Abaribe; Still, Na you BIKO!... and Parental Wickedness - Ik Muo, PhD.

Our people say that whoever wants to hammer  the nail should hit it directly at its head and that was what DISTINGUISHED Senator Abaribe did. He hit the matter of insecurity at the head when he  uploaded our national  security crises onto the head of the leader, asking him to take  FULL responsibility for the  collapse of the lopsided  and parochially-aligned security architecture. Of course, any structure that is not balanced will  collapse or at best, be dancing in a ‘kurukere’manner . As a refresher for us all, a leader should circulate among the people, build strong alliances, persuade rather than coerce, possess integrity, never act out of vengeance, have courage to manage unjust criticism, … be decisive, lead by being led, be goal-oriented, encourage innovation, master the art of public speaking, influence through conversation and continually preach a vision (Phillips,D.T; Lincoln On  Leadership: Executive Strategies For Tough Times) while the most effective  leaders possess ‘an idiosyncratic balance of attributes appropriate for the situations they face and the range of abilities … must be sought across a team rather than in a single individual-(John Kay, ‘A Need For Balance Rather Than Brilliance’ Financial Times, 16/2/05).

However the import of what Abaribe said dwelt more on  how he said what he said. He  exhibited the  unblemished 5Cs in his Guinness Book of Records speech: Courage, Compassion, Conviction, Candour and Confidence. He shot direct,  focused on the matter at hand,  argued logically with appropriate  gesticulations, and without unnecessary diplomatese and kowtowing; he spoke without fear or favour.  Indeed, the Nigerian Institute of Public Speaking should make him their patron. Abaribe is also proudly Igbo and as he proclaimed in a recent interview, the  onye-Igbo does not bow to anybody except his chi. His speech was so POWERFUL that it changed the direction and tempo of the security discourse.

We can only appreciate the quality of his intervention( content and delivery) when we compare it with CLUELESS responses that followed. The Senate President, who  raised this mater by admitting that our centralized security architecture had collapsed, missed a golden opportunity to highlight what the President and APC had done on security. He rather warned Abaribe  to refrain from hate-speech .  I pardoned him because he spoke impromptu. However I expected much from the presidential spokesman, since he had enough time to research on the matter and present a credible defense against the lethal verbal  missile from Abaribe.  Unfortunately, Garba Shehu spoke off tangent, and resorted to ‘igha-aja’( throwing sands, like a weak street fighter ) rather than punches ,describing Abaribe as  an  ‘armchair critic, known for making stray comments, who unlocked the door to enable the escape of traitorous and treasonable suspects’ ; who should have been behind bars. Umunnem, how does this address the  issues of the moment?  What has this got to do with a failed security system? By the way, what actually is the role of presidential spokespersons? To insult or unleash toxic verbiage  on people with contrary spirits or to market the president, his ideas and activities to the people?

In addition to the House of Reps,  which called for the resignation or firing of the service chiefs, other security related developments  have occurred since then.  A ‘Coalition of  Concerned Northern Group’ had formed their own security outfit, “Shege Ka Fasa’, which was roundly condemned by the defacto and dejure powers up north while the South East, which formed a Zonal Security Committee in 2019, tidied up the plan to create their own regional force.  The leadership of NASS met the president, where they discussed everything that matters as far as the issue of security of this country is concerned’ and expressed serious concern over national security challenges’. The National Forum of APC Local Government Chairmen  also uncovered some ‘clandestine plot by the opposition PDP to remove President Muhammadu Buhari from office through the National Assembly. They have surely performed better than the DSS in intelligence gathering!

There was a national protest against insecurity by leadership and membership of CAN, surprisingly including  the GO,Pastor Adeboye.

Bokoharam just attacked Nigerian troops in Borno;  where they also murdered  30 of our compatriots and abducted others while the Northern Elders Forum passed a vote of no confidence on the President for poor security management.

If you are interested, read up the  strategic response by the presidency!  There are also plans to apply for guns( Dane guns? AK47?) for the Amotekun warriors.  However, there  are also some positive developments as the Conference of Civil Society Organisations for Peace, Security and National Development,  staged a peaceful rally in Abuja, applauding the role played by the Service Chiefs in the ongoing war against insurgency in the country. The President himself had also declared that he had fulfilled his promise to end book haram and that the successes on the BH front has restored Nigeria’s pride.

