“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

This series is humbly inspired and redemptive, and I shall try to make each part of it short and reader friendly, by Jove when I’m done we shall all in LOVE, congregate at the parlour of patriotism, and walk the path of national redemption together.

DATELINE: 2014/15, during the Presidential electioneering campaign, when the then ruling Party the PDP raised issues centred on the fact that General Mohammadu Buhari does not have the certificates he claimed to have even under Oath. We said it didn’t matter, and we called it politics and politricks.

And because we badly wanted an end to the years of locusts superintended over by the PDP, some of us who supported Citizen Buhari then, like vuvuzelas argued that even if Citizen Buhari presents a NEPA or a NITEL Bill in lieu of a certificate, we will choose him over Citizen GEJ. How and why did we get that low? As this series progresses, you will see what lies beneath.

In an uninformed and unresearched show of patriotism we lowered the moral, ethical and intellectual bar, so badly did we, that the national narrative have become awfully low. And, so soon in the day, the chicken has come home to roost.

Make no mistake this series is by no means partisan, we all share in the blame, and we must rise to right the wrong together. I have maintained that Nigeria is a nation on a nosedive for the many wrongs it has refused to right. Our nation has become a laughing stock because we have consistently refused to do the needful.

We vacillate from the inane to the stupid, and to the absurd. Since the decade of reckless bloodletting 1960-70, Nigeria has reaped her Karma. Every time a new ‘leader’ mounts the saddle they serenade Nigeria with the ‘I will fight and I shall kill corruption’ song, and they end up worse than the former. WHY?

Our national karma got us here, believe what you want or what you will, but God is not mocked, what you sow, you reap. The trouble with Nigeria is structural and foundational.

Have you wondered why in the search for a Messiah, we chose a perjurer without a certificate over a lethargic PH.D holder, indeed we desperately wanted CHANGE, but can the structure stand if the foundation is faulty? Do you really believe that Citizen Buhari means evil? Do you truly think that he wants Nigeria to collapse under his watch? If you were to have a private moment with Citizen Buhari, you will be amazed that he never intended to deceive, perjure and or lie under Oath. You will wonder the enormity of pain he bears for the failure of his watch over Nigeria. That is the reason some people still love and defend him, and such is the reason they call us haters and wailers.

They forget that we do not hate Citizen Buhari, we have only elected Country over partisanship, we have chosen the wellbeing of the people over political propaganda, and we have opted for patriotism over banal APC/PDP dialectics, knowing that there is something about Nigeria that must first be fixed, before we can get it right.

We have gone so low, and so deep in the nadir that the sickening narrative in the public space sulks. Today, we shamelessly have such narrative, as...

*YOUR THIEF, OUR THIEF. Where crime and corruption wears the ethnic garb, and the ethnic profiling of crime and criminals is the fad. Sad.

*WHERE THE PRESIDENT HAS NO CERTIFICATE AND LIES UNDER OATH ABOUT ONE, as the otherwise Born again Christian, the devout Muslim, the so-called men and women of integrity defend it, forgetting that in this our collective values suffer. And we lose the right to reprimand posterity where they undermine the benefits of learning.

*Rather than growing the culture of critical analysis of the policy programmatic of government for national growth and development, we have sank so deep that our debate is centred on the WAILER/HATER and the HAILER/LOVER NARRATIVE, our collective discourse is often domiciled at the altar of ethnicity, religion, region and partisanship. Sad.

*We have sank so low and so deep that lies, falsehood and banal propaganda rules, and even the Clergy in government have asked God to excuse them until they exit power, ask Pastors and Deacons Yemi Osinbajo, Laolu Akande, Femi Adesina et al.

*Some out of partisanship seek to validate the failures of the PDP with those of the APC and vice versa.

*Because some must defend the present failure in Aso Rock they lie and seek to make light the drastic security challenges confronting the nation, leading to more loss of lives and property.

*And as they politic with national security, more innocent blood and human barbecues calling out for indemnity defile our space, the attendant karma is what we face daily in the failure of leadership, as what lies beneath stinks and threatens our collective peace and corporate existence.

Until the needful is done, a thousand regime change cannot break the jinx. What this country needs very urgently is SYSTEM CHANGE, we must walk the path of justice, of equity, of fairness and of truth, and we must consciously atone for the wickedness of this nation against her citizenry, we must seek forgiveness, and walk the path of penance and remorse, knowing like Martin Luther King Jr opined that, “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

•Chris Mustapha Nwaokobia Jnr is Convener, COUNTRYFIRST MOVT.

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