This Is Nigeria… BY AGBA JALINGO

Yes this is Nigeria! Where the AK47 Economy is booming and enjoying criminal patronage from the high and mighty.

This is Nigeria, where individuals who have enough storage of arms can slice any section of Nigeria where they have numerical strength and colonize it with violence and sabotage, without letting or hindering. Yet, government will still compensate them with billions of Naira in appeasement.

This is Nigeria, where armed gangs and slaughter merchants who not only impede the constitutional job of the Nigerian Navy but also kill hundreds of naval personnel are compensated with billions of Naira contracts.

This is Nigeria, where collaborators and accomplices of terrorism that have claimed thousands of lives of civilians and soldiers, are the go-between in billion Naira, terror negotiations.

This is Nigeria, a country where most of those charged with treason and terrorism before law courts are people who have no record of killing anyone and those committing terrorism and treason are dining in polished oak tables.

This is Nigeria, our country where people who have money are so very sure that they will escape justice even if they commit crimes, and the poor are so sure that will be victimized even if they don’t commit any crime.

This is Nigeria, where the courts have lost their iron teeth of chastisement against the rich and powerful, but grabbed their vicious horsewhip in the plea of the weak and poor.

Yes, this is Nigeria! where the poor are in love with their chains and in bed with those who cause their poverty and in rejection of those who fight to end their poverty.

This Nigeria o, where corruption has a tribe and a religion. Where we clap for sins as far as they are committed by our tribesman or religious man and criticize sins only when they concern others.

This is Nigeria, a land of hope. Where we live on hope against all odds. Where we abdicate our roles to God and continue to live in the hope that God will fulfill our hopes.

This is Nigeria…and you can go on and on.

Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes from Lagos.

NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.