by Abimbola Adelakun

For all the ‘Third Worldism” of the South Korean ferry disaster, their handling of that tragic occurrence has earned them some measure of respect before the eyes of the world. The country is not alone. It has been months since the Malaysian flight 370 went missing, yet the country has not given up. 

The Washington Post described the South Korean ferry tragedy as one that has the “markings of a Third World disaster.” That remark might have been an unintended insult to Third Worlders but it might as well be a compliment. Neither our problems nor our collective responses are as sophisticated as what South Korea has shown the world.

For all their failings to properly manage the emergency when it happened, one cannot deny the compassion behind South Korea’s post-disaster response; it is hard not to take them seriously as a nation. The Prime Minister, Chung Hong-won, resigned over the mistakes the government made that generated public criticism. As a Nigerian, I envy that kind of moral responsibility. South Korea, unfortunately, is not Nigeria. If the ferry disaster had happened here, Chung’s apologists would ask us if it was his fault. Because, you see, a country does not attain that kind of humaneness overnight.

Chung said when he saw the pain of the grieving families and the resentment of the public towards the government, he thought he should take the responsibility as the Prime Minister. I found myself applauding the man over and over again. If there can be found just one Nigerian politician –regardless of political party – who can exhibit that level of moral conscience, Nigeria will not be a Sodom and Gomorrah case. Chung offered up himself for public crucifixion to redeem public faith in government. That singular act, trumps all the endless sermons Nigerian politicians and preachers badger us with day in day out. Funny, South Korea is not even a religious country. Half of the people are irreligious while a quarter of them are Buddhists. In Nigeria, you can barely catch a break from religiosity yet when it comes to moral responsibility, we have all excuses in the world for why we are the way we are.

The South Korean disaster generated a lot of public outrage both locally and internationally. Much of the criticism is about the country’s obsession with catching up with the rest of the world, economically and technologically, while it overlooks the human aspect of development.

In Nigeria, we are not even that lucky. We neither boast being a technologically and economically developed country (despite our “rebased” economic figures) nor are we particularly humane. If there is any doubt how very little we regard lives in this part of the world, one needs look no further than the recent Nyanya tragedy. The sight of mangled corpses piled in pick-up vans, and being driven out of the park while spectators take shots on their smartphones (to be shared with other pornographers of violence on social media) says a lot about our brand of humanity.

For all the disasters we have experienced and in the past few years especially, our country’s emergency agencies have not deemed it simply proper to invest in body bags. The dead are left exposed to the leering eyes of voyeurs, their bruised bodies unprotected and undignified both in life and in death. Let’s not make a mistake, leaving the dead bodies of victims exposed and therefore subject to ridicule is not only about the dead. It is also about the living, and how we will all be treated if and when our time comes; however death comes calling for us.

For all the ‘Third Worldism” of the South Korean ferry disaster, their handling of that tragic occurrence has earned them some measure of respect before the eyes of the world. The country is not alone. It has been months since the Malaysian flight 370 went missing, yet the country has not given up. It has invested heavily into poking the depths of the oceans, imploring her to give up their people. There are some incidents in the life of a nation that cannot be prevented but the way we respond will determine whether we are humanoids or androids.

Nigeria is where Third World disasters truly happen. Our recurrent security problems taunt the presidential conscience but they are not simply enough to embarrass him. He walked away from the ashes of Nyanya to dance “skelewu” in a political rally in Kano. Perhaps, if he cannot govern successfully, he can at least entertain.

On the matter of the schoolgirls abducted in Chibok, Borno State on April 15, you wonder why nobody has been held responsible for lying to the nation initially that almost all the girls had been rescued. Even when the parents debunked the story of the rescue operation, the authorities of the Nigerian Army still did not do the needful. If they can tell such blatant lies, who knows what is true? Some weeks ago, 18 supposed Boko Haram members were killed in SSS detention and that chapter was almost immediately closed. The official story was that detainees overpowered a supposedly trained officer, took his gun and as a result, 18 people had to be taken down. If that is not an outright lie, the SSS simply announced its own incompetence.

Until Boko Haram graduated to abduction, we have been assaulted with watery promises of “We will catch them and bring them to face justice” even when nobody has ever quite faced the law. If the Chibok case had not been abduction, President Goodluck Jonathan would simply have made another speech and moved on. We would all have moved on with him like we do after all disasters.

We moved on from the fuel subsidy probe; we have moved on from the Lamido Sanusi debacle and the $20bn that remains “unaccounted for”; we moved on after the Nigeria Immigration Service recruitment tragedy and Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, is still sitting tight on his job after presiding over the deaths; we moved on when students were killed by Boko Haram in the hostels in Yobe State; we moved on when Boko Haram raided villages and markets; we moved on when they attacked candidates who were on their way to sit for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination; We moved on when Fulani herdsmen attacked villages in Benue and Plateau states and killed relentlessly.

We always seem in a hurry to move on, as if we cannot wait for the next disaster. The Chibok abduction has, however, remained topical because the victims are schoolgirls and were taken alive. Who knows, maybe even Boko Haram is bidding its time, waiting for us to find something else to occupy our attention and leave the girls to their fate. That, after all, is the way of the Third World.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.