It's good to buy guns. It's not wrong to shoot it. If you own a house, you reserve the right to protect it. A man who cannot provide for his house is worse than an infidel, so says the Bible. A man who cannot protect his home is a mumu, so says me. But a man who leaves his doors ajar all night is also an idiot. He is the man the Igbo had in mind when they came up with the adage: a man who brings home ant-infested firewood wants to host a party for chickens. He is the man the Yoruba have in mind when they say: an elder who ties corns around his waist must be ready to play comedian at the chickens' party.
Those elders who have ruled this country over the years are the elders who left our doors wide open all night. They left snakes on the roof of our family house and went to bed, foolishly thinking that the snake would stay on the roof. But the snake soon found out that it is warmer inside than on the cold roof. It found out that it can curl more comfortably under the owner of the house's pillow and around the legs of the children, so it came in. Don't forget that the snake is a cold-blooded animal who is always seeking a warm place. What better place then to find it than among the wrappers of the landlord?
Every pregnancy has gestation period, even that of rats. A hen must sit on her eggs for 21 days before she can hatch them. She still must keep them warm for another day or two before presenting the new addition to her family to her owner. Lesson? Every good thing needs effort. Every home needs protection. Every baby needs the mother to provide the warmth and assurance that makes life worth living. Do we not see how the mother hen alert her chicks, takes them quickly under her wings when the hawk comes hovering? The hen is a small bird, but it can sense or see a hawk still in the sky, long before it gets close to her precious chicks.
Should we compare our leaders to mother hens? Have they protected their chicks in their vulnerable years or let them wander into the waiting sharp beaks of the hungry hawk? Is it the fault of the snake that it is looking for a warmer place, more comfort than the roof of a house can provide? If the owner of the house forgot that a snake takes its bag of venom everywhere it goes, why should the snake advertise it while looking for a bed to hide under? And if one of the children steps on its tail, should it not bite? After all, this snake is not as foolish as the house owner. It knows his powers, never forgets to draw on them and does not allow little children to ride roughshod over it.
I hope by now you understand who the house owners have been over the years in your neighbourhood and the snakes that are on all the 36 roofs in our family compound. Sorry, some of the snakes have already found their ways into the beds and bedrooms of some houses, but I assure you there is no single house that is safe in this compound. The snakes that are not yet in are wisely reading the map and their venom bags are growing by the day.
We've got terrorists, kidnappers, cyber criminals, ritual murderers and even baby-making factories all over the place. They are some of the snakes our past leaders (no heroes, those ones), left to sun their blood on the roof during the day. Now, night has fallen and the snakes want in.
It is easy to put all the blame on President Jonathan, but he wasn't the head of the family when the snake first arrived. He wasn't the one who let the snake feel welcome. He is just the current landlord, the one who ended up with the short end of the stick. That is why we are hitting him with clubs, cudgels and everything we can lay our hands on. But if we are going to be true to ourselves, when we are not looking for a scapegoat, we must admit that this terror problem did not arrive today. These snakes have been here for decades. They came as little snakes that a broom could have killed. Now that they have grown into boa constrictors and rattle snakes daring us, we are all running up and down like headless chicken, uncoordinated.
With the size of the army of unemployed youths we have in all the states of the federation, the snakes are already in, let us not play ostrich. Terrorists are handing them bombs and guns because we did not hand them jobs. Our wives, children and fathers are being killed in their dozens and hundreds, right before our very eyes. The devil is presiding over the decimation of our family compound. Satan is smiling and handing over vodka and cognac bottles to his aides. He is happy, very happy. Demons on assignment to our national home are swigging champagne straight from the bottles, celebrating our pains and sorrows. And what are we doing to stop the evil party? We are speaking English (dogon turenchi), blaming everybody but ourselves. We are organising seminars and workshops on security both locally and internationally. We want Europeans to teach us how to lock our doors. We want Americans to teach us how to make amala and tuwo shinkafa. We are generally sitting on our hands, believing that if we throw enough 'grammar' at our terrorism troubles, it will go away.
Unfortunately, the devil did better than that. He increased the salaries and emoluments of his demons and now everywhere is on fire. Yes, most of the snakes will die, but they will take a chunk of our homestead with them. Isn't that what is going on largely in the North?
I agree, a President's got to do what a President must do, but this is a fight to protect what is ours. We have no other country. I cannot imagine going to be shopkeeper in London or washing toilets in America. That is what will happen if we don't all face up to the realities already staring us in the face. What do we do after the emergency rule? The devil has armed our youths with guns and bombs, what are we going to use to replace those things when we take them away? We need to reconvert our children, return the bombers to the path of national truth and pure values of our real heroes past. Talkshops, committees and white papers won't do nada. This is serious business and we must face it frontally because our lives, our tomorrow, our children's future depend on it.
Mass employment is what I propose.
Let's start with what I call the Grains Brigade. How many times have I repeated the need for federal farms in this country? Someone said there is no federal land and I say BS. How come this same Federal Government is now all over the place hunting humans in games reserve? Who owns all those hundreds of hectares that stretch between one town and the next on our highways? Okay, let's assume they belong to the states, can't we just start mass grains farms, planting millet, maize, beans, rice, guinea corn, all over the country. Oh, and let no thief start thinking of importing heavy duty equipment. No sir. We want to start tomorrow. We have enough people to start. All we need are the basics: hoes, cutlasses, hats and little farm houses where the Brigade can stop to have lunch, drink water and rest their backs in-between work. They can work shifts. The unemployed women will prepare the lunch, serve it and return home. If we have that in every local government in the country, do you want to put a figure to how many people we will employ? Imagine the number of able-bodied men that would go home tired, too tired to listen to the proposal of suicide-bomber-recruiting terrorists? Now, let's compare how much Nigeria has spent on 'security' and how much we will spend on 'small small' salaries for members of the Grains Brigade. Think of how much Nigeria loses every time a soldier is killed. How many members of this brigade can you pay from the death benefits of 121 policemen? How much does a bullet proof vest cost? How many N20,000 make one AK-47?
When are we going to stop expending energy on foreign investors who will not come, anyway, because our house is full of snakes?
To be continued...
Via: Sun News Online