I entered this week sad.
Sad not because i lost my job or that my Girlfriend left me. Sad instead that once again Jos, the capital city of Plateau state in Northcentral Nigeria was on fire.
At the last count, newspapers reported that over two hundred lives have already been lost with properties worth millions destroyed. What was said to have been contained by the police on the first day (sunday 17th) soon escalated leading to the State Governement announcing a dusk till dawn curfew and the Vice President asking the army to send in troops.
This new wave of violence is coming while the two panels (set up by the state govt & the Federal govt seerately) were still sitting with the aim of unraveling the cause & culprits of the November 2008 riots in the city.
This presents so much reason to be sad.
Just the day before (on saturday 16th) i got information that the University of Nigeria Nsukka campus my alma mater was also on fire. The otherwise docile undergraduates of the quiet university town were on rampage protesting alledged increase in tuition, accomodation and sundry fees to such extent that sets education far above the reach of ordinary Nigerians. The students said they had lost confidence in the Vice Chancellor Prof Bartho Okolo who has hardly spent eight months in office as Vice Chancellor, asking him to resign and leave.
Glasses were broken, offices vandalised, homes lotted in the process. In response, armed mobile police men were first sent in and later the army. Three students have been reported dead from the incidence. The school has been closed down sine-die and i hear there are military men all over the campus right now like in the days of the civil war.
I close my eyes to sleep and i see blood. I have nightmares of a sinking nation. I see the ship sinking ‘cos it has no captain and the crew is incompetent. I rue the state of our helplessness, our gradual but sure movement toward a foretold destination. I hear the wails. I taste the anger. I feel tears exiting my eyes and tracing their path down my cheeks into my ears and blocking them. I hear no more. The tears shuts off the wails and i feel the silence of a graveyard. The silence of a people who have lost their voice.
I am sad.
On a more cheering note, Yesterday 19th January was my Dad’s Birthday. May i once again wish him On behalf of my lovely sisters and our darling Mum, many more years of good health and solid achievements. I am proud to share the name with him and would work to earn the confidence he has shown in me. Daddy you are the best…and your birthday though occuring in a week i feel so sad about my country comes like the bright sunshine that breaks the storm.
Good one. I took some pics in Jos on Monday. They may not really be of value now, considering d present level of damage. If u’re interested, I’ll go around as soon as d curfew is lifted 2 update my album and send it 2 u. It wont cost u anything.
Its so sad, to live, you have to pretend you’d survive.
I am looking foward to a taste of it all soon, when I ‘d pop into town, completely anonymous, and unannounced, just to have a feel of the un-noticed breezy weather again.
It has to go down, that we might pick up its ruins….sadly!
Beautiful piece. I really hope that the nation does not have to fall to the ground completely before it’ll start to rise again. We are in dangerous times. God help us.
What a sad way to start 2010…Farouk Abdulmutallab’s Christmas disgraceful heroic and the President’s ill health had given us enough headache before Jos crisis and UNN demonstration.
We will not be defeated,where there is life,there is hope.Belated birthday wishes to Daddy.