the world three of the largest religions.

Lessons in Iraq were not sufficient for our leaders. We were forced to journey on to Libya, the hitherto most successful African country where citizens paid no tax and yet lived in reasonable comfort courtesy the kind of Ghadafi leadership they were blessed with.

Libya created cracks in their wall and Caucasian lizards led by notorious intruding lizards of the USA, Britain and France amongst others had a field day. Libya now is a sorry state. Our leaders are telling us as we continue our march that Libya is a child’s play.

We should march on to Syria before we proceed to Afghanistan. Meanwhile they had dispatched some of us to old Yugoslavia.

Reports confirmed to us the bloodletting that characterised the dissolution of Yugoslavia to many nations and communities. We were told that the prosperous land of Bros Jossip Tito would never ever be the same again.

The march begun in 1804 is still on as I write this report. Just now, I mean recently we have been ordered by our thoughtless leaders-of-thought that we should change course and march to Yemen where human suffering has no equal.

The tragedy of Yemen is a huge dent on human consciousness. There is hardly any place in recent history where women and children have had to go through the horrendous suffering that has become the forced fate of the Yeminis.

While the march is on Nigerians have been told that their lives do not matter any longer. We have been told that cows, goats, sheep, baboons and monkeys are of the same status as human beings as against the design of the Almighty Creator.

Professors in Nigeria are now at the same level as cow men while the first class brains of intellectuals, doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants and world class scientists are of the same low level brains of those who have deliberately refused to develop their brains.

When next I see fishermen of the Delta creeks I will congratulate them and apologise to them for not recognising that they are in the same league as the brilliant Minds of Professor Isayah Audu, Professor Jubril Aminu, history scholar Dr. Bala Usman and many other distinguished academics from the north of the Niger. Until now, I did not know that respected Constitutional Law Professor Nwabueze is in the same league with the AK-47 wielding herdsmen militia.

We are on the march. And our destination is Afghanistan. It does not matter whether those leading us on the path to political perdition know that Nigeria is progressively moving towards destruction and annihilation.

It does not matter whether those benefitting from the rot in both our structure and system know that once-upon-time governors, ministers, university dons and great industrialists in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen are now homeless beggars in those countries. And that those of them who were able to escape the ravages of those war-torn countries are worse than third class citizens in the refugee camps across the Globe.

It does not matter whether all those living the life of the ostrich refuse to accept that a tiny section of the country has declared war on the rest of the country, the march to Afghanistan is unstoppable.

Sadly and regrettably, those who can stop the march are the very people supplying fuel and ammunition to the journey

I refuse to talk about notorious kidnapping for ransom, robberies, assassinations and sacking of entire communities because such huge security challenges have become clichés and they are of course the only menu we have on our senseless march.

•Chief Tola Adeniyi, a former Federal Permanent Secretary, was Chairman/Managing Director of Daily Times Conglomerate, the Executive Chairman, The Knowledge Plaza. He can be reached via adetolaadeniyi@hotmail.com

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