Meanwhile, the social media has made it easy for us to recall  the past. In 2015, GMB boasted that he had all that it took to ‘finish’ Boko Haram and earlier on( 2013), he had asked Jonathan  to vacate and give way to competent hand to govern the country because he had failed to handle the security challenge; he  was then, also not happy that members of the sect were being killed. I  have just been led by the SPIRIT to remember our  President’s outing at Chattam House in 2016, which was published in the globally acclaimed Wall Street Journal.  He had declared that Nigeria was at crossroads after a the boom  that fostered epidemics of corruption and inefficiency and then, without prompting, he itemized three imperatives  for national rejuvenation as restoration of thrust, balancing our economy and regenerating growth. He promised to, in the next three years(2016- 2019), build an economic bridge to Nigeria’s future  and bring lasting peace and prosperity.  Well, this is 2020 and  here we are.  As Bishop Kukah said at the burial of Michael Nnadi, the murdered Seminarian  at Kaduna on  11/2/2020  ‘Today, our years of hypocrisy, duplicity, fabricated integrity, false piety, empty morality, fraud and pharessesm have caught up with us’. By the way, is it true that our President is worried ( to the point of sleeplessness as some media people put it)over the worsening security and humanitarian crises  in Libya? Is it true?

Our people say that  the  war songs  and of boasting  people do  when they are going for war is quite different from the way they boast when they are returning, because a dose of realism must have moderated  the earlier shallow optimisim. That must have been why Abaribe declared that those who  live by propaganda shall die by propaganda. Eric Hoffer posits that Propaganda does not deceive people; it helps them to deceive themselves!  So we are to blame because we have allowed ourselves to be deceived! Hitler also said that ‘By skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell and a very wretched life as paradise-’. However, that was there and then, not here and now.

Abaribe also wondered when  Nigerias would stone the APCians as Momoh had asked us to do if they failed  by 2017. It is now 2020  and this government has performed glaringly from behind. However, Nigerians will not stone APCians or any other government for that matter. At least, not now. We love life too much to dare. When our people say ‘na you biko’, they mean ‘up you’ or as they say yonder ‘you are the man’. Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, Na You Biko; after you, na you!!! Keep on firing! 
Other matters: Worrisome Parental Wickedness

The first  divine directive given to us was to ‘increase and multiply’( Genesis,1:28)  and  this is probably the only instruction from God that we are EAGER to  obey. Some of us even do that with reckless abandon, manufacturing human beings that we cannot cater for… as if  child-bearing is running out of fashion!. I am not referring to the man  who runs a human factory( 4 wives, 27 children and still counting, and who gave an update that his father had 40 children at 86!). I believe he can take care of them and more so now that he has access to the limitless and sinful  NASS ‘allawees’.  The problem is that some people who can  barely take care of a wife and 1  kid are competing with him. That is by the way. My concern today is the acts of unimaginable wickedness, the types that cry to heaven for vengeance( genesis,4:10), which people who call themselves parents inflict on their children. Failure to take reasonable care of our children is an act of wickedness,  worse so when we can afford it. But to go beyond this to inflict bodily, psychological and mental torture to children, whom we willingly manufactured or even those to whom we act in loco parentis is BAAAD.

The world  was shocked in 2016, when a so called Pastor, Francis Taiwo chained his 9 year old son, Korede,  for months for being possessed. 

I actually believe up to this moment that the pastor himself was the  possessed one. But since then, worse things have happened. Just the other day, Taofeek and Romoke Olawale ( from Ede, Osun State) tied their 10 year old daughter to a ceiling and burnt her private part for  allegedly stealing N3000! How can the human mind invent this kind of torture and for a daughter?

But this may be better than the cases of Shukurat Olufowobi who beat her 5 year old step-son to death and another unnamed woman who beat her stepdaughter to death at Port Harcourt.

Or the case of Hauwa Sanni who murdered and buried her new born baby in a shadow grave, the woman who burnt her sons hands for  allegedly stealing  and Zainab Suleman of Akure, who drew a map of the Sambisa Forest on her daughters back with her nails, and who could not ‘recollect exactly what she did wrong’

How can one explain this? Is this a part of the terror epidemic that somebody has just written about, which made him doubt that we are still made in the image of God? Is this the sign of the end-times? Can these people do these horrible things if they had suffered for 10 years before birthing these children?  Is it that they are too immature to have children or that they have mental illnesses or is this plain wickedness? What has gone wrong?

Probably, this advice came late for these evil parents, but it is useful for others still planning to go into parenthood and even those already in it: If you are considering having children, it is vitally important that you are emotionally, financially and spiritually ready for the job, becoming a parent means taking on the immense task of being responsible for another human being… for the rest of your life. You cant exchange them or return them or divorce them when things don’t go well. It is a lifetime commitment and you must accept this reality without pretending otherwise… one wrong decision on your part  can sentence the family to a life time of heartbreak-  Are you really ready for Children The Word For Today,15/1/2020. I rest my case.

Ik Muo, PhD. Department of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye 08033026625


To read Part 1, Click Here Abaribe; Na you BIKO!... and Between Proletarian Solidarity & Criminality - Ik Muo, PhD.

Also read Nigeria & love for Chinese Debts; Love is blind! And…The AMOTEKUN Affair! - Ik Muo, Phd. 

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