Once upon a time, there were series of robbery and burglary in the animal kingdom. Every household was being burgled and robbed on the daily basis. I became so serious that the king of jungle himself, The Lion was advised to appoint The Tortoise as the chief security officer of the whole kingdom. The Tortoise had not experienced any robbery incident in his house since the trouble started. He had been going round, telling people that he had a magical ring that nobody could touch except him, that whenever those men of the underworld came near his house, they would die a mysterious death. The animals wanted him to use this magical ring to protect the entire kingdom. The king appointed him to grant the animals’ wish.
One day The Tortoise asked the king to give him absolute power to investigate the palace chiefs because he had evidence that many of them were aiding and abetting some criminals. The Elephant was the first to disagree. ‘I doubt if your searchlight on we chiefs will take you anywhere near the truth. We are high chiefs. We have money, properties and name to protect. We are the victims here. The elephant told the tortoise.
After the meeting, The Tortoise had a closed door meeting with the king and told him that his first suspect was The Elephant. ‘It is only those who have skeleton in their cupboard that feel uneasy when they are questioned. I see The Elephant as our first suspect. He aids and abets criminals because he has a motive. He wants to bring your government to disrepute. Don’t forget that he was also a candidate in the race of kingship. He thinks he is bigger and more suitable for the position. He has been going round telling other animals that your reign would be short-lived as long as he lives. The easiest way to make good his promises is to create chaos and pandemonium. The king reasoned with tortoise and ordered for The Elephant’s arrest . The spate of robbery was still incessant after the elephant’s arrest. It was getting worse.
‘Do you think The Elephant was working alone?’ The Tortoise asked the king. ‘He has co-conspirator; I mean those who are helping in his mission. They are in this palace and until they are brought to book, the problem in our kingdom would still persist. We need to search deeper’. That was how tortoise implicated The Tiger, The Hippopotamus, The Wolf and even The harmless Monkey! The Tortoise was later appointed as the Prime Minister and second-in-command who was in charge of food, treasure, security and welfare of people. The incidents of robbery became almost non-existence as all animals could now sleep with their eyes closed.
‘What do we do about those traitors in cells?’ The king asked tortoise.
‘They committed treason so they should be hanged!’
They king ordered for their summary execution at the market square in the next two weeks. Filled with joy and admiration, the tortoise went round their cells and informed their guards to starve them for those two weeks. He told them to torture them by removing The Elephant’s tusks, slicing Hippo’s hide gradually cutting Monkey and Tiger’s tails and shaving The Pig’s snout. After all they were his enemies.
The animals were happy and full of praises for The Tortoise who was their messiah from the wrath of robbers. They gave him royal reception wherever he went; after all he was the second-in-command.
The Tortoise, who was carried was carried away with his new status and popularity, thought of another plan.’ What about being a king and the sole ruler of this kingdom?’ he said it almost to himself. He was never a time waster. He instructed his masked agents of robbery to be prepared for the last operation. He told them that after this operation he would dispose the ring that had been a spiritual help to him. It had no use again when he would have become a king!. They started looting, robbery at that very night.
The animals summoned the king and The Tortoise to a conference in the next morning. They wanted to know why and what caused the incidence of robbery the previous night. Not after the those suspected chiefs had been arrested. They needed answer and they needed it now!
The king was dumbfounded. His looks begged for answer from The Tortoise.
‘My fellow animals from this honourable kingdom’ the tortoise started. ‘I have always had the thought that leaders should lead by example; that the welfare of his subject should be his concerns. But I am disappointed here!’ The king was confused. He couldn’t understand where that speech was heading to.
‘Our king is a traitor! Everywhere was quiet. The king himself was lost in thought. ‘Our king has been harbouring, aiding and abetting criminal since he was appointed as the king. My intelligence officers have discovered a safe house in his palace where he has been keeping his loots. Go there and bring all your properties’. As an evil genius, he ordered for the immediate arrest of the king. He appointed The Hare and five other animals to go the safe house and bring the evidence to nail the king. They came back, of course, with a report.
‘We got to the house and we recovered all the loots after we forcefully opened the door.’ The animals were surprised. Some kept their mute while some started shouting ‘thief, robber, killer. Our king should be hanged!’ At this point, the hare cautioned them and pleaded with them to listen before they jumped to conclusion. They listened.
‘It so unfortunate that many innocent heads roll in Ogun shrine because we never thoroughly investigate. We saw a revelation in the same safe house.’
‘What is it? We want to know.’ They shouted.
‘Our Prime Minister’s ring’
There was a perfect decorum. The chains around the king was loosened and ordered for the release of the chiefs in prison.
‘Any nation that can not boast of social justice will never be stable’ is a long time statement of Fredrick Fasheun, the leader of OPC.The spate of violence and civil unrest has reached an uncontrollable stage that has made some human right activists as well as oppositions to call for sovereign national conference once again. The reason being that the problem is sky rocketing everyday as much attacks on non-Hausas especially the Ibo are now moving out of The North en masse.
The position of Nigeria as an entity is seriously shaken. The Boko Haram issue is not the only problem facing this country, the system itselfis showing every sign of failure and ,as a political philosopher said, ‘when the system fails, then the people have failed’. The political elders are short of what we can call role model because few of them can really come out to boast of being a corrupt free leader.
Youth militancy is not a direct result of agitation for change but a political note. Boko Haram, Odua People Congress, Movement for Emacipation of Niger Delta, Movement for Actualization of Sovereign State Of Biafra are not product of agitation for societal change but a political interest group who care more for their individual interest than the societal one at large. There are no true Balewas, Awolowos, Saro Wiwas or Ojukwus today to fight for the interest of their people in non-violent form.
Nigeria is now in the crisis position. The international observers are now predicting a possible disintegration that may not blow anybody good. It may be worse than India that splitted into three [India, Pakistan and Bangladesh], Sudan [Sudan and South Sudan]. This is because of internal rancor among Northern themselves as well as Southern. The language of the street now remains; what happens to Uche Adebayo, Elo Abubakar, Obong Gowon and other product of inter tribal marriages whose parents married long time ago when Nigeria was united?
A lot of politicians and right activist have been canvassing for true federalism is the only solution to the persistent political cum ethnic problems in Nigeria. Chief Femi Falana made reference to state governor who spent one billion naira to send pilgrims to Mecca and Israel’s record of 20000 Nigerian pilgrims where only 7% of the country’s population are Christian. Such stories like these are wastage on irrelevant things. Anybody is charged with murder or corruption should not be politicized.
The American true federalism allows each state to decide her jurisprudence without federal government interference as long as it does not conflict with federal law. For example, a conservative state like Texas apply death sentence to capital criminal offence while New York does not. There is a limit to federal intervention to state’s generation of funds in a true federal system. Baba Awolowo could be able to achieve what he achieved in the old Western Region because there was a true federalism then.
Engineering a Nigeria of our own is the only solution to the country’s problem as put by former Akwa Ibom state governor. This may take a long time because the crop of old politicians should decide to leave the political stage before that could be done. Disintegration is not as easy as people think. We need to think of former Soviet Union!
