2020: A year of the evil quartet! - Ik Muo, PhD.

Our unpalatable lot in 2020

I want to start this end-of-year commentary with this Achebeic  verse that has gone viral in the last 2 weeks. ‘The year Okonkwo borrowed 800 yam seedlings… was the worst year in living memory. Nothing happened at its proper time. It was either too early or too late; it seemed as if the world had had gone mad!. The first rains were late and when they came, they lasted only a brief moment… when the raines finally returned, they fell as it had never fallen before…. That years harvest was sad.. and many farmers wept as they dug up the miserable and rotting yams. One man… hanged himself… Okonkwo remembered that tragic year with a cold shiver throughout the rest of his life. It always surprised him that he  did not sink under the load of despair,… that year had been enough to break the heart of a lion. Since I survived that year, he always said, I shall survive everything! (Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart)

 The year that ends today, that is Year 2020, was a MAD  and maddening one. Everything was topsy-turvy and we were subjected to limitless orgies of weeping, wailing, mourning and gnashing of teeth. This was caused by an unfavourable combination of wicked circumstances , which  fed us with water of affliction and bread of adversity. These circumstances which bestrode the year 2020 are what I have christened the evil quartet! It was a troika before but as the year was on its departure lounge, another of their ‘comrade’ stood up to be counted and thus made it quartet; the quartet of evil, composed of Oga-Coro, Insecurity, Riots and Recession! These are the reasons why, according to Father( Bishop) Kukah, our country drifts rudderless, we seem like people travelling without maps, without destination and with neither captain nor crew! What a picture!

Late 2020, an unknown, unseen but vicious enemy  sneaked into the world like a thief in the night. Since then, it has overshadowed everything else in the world, forced us into a new-normal, continues to reinvigorate itself in new waves and ‘strains’, killed us in the millions, destroyed economies and cost trillions…in Dollars! 

 New-normal Christmas dinner!

Oga-Coro is  celebrity virus that takes delight in taming the powerful, the great, the rich and arrogant. It scrambled the most organized health systems in the world; it visited the most influential and powerful royal and Government houses in the world. The most popular celebrities were humbled and one of the greatest mysteries is that as at today, people are still wondering why the death chart in Africa  is low. Oga-Coro has also created the record of the fastest vaccine ever developed and made some businessmen richer than before, including those involved in criminal entrepreneurship. As I write, it has afflicted 19.6m,  with deaths of 339863 and vaccination of 2113308 in US alone and in Nigeria, it took of lives of 20 doctors in just one week. It has also messed up our end of year activities and festivities with another round of lock-down in the offing

 The last one month appears to be the worst as far as insecurity in Nigeria is concerned as the blood of our compatriots were recklessly spilled by blood-thirsty demons in human shapes while our security forces appeared confounded and the government regaled us with an amoury of weird excuses.

Our hardworking farmers were butchered in  Kwashebe in Maiduguri and we were more concerned with whether they were 34 or 43 or 78 or 110 . Students were abducted from Kankara and our major concern was whether they were 10 or 300 or 340 or hundreds, whether Myetti Allah were the kidnappers or the middlemen in the  rescue deal, whether ransom was paid or not and whether the FG was involved in the negotiations or not . In  Kastina  State,a village head and 7 others were killed and 13 abducted.  10 soldiers were killed by terrorists in Borno State as policemen trying to free kidnapped Indians were themselves kidnapped in Oyo State while herdsmen murdered 7 in fresh Southern Kaduna attack while  8 were killed when gunmen attacked the Emir of Kaura Namoda along the  Zaria-Funtua highway. What baffles me is that these terrorists now have multiple titles: bandits, kidnappers, herdsmen, gunmen, Bokoharam, kidnappers, cattle rustlers. So, what differentiates one group from another? And as all this was happening, the Chief of Army Staff gave us the good news that terrorism would likely persist  for another 20 years and went on  to enjoy himself with the game of golf.

 And then, we had the EndSARS protests, the organisation of which our government at  federal and state levels( the LGAs are missing in action) should learn some meaningful lessons. However, the whole peaceful and focused movement was  disorganized by unknown soldiers  hijacked by unknown arsonists and looters and we all know where we are in that regard. But who hijacked the protests? 

 

On 14/12/20, armed thugs disrupted a meeting of some northern groups discussing the security crises in the axis. Earlier on, hoodlums disrupted the electoral process in Ikorodu during the recent bye-elections, just as bandits disrupted voting in Zamfara during the same bye-elections. If you use your tongue to count your teeth, you will know the source of these unknown hijackers!

 Finally, Nigeria went into recession in the 3^rd quarter of 2020, a recession that was adjudged the worst  since 1987. Even if we did not officially join the recession parade, even the blind had seen and the deaf had heard that our economy was in distress with all the socio-economic indicators( inflation, poverty, unemployment, exchange rate, national debts and debt-service ratio, infrastructure deficit) dancing ‘Awilo’ in the negative territory

We had other challenges, including misinformation and disinformation by our public information managers as represented by Femi Adesina, Shehu Garba  and Lai Mohammed, and the widening divide between the core North and the rest of the country.

As we move into 2021 in the next couple of hours, I believe that it shall

come to pass and that we shall overcome. As Okonkwo stated in the beginning of this write-up, since we survived 2020, we shall survive EVERYTHING.

 We shall overcome

However, while it is good to be hopeful, we should not depend on hope alone, without coordinated actions. I am afraid because as at now, the only strategy our government has perfected is to borrow, borrow and borrow more. I always admit that my knowledge of economics has become rusty but when and how does borrowing from every available source ( just borrowing) become an economic strategy?

·         You are invited to my birthday party holding in the cloud tomorrow.  At least, there will be no social distancing there!

 Musings on the latest (but not the last)ASUU Akshon!

On 23/12/20, ASUU called of its 9 month old strike (23/3/20-23/12/20), the longest since ASUU was formed in 1975. As the strike is called off, I call on all stakeholders to start preparations for another strike and this is for the simple reason that this integrity-deficit government( like  others before it) will NOT keep it’s promises. It does not know the principle, and importance of, DWYSYWD( Do What You Said You Would Do!). However before then, I have two comments. First, the strike did not last 9 months. Sometimes in November, one of my students asked me ‘when are you people calling off this your strike?’ I told him that I was in school from April to September and there was NO student around and so, I joined the strike from October! You know what that means; everywhere and everything, including universities were LOCKED down during the period. ASUU strike thus became operational by the middle of October and as such, it lasted JUST 2 months. Secondly, why did the FG withhold the salaries of Federal ASUUists? (For State ASUUists, the dynamics are quite different and complex). Nobody was on duty for the 7 months and they were all paid their salaries. So, why withhold the salaries of ASUUists when  every other public servant, including NASS members and Ministerb of Labour, were paid? Why? It was and is because the government was and is fishing in troubled waters and as our people would say, ihe onye cho k’ofu (What you want is what you get!). As for the preparation for another strike, it may not be necessary if the government does what it has said it would do. So, I am watching from my observatory.  Meanwhile, the Management of Olabisi Onabanjo University deserves an award for its solidarity with the ASUUists throughout this Coro lockup and Strike induced lockdown.

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