Hate me enough to give me equity, justice, and the rule of law, and you can be certain that I would respect the law enough to give you security…
I have been in a funk for a few days, and I have made efforts to keep my own counsel, largely intent on making sense of the multiple insanities that I live with as a Nigerian living in Lagos Nigeria, whilst at the same time striving to retain enough insanity to function in an increasingly maddening place. That was until I caught reports of the sultan’s love message in a land defined by hatred.
“Lack of love responsible for insecurity in Nigeria” seriously?
The complete and total absence of equity and justice, aligned to the vaporization of the rule of law, are directly responsible for the lack of security in Nigeria sire. Love has nothing to do with the damage that feudalistic nepotism and impunity have done to our entire governance systems, and making St’ Valentine the President of Nigeria, will not repair the damage either.
RULERS are required to love their subjects, and this I am sure is the sense in which the Sultan must have presumed to speak. If I live in a palace painted in the colors of the country over which I exercise feudal hegemony, the foundation of which lies in the subjugation of the citizens, who I have steadily reduced to subjects, through the instrumentality of the impunity that reigns in place of LAW, I would be careful to demand that we love ourselves, instead of demanding the establishment of the rule of law, and the equity, justice, and ultimately, security, that flows with these.
As the Fulani hordes have marauded throughout the Nigerian state, from the Benue troughs to the Mambilla and the Jos Plateaus, how many times have the sultan’s voice been heard, preaching peace? As the Fulani took over the rainforest and savanna of the Yoruba peoples, what sayeth the Sultan? As the Igbo peoples have been brutally marginalized and killed, how much love did he share? As the Nigerian state has been unilaterally restructured away from the agreed federation into the Frankenstein engendering the countrywide state of insecurity, and as the disenfranchised, disadvantaged, disinherited, and malcontents, have groaned under the yoke of feudal impunity, where was the Sultan?
As Gumi was busy speaking in incendiary terms and talking down on everyone on behalf of the Fulani terrorists, what did the Sultan of love have to say? As Baba Ahmed the Mauritanian presumed to delineate the boundaries of power in Nigeria, where was the Sultan? The midget of Kaduna just told everyone that as far as the North is concerned, the current injustice known as the Nigerian federation is a fait accompli, but the Sultan’s prescription in the face of grueling inequities, injustice, and blatant impunity, is to love ourselves?
Oga Sultan, I don’t need to be loved. I need to be treated equitably, I want justice, I ask that the law should rule, and I warrant, that if these ideals are pursued and established, love would flower in the garden of love that would have been planted. If you doubt my fanciful prescription, take a trip to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan. The campus of the institute is built on ORDER. Let’s call that the law. The result is that they have built a paradise in the middle of the hell that we have built with love. Shame on us I’d say, but I am painfully familiar with our pathetic lack of shame.
Hate me enough to give me equity, justice, and the rule of law, and you can be certain that I would respect the law enough to give you security to enjoy your own life. The peace of the tree, is the peace of the birds that dwell on it.
I love you too.
DF
