It’s beginning to look like 1983 all over again. I have this foreboding of déjà vu all over again. The recently announced austerity measures by the Jonathan government in a deep and deeply unsettling way is redolent of the last days of the Shehu Shagari government that ended the Second Republic.
Even so, when compared to our present situation, 1983 was a walk in the park. For one, most Nigerians were not yet born when this happen, and for another we did not have the various violent existential threats to the corporate existence of Nigeria precipitated by the cosmic scale of corruption that has hallowed out every state institution including notably the military.
I have always spoken about Nigeria’s Military-Political complex as the two anchor points of the political spectrum of the Nigerian state since Independence. Well those two points have been corroded, corrupted if you will, and they are about to snap. If and when it snaps, Nigeria will be cast adrift in the treacherous straits of its own collective making. ‘The ballot or the bullet’ an eerily prescient framing of the hard choices that we have to make. In reality under the present circumstances, it is really Hobson’s choice. Surely, there must be another way?
Choose wisely.
Malcolm X Malcolm XRemove term: Military Rule Military RuleRemove term: Nigeria NigeriaRemove term: Shehu Shagari Shehu ShagariRemove term: This Week This WeekRemove term: Tunji Lardner Tunji LardnerRemove term: West Africa West Africa
