One of the major topics we teach at our youth mentorship workshop is the importance of having short term and long term goals in life. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to convince our youths to have meaningful short term and long term goals when they could clearly see that the long term and short term goals of their “respectable leaders” seem to be nothing but loot the state treasury, and trample upon the masses. A moment’s reflection of what has been going on in Nigeria conjures up images of Nigerian corporate and political seat of power littered with the blood of its innocent citizens, hapless victims of corruption, who are dying needless deaths daily.
I would like to announce to all our officially acknowledged rogues in government that they’ve got blood in their hands including the blood of those helpless Nigerians, citizens of oil – rich country, who were among thousands of economic migrants that perished in the Mediterranean while fleeing poverty. The blood of that young woman who died during child birth in a government hospital because there was no doctor to perform a caesarean section on her or no qualified nurse to administer intravenously much-needed blood pressure treatment is in your hands. I know that most of you have no respect for human life and are always sacrificing fresh human heads in order to win elections but let me remind you that what you are using to buy gold, jeeps, private jets, and expensive perishables is the blood of that senior citizen who went into the bush and strangled himself because you denied him his pension and he could no longer feed his family. You turned him into a slave in the hands of his rich neighbour who employed him as a security man and still denied him enough wages to pay his children’s school fees.
On your hands and also on the hands of your generations unborn is the blood of that young girl that called me at midnight because she had been bleeding for two weeks and had no money for proper medical care when she committed abortion because her college sweetheart who had vowed to marry her could not afford the bride price or even the court wedding due to a six – year old unemployment saga in spite of a very expensive University degree. At the expense of being abused by your paid faceless bloggers, ignorant victims of corruption, let me remind you bloody Governors, public office holders, politicians and rogue contractors, that you also have in your hands the blood of those Nigerian drug couriers killed so far in Indonesia and Thailand because you robbed them of a means of livelihood and left them in a state of desperation that made them swear like Biblical Esther “if I perish I perish”. Or do you think you are better than them? You sit atop looted funds judging them meanwhile your own judgement awaits you sooner than you think. You will never have peace because the Bible says there is no peace unto the wicked, and also says in Proverbs 6 verse 16 “six things the Lord hates, seven are an abomination to him; a lying tongue, an arrogant look, hands that shed innocent blood…etc.
It’s scandalous that Pastors who should call you all to order are busy laying hands on you for filthy lucre but it is because as the Lord says in Jeremiah 23 verse 21 to 22 that “I did not send these prophets yet they have run with their own message. I did not speak to them yet they have prophesied. But if they stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds.” You are all responsible for the premature death of that teenage girl who drank poison because her rich uncle had been abusing her sexually; her primary school teacher was also using her as a sex slave and her auntie, who is her guardian, uses her as a punching bag all because her widowed mother could not afford her upkeep due to no welfare package from the government.
The Leviathan in Nigerian democracy which Buhari’s government must eliminate on assumption of office is this culture of unearned money in personal bank vaults. Unearned money makes human beings lose their minds and play God. It makes them party all day long refusing to spare a thought for the poor masses. It makes them unteachable, adulterous and unavailable for serious official duties. When Femi Fani Kayode wrote that President Jonathan’s love for strange women and false prophets knew no bounds I knew he was actually painting a clear picture of what had become the career of Nigeria’s public office holders. Men and women entrusted with the sacred duty of governance had lost all sense of decency and morality. Their main goal is to divert money meant for equipping schools, paying salaries, providing free medicals, jobs for youths and maintaining roads,, and then use it to sleep with the prostitute next door, sorry the latest beauty queen on the block. They have no clue what their responsibilities are hence they desecrate the stool of office and rubbish the mantle of stewardship. In China these rogues in public office would be publicly executed by firing squad because they are worse than armed robbers and drug pushers put together. Yes that’s quite animistic but isn’t China Nigeria’s favourite trade partner now? What China is doing is a way of showing how insidious this celebrated criminal act in Nigeria is.
20 billion dollars, how on earth did this money get missing? All Buhari needs to do on assumption of office is set up anti-corruption tribunals, handcuff the looters and ask them; “our money or 10 years in KiriKiri?” The same armed state security officials they used to protect themselves and their families while looting our funds would be used to hand cuff and bundle them into Black Marias. If the British government could jail Ibori, even after he returned the loot in question, why can’t Buhari’s government jail Ibori’s colleagues in crime? The search light must include Governors and ex – Governors who looted state treasury and stashed them away in foreign accounts, who also established their own personal media outfits with our money while shutting down the state-owned ones, as well as thieving heads of parastatals, government agencies, greedy cows who looted billions of Naira meant for brand new equipment in NTA and used it to set up business empires for political gains. I am talking about mean politicians who have used our money to set up private secondary schools and private Universities, extorting huge fees from indigent students while rendering the government-owned institutions mere dilapidated structures devoid of quality academic standards. Hello Nigerian stinking rich men your money actually stinks. It is blood money, cursed money.
Nigerian leaders, let me remind you once again that the blood of that family man killed by your policemen on the road the other day, because he refused to give them the exact thousands of Naira demanded as bribe, is in your hands since you have accepted police corruption and brutality as an official way of life in Nigeria. Also in your hands is the blood of those newly – weds whose house caught fire because of a faulty generator and there was no fire service to the rescue. Add it to the blood of that two – week old baby burnt to death when the mother forgot to put out the candle light in the room because your privatised NEPA could not give them light for months on end.
Don’t forget the blood of undocumented millions of young Nigerians who have died of high blood pressure due to lack of proper medical care, lack of jobs, lack of hope and lack of human dignity while you keep robbing them of any means of livelihood. All those old women dying of malaria and poverty all over the country, their blood is in your hands too. Yours is a land flowing with injustice where judges and attorney Generals are appointed on their ability to cover up truths and distort facts. Need I say more? Yours is a land flowing with rivers of blood. As long as the LORD lives you will never escape the consequences! Full stop.
Jessica Obioma, multi-media journalist, ex magazine publisher, author, radio and TV host, is President of Teenage Life Mission. Website: teenencounters.com
