By Sule Lamido
Our Northern Governors as concerned leaders traveled all the way to the United States of America to attend a lecture at the American Institute for Peace titled ADVANCING STABLITY IN NORTHERN NIGERIA as to find a lasting solution to the intractable problems of insecurity bedeveling their respective states. Their concern commendable as it were, ended up exposing their ignorance at understanding the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria the very instrument which gave them the legitimacy and the authority to be Governors!
If the Governors had traveled to the US to engage on how to boost agriculture or health issues or any other pressing local problems listed on the Concurrent List of our Constitution this could be quite understandable! But to engage on issues which are on the Exclusive Legislative List such as Security says a lot of the substance they are made of.
Security is a very wide subject which their Excellencies must have capacity to grasp. Most urban towns in their State lacks portable drinking water, refuse dumps have taken over some streets; all these have precipitous Security health hazards. Our children attend primary schools under the trees and where there are built classes, they take their lessons sitting on the floor, yet the Security implications of this can not be discerned by their Excellencies. Deliberate and harshly induced poverty by unplanned government policies have made citizens lose their esteem, honor and self worth by lining up scrambling to collect palliative from patronizing and condescending leaders yet the Insecurity of this is of no worry or concern to them. You have Governors with no human empathy or respect for dignity or decency in an open show of shame throwing money like confetti from an open Jeep and people scrambling to pick it like the Governor of Niger State. Yet they fail to see the security implications of all these!
If the Governors were serious and wanted to have a lecture on security, they needed not have embarked on such a wasteful journey with the accompanying expenditure of flight tickets, hotels with all their aides and above all the valuable time wasted at the expense of running their States. Certainly they could have gotten more than they wanted from our resourceful institutions such as NIPSS in Kuru Jos or ASCON in Badagry or even NIA! These three Institutions have more than enough materials, essays and templates on the problems on Security in Nigeria more than the far fetched American Institute.
But I blame the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the NIA for failing to properly guide the Governors for this folly. The Governors could not have traveled without the facilitation of the Ministry or our Embassy in Washington. Nigeria and Nigerians now carry the image of “advancing our shame and embarrassment beyond our frontiers” caused by their Excellencies!
One is inclined to believe Rufai Oseni of Arise TV when he recently said ‘ Nigerian madness has no bound or limits’
So in Nigeria today, ones biggest challenge is how one remains sane in this insane Country!
