Today’s story, 5 Major Reasons Things Go Wrong Frequently And Easily In Nigeria – Part 1, is the first in its two-part series. Keep a date with me for its second and concluding part next week.
There’s no country in the world where things don’t go wrong. Not even in the Vatican City, and in the so-call First-World countries, including the United States of America, United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, Germany or Russia. So, Nigerian cannot be an exception, hence this story.
The major difference between these other countries and Nigeria, however, is that things go wrong frequently and easily in Nigeria than in those other places. There are five (5) reasons responsible for this.
1. Weak And Insensitive Government/Leadership
The governments of most other countries in the world are always proactive; working round the clock to make sure that things do not go wrong in their communities. Even when things go wrong, because you can’t totally stop things from going wrong, they are always swift in reacting to such an anomaly, with a view to arresting the situation.
This is not the case in Nigeria, especially in the past four years, when our conversations have mostly been about barbarism. It is only when things go wrong in Nigeria that you’ll find the governments running helter-skelter, trying to find a solution that is almost elusive.
A case in point is the suspended or failed contraption called ‘Ruga Settlements.’ The Federal Government of Nigeria, under the leadership of President Mohammadu Buhari, wanted to force other Nigerians to provide land for the purpose of establish cattle settlements for Fulani herdsmen, but it backfired, with many Nigerians protesting on the streets of Nigeria.
Another case of government insensitivity in Nigeria is the issue of insecurity, where some criminals attack Nigerian towns and villages, abducting men, women, and school children, as well as having a field raping our women and girls.
As a result of these abnormalities, most Nigerians now sleep with one of their eyes closed and the other one opened, in case of any eventuality.
The most surprising aspect of this is that criminals who carry out such nefarious and heinous crimes sometimes also attack police stations and military formations, killing police and military officers. ‘What an irony of life,’ you may say.
Another area where you can also identify the weakness of the governments in Nigeria is in the area of managing the economy. Many things go wrong in this area, yet nothing is being done to checkmate them.
For example, there are laws that guide the running of businesses in Nigeria, but those laws are never obeyed by some companies that do business in Nigeria, neither are those offenders reprimanded.
Banks in Nigeria, for example, are in the habit of stealing from their customers in different guise, yet our government is not doing anything about it. So also, are GSM networks, who in spite of their poor services, dupe their subscribers of data and call credits. And yet, nothing is happening to them.
The day our governments stop being weak and insensitive is the day such crimes would stop. In the other way round, those crimes would never end as long as our governments remain weak and insensitive.
2. Compromised Security Agencies
One of the reasons the Nigerian government has not been able to win the war against the insurgents in Nigeria is because some soldiers in the Nigerian army work secretly for the insurgents and offer classified information of the government to them.
This is the general opinion of most Nigerians, including some security experts and other public commentators, who understand the inside workings of the military. I am tempted to believe this because I can’t understand how insurgents can attack a military formation on several occasions without being arrested or killed.
Nigeria’s chief of army staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai, has even observed and commented about it. Recent headlines on some print and electronic media, including Sahara Reporters and Premium Times Websites, entitled: “Nigerian Army Chief Buratai Blames Troops For Fresh Boko Haram Attacks” and “Again, Buratai blames Nigerian soldiers for unending Boko Haram war” respectively, can attest to this fact.
The same thing happens on the side of the police. When things go wrong in Nigeria, say, burglary or armed robbery and the criminals are caught, Nigerians prefer to take laws in their hands by killing and setting such burglars and robbers ablaze.
Do you know why this happens every and in every parts of Nigeria?
Because they (Nigerians) believe that criminals have a way of buying their freedom at police stations. Simply put, they believe that any criminal handed over to the police is sure to go free, provided he or she has some money to grease the palms of the police.
This explains why most Nigerians no longer have confidence in their police, nor free to assist the police in doing their work by offering them tips and useful information about crimes and criminals. Ordinary Nigerians feel that criminals have a way of knowing who reported them to the police, by offering some money to the police.
If our police, like our soldiers, are not compromised, why should a criminal know the identity of people who reported him to the police? And why should some police informants lose their lives in the hands of criminals, whom they reported to the police?
As a result of this ugly development, many Nigerians prefer to watch things go wrong than to report or inform the police about them. In other words, things would continue to go wrong with ease in Nigeria until the Nigeria police decide to regain the confidence of the Nigerian people they are paid to protect.
The second and concluding part of this story, 5 Major Reasons Things Go Wrong Frequently And Easily In Nigeria – Part 1, will be published on this blog in two days’ time.
…to be continued
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