‘In my country…’ – A lament by Cheta Nwanze

by Stanley Azuakola

This evening, a public affairs commentator Cheta Nwanze @chxta, penned some of the most touching lines written yet about our sorry state in Nigeria on twitter. He touched virtually everything in a series of tweets that lasted over an hour. These tweets would rend your heart.

 

– To start the week, 20-50 students were slaughtered like chickens in #Mubi. Now to close it, three guys have been victims of #JungleJustice

– It is easy to dismiss this #JungleJustice as frustration and anger. THEN WHY THE HELL DO THEY NEVER DIRECT IT AT THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE?

– Is there anybody who can now dare to even think that the average Nigerian does not need his own gun for personal security?

– Aluu in Ikwere LGA of Rivers State, the blood of those boys is on your hands.

– In my country if you steal NGN84billion, you will be entitled to a two year holiday and a Presidential reception upon release. #BodeGeorge

– In my country, if you rob a state blind for eight years, you can get a court moved to where you want and wipe out 179 counts. #JamesIbori

– In my country, if you escape from justice dressed as a woman, the entire community will come out to welcome you as a hero. #DSPAlams

– In my country, if you pillage your state for eight years, you can get a perpetual court injunction preventing prosecution #PeterOdili

– In my country, you can fuck your hometown up for eight years then get fined a paltry NGN3.5million #LuckyIgbinedion

– In my country, you can as CSO of a state deny that a girl was brutally raped in your domain, and nothing gets done. #TheodoreOrji

– In my country you can appoint your son as a Special Adviser while your state is on fire. #JonahJang

– In my country, people can get killed like chickens in a school in your state and you don’t need to go and see the scene. #MurtalaNyako

– In my country, a court can give an order for you to reinstate LGA chairmen and you can ignore it with no consequence #RochasOkorocha

– In my country, you can ask for a state of emergency to be lifted from a war zone, and it will be lifted. #IbrahimGeidam

– In my country, hundreds of children can die from lead poisoning, and you will not even bat an eyelid #AbubakarYari

– In my country, you can claim that your state is working, but when it pisses a little rain, the whole place grinds to a halt #TundeFashola

– In my country, girls can get shot in front of banks and their families will be left to grieve on their own, the killers get away #PeterObi

– In my country, Commissioners can get kidnapped, come on, a member of your own freaking cabinet!!! #EmmaUduaghan

– In my country, banks close in the day time because robbers have free reign on the streets #SegunMimiko

– In my country, projects that would have brought prosperity to your state are left to rot because “na the last man do am” #LiyelImoke

– In my country, your state can be swept away by floods, but it’s alright, after all, you are on dry land. #IdrisWada

– In my country, a whole community can turn out to burn three young men, just on the SUSPICION of robbery #RotimiAmaechi

– For anyone who was under any under illusion, this week is enough proof that God does not live in #Nigeria. The Devil owns this land.

There was a country…

– As things stand, people who have raped our country have been left scot-free. So where are the lessons for our kids to learn?

– Our national motto says “Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress”. I make bold to say that we have not one of the four in our country.

– Too many people see themselves as Igbo, before Nigerian. As Hausa before Nigerian. As Yoruba before Nigerian. As “Minority” before Nigerian.

– Heck, our cowardly President said of a bunch of insurgents, “They are my people.” He made that statement on October 2, 2010, after a bombing.

There you go, there is no unity.

– Our President’s wife is ill. She’s in hospital in #Germany. Our Minister of Petroleum needed to remove her appendix, she went to #UK

– Our Senate President needed treatment, he went to #Isreal. Not one of them has kids that are entirely Nigerian schooled.

– To be fair to them, I had to finish my own schooling outside of Nigeria because of a lack of faith in the system.

– That explains the “faith” part of our motto, there is none.

– In our country, there has been a low intensity conflict in one section or the other since the first mass killings of Igbos in 1954.

– EVERY single year has seen a large group of people killed somewhere with nothing done to bring the perps to book.

– The Nigerian police kill more people per annum than any of the insurgent groups in the country.

– As Abagana, Maisatine, Asaba, Odi, will tell you, the Nigerian Army is an equal opportunity brutaliser.

– We have had a low intensity conflict in the Niger Delta since 2003, and it has by no means ended.

– We have had a low intensity conflict in our North-East quadrant, and it has begun to intensify.

– These and a lot of others take care of the “Peace” part of our motto. There is no peace.

– This year, 39% of our students passed their SSCE exams. The best results in six years.

– Our own National Bureau of Statistics only last week told us that 67 million young Nigerians are unemployed. That’s 40% of all Nigerians.

– The NBS stats do not include older Nigerians, so it is safe to assume that as a base, Nigeria’s unemployment rate is above 40%.

– Only yesterday, our Minister of State for Education said that there are 40 million illiterate Nigerians. That is more than 20% of population

– Can someone please say what to do with 40 million illiterates? I like to think that I am intelligent and have ideas, but frankly, I’m lost

– At the beginning of this week, between 20 and 50 students were killed. What has become obvious is that it was a Student Union thing

– Killing over the leadership of a school? These are our future leaders?

– To be honest, I can pull a lot more of these stats out of my arse, I have PLENTY of them. But I guess these few take care of the “Progress”

– Forget whatever our President said on October 1, WE ARE NOT MAKING PROGRESS, we are retrogressing.

– When you stand still, the rest of the world moves forward, and because of errors due to parallax, you regress.

– In our own case, we are not regressing based on errors of parallax, WE ARE RUNNING BACKWARDS.

– Today, a mob killed some young men based on a mere suspicion of theft. And some IDIOTS recorded cold-blooded murder on their mobiles in 2012

– That incident alone shows that the mentality is still very much stuck in 1429.

– For #Nigeria, “Unity and faith, peace and progress” is a waste of our time.

– We live in a country where military chiefs were appointed, and the first question in most of the papers was about their states. NO UNITY.

– We live in a country where the leadership travel abroad for treatment when they have cramps. There is no FAITH.

– We live in a country where there has been a low intensity conflict for over a decade now. There is no peace.

– We live in a country that has an unemployment rate of at least 40% and where at least 20% of the population can’t read or write. No progress

– We live in a country where our law is not fair. Our courts are a bazaar available to the highest bidder.

– We live in a country where footballers call God 12 times in 20 seconds, but lie about their ages.

– We live in a country that killed its attorney-general, and the killers have not been caught. A DECADE LATER.

– We MUST tell ourselves the truth. We MUST. Nigeria needs a complete overhaul, and that price must be paid in blood. Nigeria needs JUSTICE.

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