The primary obligations of any government that taxes and collects same from its citizens have little to do with love for citizens and everything to do with justice and security for citizens. Justice and security are inalienable rights of all tax-paying citizens of any country. Sadly, insecurity and injustice in Nigeria are out of the ordinary in terms of the prevailing and unmitigated ordeal of the masses of her citizens. Laws that are enacted and in place seem to be binding only on the common folks, but flouted with impunity and alacrity by the very class of people who make them. I have always wondered and ruminated on the cause or causes and motives undergirding this level of irresponsibility and malfeasance. And invariably, the phrase ‘privatization of government’ lingers on my mind.
The privatization of government by ruthless individuals operating incognito as leaders appear to explain the silence on the pervasive and insufferable hardship, destitution, squalor, and hopelessness the masses face in Nigeria today. It’s obvious to any discerning mind that the ‘chief executive officers’ running this privatized government of Nigeria are insensitive to the harrowing ordeal they are consciously inflicting on the citizens of this British cut-and-pasted monstrous geopolitical entity called Nigeria.
They live in ostentatious opulence and conspicuous consumption, as though they are saying to the masses that there is hardly anything they can do about it. While the masses are facing this socioeconomic servitude, the Igbo, who are mostly Christians, are being maltreated and killed without hesitation in an environment orchestrated by tribal hatred and bigotry of the oligarchs of the other rival and jealous tribes in the country. What I find difficult to swallow is that the avowed enemies of the Igbo are enlisting the services of prominent Igbo individuals and leaders to kill Igbo young people and to depopulate the Igbo, making it easy to conquer and subdue the Igbo nation eventually. God forbid anything that sinister from happening to His people!
These Igbo saboteurs and traitors are too deluded to realize that they will not be spared if there are no more young men left to defend them when the same enemies of the Igbo turn against them. To illustrate, I will paraphrase Reverend Martin Niemoller, a German theologian and Lutheran pastor during the Nazi regime in the late 1930s, to emphasize the need to be one’s brother and sister’s keeper thus: They came for the Abia Igbo…but I did not speak up because I wasn’t Abia Igbo. Then they came for the Anambra Igbo…but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Anambra Igbo. Then they came for the Ebonyi Igbo…but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Ebonyi Igbo. Then they came for the Enugu Igbo…but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Enugu Igbo. Then they came for the Imo Igbo…but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Imo Igbo. Then they came for the Igbo sellouts and traitors…and by that time…there was no one left to speak up for them. They were also taken away for execution because they were also Igbo.
It simply boggles the mind that these Igbo indigenes I once thought were the repository of integrity and impeccable character could gullibly believe that stealthy tribal, Igbo-hating oligarchs would support them for the presidency of Nigeria in the future. Dream on! Keep on bashing your brother Mr. Peter Obi, the most qualified individual to be president Nigeria has seen in a long time, as a mark of loyalty to your overlords. It has been aptly said that the first sign of stupidity is inheriting other people’s enemies as a sign of loyalty.
I pray and believe that Mr. Peter Obi will become the President of Nigeria sooner or later. Those I thought were frogs turned out to be toads (Onye akpolu awo obulu mbala). Anger at lies lasts forever, but anger at truth can’t last. Besides, if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything. A liar must keep track of his or her lies, lest they contradict and expose themselves. As Nobel laureate Ellie Wiesel said before me, there may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. Enough said for now!
Dr. Akubue writes from Minnesota.
September 20, 2025
